Course Catalog

In the 1L Advocacy Clinic, first-year law students, under the supervision of an experienced attorney, receive course credit to develop a wide variety of real-world advocacy skills, including investigation, interviewing, legal research and writing, and oral advocacy, while helping the community in significant and meaningful ways.
The 1L Advocacy Clinic is the only clinic at the University of Michigan Law School -and among the only law clinics in the country- offering first-year law students the opportunity to handle cases.
Our students receive course credit to handle actual cases under the supervision of experienced attorneys. We provide not only a practical experience for students to develop real-world advocacy skills, but also an opportunity for them to engage their community in significant ways.
First-year students serve as guardians ad litem for children involved in custody matters before Michigan Circuit Court judges. Students investigate cases thoroughly, apply statutory criteria to formulate recommendations for the court, write and submit reports for the court, and defend those reports in live hearings.

• Type: Clinic

This course introduces the basic concepts and methods used in the preparation of the four corporate financial statements (the balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, and statement of stockholders' equity). In this process, the course will also develop the accounting treatment of specific items such as long-term assets, inventory, sales, receivables, and debt securities. The course will use actual corporate financial statements of Fortune 500 companies and will provide students the tools necessary to understand such statements as well as some of the basic footnote disclosures associated with such statements.
Students who have substantial background in financial accounting or who have taken classes in financial accounting are ineligible to take or receive credit for this course for a grade. However, students who took only an introductory class in financial accounting a significant amount of time ago may request permission from the instructor to take the course for a grade.

• Type: Upper Class

This class will delve into narrative and storytelling as a method of persuasion. Drawing on the theory and science of narrative and persuasion, we will analyze examples from legal writing, fiction, and non-fiction sources. Students will develop the ability to identify the components of a compelling story, craft arguments that tell their client's story for different audiences, integrate storytelling with traditional methods of legal argument, and recognize ethical considerations involved in using storytelling as a persuasive strategy. Students will draft multiple legal documents using the skills covered in the class.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Course description coming soon . . .

• Type: Seminar

Students are enrolled by invitation only, after having expressed interest to one of the experiential education faculty or administrators. Students will receive between 2 to 5 credits, to be determined by the faculty member and students.

• Type: Externship

This graded course gives a select group of students who have excelled in a Problem Solving Initiative (PSI) class the chance to spend another semester, under faculty supervision, working on the subject matter of that PSI class. The course is designed to give students a more in-depth problem solving experience at a higher level of sophistication than may have been possible during their original PSI classes. Students may only enroll following PSI faculty invitation. Faculty and invited students determine the number of credits to be awarded.

• Type: Problem Solving Initiative

This course explores Africa's interactions with and influences on the international legal system. It begins with an examination of selected pre-colonial legal systems on the continent. The course then investigates the legal and political economy justifications of the slave trade and colonization by Europeans. Next, we study the legal processes of colonization and state formation, including the transplantation of Western common law and civil law systems into the continent and their interaction with and displacement of indigenous legal systems. After the colonial period, the course turns to the international legal doctrine of self-determination and its implications for decolonization and self-rule. Finally, using representative case studies, we examine Africa's place in and influence on the global legal system during the post-independence period. Topics in the latter period include Africa within the United Nations System; Africa in the international trade and investment legal regimes; legal justifications and practical effects of foreign aid and international peacekeeping missions to Africa; and interactions between the International Criminal Court and African nations, among other contemporary topics.

• Type: Upper Class

This course is designed to teach all students, however they plan to use their law school education, the skills necessary to creatively solve problems in whatever professional context they might arise. We use the classic James Harr’s A Civil Action (Vintage 1996) to teach the interpersonal, communication and analytical skills lawyers need to become successful problem solvers. This story demonstrates how Jan Schlichtmann could have achieved a more successful outcome for his clients if only he had applied these basic skills in that case. With this foundation, we develop an understanding of problem- solving methodology and the use of negotiation and mediation, two of the primary ADR processes for solving problems. Experiential learning is the fundamental teaching method. Students will learn to apply negotiation and mediation theory in simulated exercises with students playing the roles of negotiator, mediator, advocate and client in these simulations. Students receive feedback on their performance based on in-class faculty observation as well a post-exercise class discussion. Arbitration is the third process within the ADR constellation. We begin with a discussion of ad how to determine whether arbitration is an appropriate process for solving a client's problem. Then, we focus on the legal infrastructure of arbitration, the Federal Arbitration Act and recent cases that have shaped the current arbitration legal landscape. We also discuss legislative efforts to address issues of fairness in arbitration, particularly focusing on mandatory class action waivers and their impact on consumers and employees. The course concludes with a discussion of other creative ways to resolve disputes, including the use of the apology and its use at the University of Michigan Hospital to address claims of medical malpractice.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This seminar will trace the beginnings of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and go into depth on central aspects of the FPCA in theory and practice. It will also address issues around corruption in international business, the OECD initiatives the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, and other regional/supra/international attempts to reduce public corruption. We will also discuss compliance programs, investigations (including special issues related to cross border investigations), prosecutions/defense and resolution of FCPA issues.

