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 course includes a thorough examination of the legal framework—constitutional, statutory, and common law—that empowers and constrains a wide range of federal administrative agencies. We will also look at the ways agencies themselves make law through rulemaking and adjudicate cases, and cover a range of other topics, including agency due process, adjudication in agencies, limitations on judicial review, standing, and finality. We will also engage issues of current concern, including presidential control of agencies and so-called e-government. This course is for students who have not taken Law 569, Legislation and Regulation.

• Type: Upper Class

This graded course is intended to give a few students who have excelled in any clinical law course the chance to spend another semester doing casework for that clinic. Students will work under faculty supervision on more complicated cases and will shoulder more of the responsibility for those cases. The course gives students a broader range of lawyering experience at a higher level of sophistication than is possible the first time through. Students are enrolled by invitation only, after having expressed interest to one of the clinical faculty or administrators. Faculty and invited students determine the number of credits to be awarded.

• Type: Clinic

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 course is designed to strengthen students’ ability to analyze legal problems and to do effective legal and non-legal research. Students will increase their knowledge of research sources and methods and develop the skills to solve practical research problems in a cost-effective manner. The course also synthesizes material found throughout the Law School curriculum, to the extent that students are required to apply both substantive and procedural analysis in their course work.

• Type: Practice Simulation

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