• Type: Seminar

Antitrust and Intellectual Property
This course explores a variety of difficult and increasingly important issues at the intersection of antitrust law and intellectual property, such as market power in intellectual property, patent pooling, copyright block-booking, restrictive licensing terms, and patent settlement agreements. All students enrolled in the course must have taken Law 675 Federal Antitrust.

• Type: Upper Class

This simulation course will help you develop the written and oral advocacy skills you'll need to be an effective appellate litigator (and which are highly desirable for many other forms of legal practice as well). You'll learn how to prepare and write an appellate brief and how to prepare and deliver an oral argument in court. While at times we will discuss general principles of persuasion, the course will focus more on nitty-gritty matters such as how to organize an argument; how to write effectively using well-constructed paragraphs and clear and crisp sentences; how to prepare for and handle oral questioning; and when if ever to adroitly split an infinitive or to end a sentence with a preposition you are enamored with.
Class sessions will include presentations, interactive conversations, in-class exercises, and peer (and my) review of student work. Over the course of the semester, you'll produce several drafts of a brief or portions thereof, focusing both on merits arguments and on the other components of a complete appellate brief. Occasionally you may be assigned other short writing exercises, either for class time or for homework. You will work independently on some projects and collaborate with classmates on others. You'll also present two or more oral arguments during class time.
The simulation exercises will be based on a mock appellate case. For most and perhaps all assignments, I'll provide you with copies of court decisions, rules, and statutes deemed relevant to the mock case; little outside research will be required. This course will demand a good deal of your time and attention throughout the semester, which I expect will be repaid by lots of constructive feedback.
Your work will be assessed on the quality of your written projects, your oral presentations, and your class participation in general.

• Type: Practice Simulation

The Child Advocacy Law Clinic provides students with an in-depth, interdisciplinary experience representing parents and children involved in the foster care system. With close support and supervision of an interdisciplinary faculty, students address the complex legal, social, emotional, ethical, and public policy questions of when and how the state ought to intervene in family life on behalf of children. The clinic seeks to introduce students to their new lawyer identity, the substantive and skill demands of this new role, and the institutional framework within which lawyers operate. Building on the field experience of actual case handling as a basis for analysis, it seeks to make students more self-critical and reflective about various lawyering functions they must undertake. Students are asked to integrate legal theory with real human crises in the cases they handle. Students will develop habits of thought and standards of performance and learn how to learn from raw experience for their future professional growth. Students must enroll for the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. The clinic meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement and fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

The Child Advocacy Law Clinic provides students with an in-depth, interdisciplinary experience representing parents and children involved in the foster care system. With close support and supervision of an interdisciplinary faculty, students address the complex legal, social, emotional, ethical, and public policy questions of when and how the state ought to intervene in family life on behalf of children. The clinic seeks to introduce students to their new lawyer identity, the substantive and skill demands of this new role, and the institutional framework within which lawyers operate. Building on the field experience of actual case handling as a basis for analysis, it seeks to make students more self-critical and reflective about various lawyering functions they must undertake. Students are asked to integrate legal theory with real human crises in the cases they handle. Students will develop habits of thought and standards of performance and learn how to learn from raw experience for their future professional growth. Students must enroll for the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. The clinic meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement and fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

China has struggled with "constitutionalism" since the late 19th century, and the last Chinese imperial dynasty's attempt at domestic political reform and self-strengthening in the face of aggressive foreign powers, European and Asian. That early engagement with constitutionalism, however, was focused entirely on Qing Dynasty-led political institutional reform, specifically the establishment of a national consultative assembly or even legislature, and transformation of the Qing dynasty into a species of constitutional monarchy. A separate idea, "strict constitutionalism" or the authoritative review of legislative and regulatory enactments or government action for conformity with the higher principles enshrined in a written constitution, only gained attention in the early 1930s with the rise of the Guomindang (KMT) single party state and serious constraints placed on what many Chinese citizens perceived to be basic civil and political rights. This seminar will focus on the development of such "strict constitutionalism" in the Chinese world between 1895 and the present, focusing on the unique elements of this project in the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to date, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region transformed from a colony of the United Kingdom into a special administrative region of the PRC in 1997 Handover, and the Republic of China on Tawian as it has moved from "emergency" (military) rule to a more democratic system. Accordingly, the course will concentrate on the protection of basic human rights under domestic law (and constitutions) in the Chinese world, without significant consideration of how nation states in the Chinese world implement international human rights treaties domestically, whether directly or by incorporation of such treaty obligations into domestic law. Ultimately, the course will grapple with difficult questions about the basic suitability of such strict constitutionalism, or indeed the protection of basic civil and political rights against the state (or party behind the state) under domestic law, for Chinese world nation states, with some consideration of alternative mechanisms which might also ensure the protection of such rights.

• Type: Upper Class

With increasing frequency, cities and states are engaging in affirmative, plaintiff-side litigation. City and state initiated litigation, over the past decades, has resulted in some of the largest monetary judgments and settlement in U.S. history, including in the multistate tobacco litigation and the multi-jurisdiction opioid litigation. Cities and states also use affirmative litigation, often successfully, to push affirmative policy priorities--often against the federal government--in issue areas as diverse as climate change, civil rights, immigration, and others.
This class will take a close look at city and state-initiated litigation, from both a doctrinal and theoretical perspective. The course will cover the authority and causes of action cities and states have to sue. Case studies examined will include major, headline-grabbing cases including opioid litigation, gun litigation, climate-change litigation, and litigation against presidential administrations of both parties. We will also, however, examine smaller-scale cases brought at a local level, particularly in the State of Michigan. Through it all, we will examine broader questions: when is it appropriate for a city or state to sue? Who are their "clients," and who do they represent? And when should litigation be initiated by governments as opposed to private plaintiffs?

• Type: Seminar

This course covers the basic institutions of civil litigation in an adversary jury trial system. It explores the different procedural devices that arise out of the relationships among the parties, the judge, and the jury. Many litigation topics are covered, including issues relating to pleadings, discovery, other pretrial procedures, joinder, preclusion, and jurisdiction.

• Type: First Year Required

Professor Chaney's section: This course will explore the practical, conceptual and procedural mechanics of civil rights practice through mock litigation of one or more simulated case studies. Students will engage the stages of litigation, including claim and defense development, preparing and answering pleadings, crafting written discovery, conducting effective depositions, and presenting oral argument, while exploring the nuanced issues that arise in civil rights practice, including client management, dealing with client and personal trauma and triggers, establishing noneconomic harm, and collaborative practice.
Professor Steinberg's section: This course examines how civil rights lawyers use federal civil rights litigation to address contemporary social problems. Students will develop and litigate a simulated case based on an actual racial profiling controversy in Ann Arbor. They will gain experience in client interviewing, public records requests, complaint drafting, responding to motions to dismiss, oral argument, depositions and negotiations. Students will learn how to overcome the many procedural obstacles to justice posed by 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and explore the ethical issues faced by public interest lawyers when representing clients in civil rights cases. The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving social change when it is a part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Students litigate civil rights cases addressing issues such as: racial justice, police misconduct, voting rights, fair housing, student rights, free speech, women's rights, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, ethnic and religious discrimination, disability rights, and the right to privacy. Taught by the former long-time legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, the goal of the course is to prepare students to use the law to advance social justice. Students will have the chance to litigate civil rights cases on behalf of individuals as well as larger impact cases.
Students, under faculty supervision, will gain experience in many of the following areas: working with impacted communities to identify injustices; researching and developing winning legal theories; interviewing potential clients; writing public record requests and demand letters; drafting complaints; researching and writing briefs; arguing motions; taking depositions and engaging in other discovery; negotiating settlements; trying cases; drafting appellate briefs; and arguing appeals. It is anticipated that students will work primarily in federal court and will learn how to avoid the many procedural minefields that civil rights litigants face when seeking injunctive relief or recovering damages under 42 U.S.C. section 1983.
The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving change when it is part of an "integrated advocacy" campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action. Students will be encouraged to work in coalitions and with community groups to win not only in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion.
The Civil Rights Litigation Practicum (Law 807) is a recommended but not required prerequisite for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. Students must take the Initiative for a letter grade; it is ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election. It fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation and the New York Pro-Bono requirement, but not the New York State Bar ethics requirement. The Initiative can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement, but not both.

• Type: Clinic

The Thirteenth Amendment, intended as a terrible swift sword of Emancipation, has since been a means with which to confront slavery and its legacies in domestic and international settings alike, whether in Peonage prosecutions, at the Nuremburg Trials, through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in federal hate crimes legislation, or as manifested in modern anti-trafficking regimes. But it also has been an uncashed promissory note, a set of loopholes used to justify prison labor, and -- especially post-Brown -- a tool supplanted by its companion Reconstruction Amendments. We will examine modern anti-trafficking efforts by exploring the post-Emancipation law of slavery from the Antebellum period through the modern era.
We will center our inquiry through the voices of the enslaved, from Antebellum "slave narratives" to modern survivor accounts and leadership, as well as assessing governmental responses through primary historical research. We will interrogate changes and commonalities in abolitionist activism and government enforcement, such as: sugar boycotts of the early 1800 echoed in today's solutions of Worker-led Social Responsibility, supply chain transparency, and end-user liability; modern practices in prisons and detention centers traceable to convict leasing schemes of the Jim Crow era; and how the Progressive Era bifurcation of statutory and enforcement regimes around labor and sex trafficking (and the attitudes it reveals about immigration, morality, femininity, and whiteness) plays out in current debates over the sex industry and technology policy. We will explore race, gender, indigeneity, anti-Blackness, citizenship, rule of law, worker's rights, immigration, prisoners' and detainees' rights, victims' rights, colonialism, globalization, and federalism.

• Type: Upper Class

[aka Michigan Clinical Law Program]
The Michigan Clinical Law Program (MCLP) is a 7-credit litigation clinic that gives students the chance to practice law in a variety of issue areas affecting low-income clients. Students must enroll in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. The clinic covers many areas of the law. The civil case-load changes term to term, but may include landlord-tenant, consumer, family law, public benefits, employment discrimination, asylum and refugee, contracts, torts, and prisoners' civil rights cases. We try to keep a wide mix of work, from simple one-issue cases to class actions raising issues of first impression. On the criminal side, students handle misdemeanor cases for their short-term files, and do (mostly post-conviction) felony cases for their more complex files. Students do all of the work for their clients (under faculty supervision), including interviewing, counseling, legal research, discovery, negotiation, motion practice, bench and jury trials, and appeals. Students have "first-chair" responsibility for their cases and primary responsibility for their clients. MCLP students handle cases in the state district, circuit, and probate courts, as well as the federal district courts, state and federal administrative agencies, and appeals to all levels of both court systems. The seminar and field-work are graded. The MCLP meets the NY bar pro bono requirement. A more detailed description can be found at: https://www.law.umich.edu/clinical/generalclinic/Pages/default.aspx
The Clinic seminar fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

[aka Michigan Clinical Law Program]
The classroom component of the MCLP includes some trial advocacy simulations to introduce basic trial skills. Students must enroll in the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. Each student will also participate in two intensive trial practice exercises: a mock adversarial hearing at mid-term and a mock trial at the end of the term. Other class sessions address topics including the role of the lawyer, ethical issues in law practice, client-centered lawyering, the adversarial process, other related issues affecting the clinic's poor client population, and case rounds. The seminar and field-work are graded. The MCLP meets the NY bar pro bono requirement. For a more detailed description, see: https://www.law.umich.edu/clinical/generalclinic/Pages/default.aspx
The Clinic seminar fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

Course description coming soon . . .

• Type: Upper Class

The CEC is one of the law school's transactional legal clinics and prepares students for corporate and transactional practice in all sectors, including the private and nonprofit sectors. The CEC's mission is to promote economic, racial, and social justice and community and economic development in Detroit and other disinvested urban areas of the region. The clinic supports vibrant, diverse, and sustainable communities by providing transactional legal assistance to neighborhood-based small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, and social enterprises. Student attorneys interact with clients, normally represent multiple clients, and assume primary responsibility for all matters affecting their clients under close faculty supervision.
The CEC works with both start-up and established clients primarily in these areas:
* Entity formation, structuring, and governance
* Drafting, negotiating, and reviewing contracts and other agreements
* Tax
* Intellectual property
* Regulatory compliance
* Real estate and land use
* Employment
* Risk management
Student attorneys gain practical lawyering experience in the CEC. Student attorneys interview and counsel clients; develop and plan client strategy; draft legal documents, memos, and correspondence; manage relationships with clients, counterparties, co-counsel, and colleagues; identify legal issues, research them, and evaluate different alternatives; negotiate agreements; and implement client decisions. Student attorneys assess their own work and receive detailed feedback from CEC faculty in weekly meetings. The weekly seminar is a time for discussion of lawyering and client issues, including issues facing under-resourced communities in the Detroit metropolitan area and nationally, and the role race and racism have played in creating and continuing the adverse conditions in these communities and the processes of community and economic development in these urban areas.
The CEC prepares students for careers in corporate, government, or public interest practice. There are no formal prerequisites. Knowledge of business law, including the substantive law of enterprise organizations, tax, nonprofit, land use, intellectual property and employment is not necessary, but may be helpful.
Students receive seven credits for the Clinic: three for the seminar and four for the client work. Each component is graded separately. The CEC meets the New York Pro Bono requirement.
The Clinic seminar fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

The CEC is one of the law school's transactional legal clinics and prepares students for corporate and transactional practice in all sectors, including the private and nonprofit sectors. The CEC's mission is to promote economic, racial, and social justice and community and economic development in Detroit and other disinvested urban areas of the region. The clinic supports vibrant, diverse, and sustainable communities by providing transactional legal assistance to neighborhood-based small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, and social enterprises. Student attorneys interact with clients, normally represent multiple clients, and assume primary responsibility for all matters affecting their clients under close faculty supervision.
The CEC works with both start-up and established clients primarily in these areas:
* Entity formation, structuring, and governance
* Drafting, negotiating, and reviewing contracts and other agreements
* Tax
* Intellectual property
* Regulatory compliance
* Real estate and land use
* Employment
* Risk management
Student attorneys gain practical lawyering experience in the CEC. Student attorneys interview and counsel clients; develop and plan client strategy; draft legal documents, memos, and correspondence; manage relationships with clients, counterparties, co-counsel, and colleagues; identify legal issues, research them, and evaluate different alternatives; negotiate agreements; and implement client decisions. Student attorneys assess their own work and receive detailed feedback from CEC faculty in weekly meetings. The weekly seminar is a time for discussion of lawyering and client issues, including issues facing under-resourced communities in the Detroit metropolitan area and nationally, and the role race and racism have played in creating and continuing the adverse conditions in these communities and the processes of community and economic development in these urban areas.
The CEC prepares students for careers in corporate, government, or public interest practice. There are no formal prerequisites. Knowledge of business law, including the substantive law of enterprise organizations, tax, nonprofit, land use, intellectual property and employment is not necessary, but may be helpful.
Students receive seven credits for the Clinic: three for the seminar and four for the client work. Each component is graded separately. The CEC meets the New York Pro Bono requirement.
The Clinic seminar fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

This course will examine aggregate litigation in the federal courts, with a primary focus on class actions and multidistrict litigation. Topics will include attorney compensation; class certification procedures and requirements; settlement of class actions and multidistrict litigation; and the preclusive effects of class and non-class litigation.

• Type: Upper Class

In today's increasingly borderless world, a growing number of juridically significant events -- both consensual and accidental -- implicate actors from, and interests of, more than one jurisdiction. The occurrence of such events raises the issue of which jurisdiction's law should control the legal consequences flowing from them. Conflict of laws jurisprudence frames a series of rules (sometimes also called choice of law) which determine which jurisdiction's laws, among a choice of several possibilities, will govern the legal rights and responsibilities flowing from these events.
The course and casebook -- Felix and Whitten's American Conflicts Law: Cases and Materials (5th ed.) -- will focus on three areas of inquiry. The first is so-called "horizontal" choice of law. Where two or more jurisdictions which are juridical co-equals (two or more states, for example, or two or more countries) have a connection with a juridical event, which jurisdiction's laws apply? The rules governing this question are more complicated than they appear at first blush, and there is a lack of uniformity in the operative conflict of laws rules among coordinate jurisdictions.
The second is so-called "vertical" choice of law. This topic area addresses the interplay between federal law and state law and the circumstances under which each will govern a legally significant event which implicates both federal and state interests. The course will analyze in detail the Supreme Court's seminal holding in Erie v. Tompkins and Erie's progeny as part of this inquiry.
The final focus will be a detailed analysis of judgments and their effects in other jurisdictions, and rules relating to personal jurisdiction which allow courts to adjudicate the legal interests of actors who have connections with jurisdictions other than the forum court.
While conflict of laws began as a highly theoretical discipline, the advent of modern technology has expanded exponentially the number of events which have multijurisdictional facets. The discipline is thus of critical importance to understanding the legal consequences of an enormous number of events.

• Type: Upper Class

This course seeks to deepen students' knowledge of American constitutional law and history in order to help them engage and evaluate approaches to constitutional interpretation. Topics to be covered may include the purpose and functions of the constitutional system, the eighteenth-century formation of the U.S. Constitution, the development of federalism, and the uses of history, doctrine, structure, text, and other resources in the process of constitutional decisionmaking.
Satisfactory completion of the introductory course in constitutional law (Law 540) is a prerequisite. For transfer students, the completion of the equivalent course at a different law school is sufficient to satisfy the prerequisite.

• Type: Upper Class

The course examines South Africa's negotiated transition from apartheid to a genuinely representative democracy. The class will spend considerable time on the decisions of the new Constitutional Court, exploring its shaping of a constitutional jurisprudence, particularly with regard to equality and socio-economic rights.

• Type: Upper Class

This course is an introduction to commercial and consumer law and lays the foundation for advanced study in commercial transactions, corporations, restitution, consumer credit, and investment securities. Substantively, the Contracts course deals with how contracts are formed, which contracts are valid, when a contract has been breached and the various remedies for breach, including damages, specific performance, and restitution. The course is also designed to introduce the student to legal methodology and the techniques of statutory interpretation, particularly in connection with the Uniform Commercial Code.

• Type: First Year Required

Course description coming soon . . .

• Type: Seminar

Corporate Governance and Investment Banking
This course will introduce students to the corporate governance and finance and capital market laws and best practices of various jurisdictions and to the role of international economy and politics in those areas through readings and analysis of relevant materials, including empirical studies on the corporate ownership and capital market structure.
The course will begin with an introduction to corporate governance in general and comparative corporate governance in particular as a new discipline of legal scholarship in the United States and in other countries. The class will cover the issues of international regulatory competition and arbitrage, cross-listing and bonding hypothesis, and international implications of the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Dodd-Frank Act.
This course will also introduce students to the basics of the law and business of global investment banking, and to the role of legal and investment professionals in the financial services industry and corporate governance and finance. Studies on recent developments in the capital markets and financial services industries in various jurisdictions will be followed by case studies on the history and business activities of major financial institutions of the world, including Goldman Sachs, UBS, Carlyle, and Deutsche Bank.
After that, the instructor will draw introductory studies on corporate governance from Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Russia, Japan and Korea, and explore with the students how and why the respective corporate and securities laws of these countries are converging with those of the United States. The class will also look into corporate governance of some representative international companies in those jurisdictions, including Berkshire Hathaway, Disney, Volkswagen, Gazprom, and family-controlled public companies in those jurisdictions, including Porsche, Wallenberg, and Samsung.
The course will also address recent hedge fund activism case such as P&G from the perspectives of special situations practices of investment banks. In addition, the course will address corporate environmental and social responsibilities through studying such recent case as ExxonMobil and analyzing stewardship codes around the world with their impacts on the shareholders' meeting. Further, the course will evaluate BlackRock's new ESG policy statement in comparison with the holding of Dodge v. Ford Motor. With that the course concludes discussing the role of corporate governance in social developments in emerging jurisdictions.

• Type: Upper Class

The Corporate Lawyer is intended to be the first course for students interested in careers as corporate lawyers or representing public corporations. We will focus on ethical issues relating to the representation of a corporation, including conflicts and their waiver, confidentiality, and client identity. We will also address the ethical obligations that corporate lawyers owe to the courts and regulators, particularly the topic of whistleblowing. In addition, we will study the role of lawyers in advising corporate boards and officers with regard to their fiduciary obligations, and corporate governance issues, including corporate powers, shareholder voting rights, and liability issues. This course also introduces students to the regulation of public corporations under the securities laws, including the obligations imposed by the securities laws on corporate lawyers. This course has replaced Law 723 "The Public Corporation" in the curriculum. This course (or Enterprise Organization) is a prerequisite for many advanced corporate law classes. No prior background in business is assumed. Students who have previously taken The Public Corporation may not take this course, and students may not take both Enterprise Organization and The Corporate Lawyer for credit.

• Type: Upper Class

This is a clinical course in which each student is assigned to help represent an indigent defendant in the appeal of his or her felony conviction, under the supervision of attorneys from Michigan's State Appellate Defender Office. The focus of the course is on the completion of an effectively written appellate brief on behalf of the client, to be filed in state or federal court. The goal of the course is to develop the student's understanding and skill in all phases of appellate advocacy. The student will review the trial transcripts and lower court records, interview the client in prison (with the instructor), develop a strategy for appeal, conduct legal research, and help draft the client's brief on appeal. Feedback is provided by frequent individual meetings with the instructors, as well as oral argument before a panel of attorneys experienced in criminal law. The course gives the student the opportunity to work on a real case with real consequences for the client. While most directly relevant to those interested in criminal law, its lessons in appellate advocacy should be of general interest. Class size is limited to 12 students to assure individual attention to each student.
The Clinic is a 4 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 3 credit clinic and the 1 credit field component, taken concurrently. The 3 credit clinic and 1 credit field component are mandatory graded and ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election.
The Clinic fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.
For students who matriculated in or after May 2016, the Clinic can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, fulfill the upper-level writing requirement, or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement -- it cannot be used to fulfill more than one of these three particular requirements.

• Type: Clinic

This is a clinical course in which each student is assigned to help represent an indigent defendant in the appeal of his or her felony conviction, under the supervision of attorneys from Michigan's State Appellate Defender Office. The focus of the course is on the completion of an effecitvely written appellate brief on behalf of the client, to be filed in state or federal court. The goal of the course is to develop the student's understanding and skill in all phases of appellate advocacy. The student will review the trial transcripts and lower court records, interview the client in prison (with the instructor), develop a strategy for appeal, conduct legal research, and help draft the client's brief on appeal. Feedback is provided by frequent individual meetings with the instructors, as well as oral argument before a panel of attorneys experienced in criminal law. The course gives the student the opportunity to work on a real case with real consequences for the client. While most directly relevant to those interested in criminal law, its lessons in appellate advocacy should be of general interest. Class size is limited to 12 students to assure individual attention to each student.
The Clinic is a 4 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 3 credit clinic and the 1 credit field component, taken concurrently. The 3 credit clinic and 1 credit field component are mandatory graded and ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election.
The Clinic fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.
For students who matriculated in or after May 2016, the Clinic can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, fulfill the upper-level writing requirement, or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement -- it cannot be used to fulfill more than one of these three particular requirements.

• Type: Clinic

This course will consider problems relating to the police role in the administration of criminal justice and judicial enforcement of limitations upon police practices. We will focus primarily on the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments and will answer the following questions: (1) When can the police stop, search, and/or arrest people? (2) When can the police search cars, homes, and offices and for what? (3) What are the laws surrounding police interrogation and confessions? (4) Who has a right to counsel and when and how is it triggered? (5) How are police line-ups and other identification procedures conducted and what are the constitutional limits on such procedures? (6) What remedy does a defendant have if his/her constitutional criminal procedure rights are violated? When is the evidence excluded and when should it be excluded?

• Type: Upper Class

This course examines the application of legal principles as a limitation on the definition of crime; the theories underlying criminal law; and the problems of the imposition and execution of sentences. Also examined are various specific areas of substantive criminal law, including: (1) general principles applicable to all crimes, e.g., mistake, causation, legal insanity, intoxication, and rules of justification and excuse; (2) accountability for the acts of others; and (3) attempt and conspiracy.

• Type: First Year Required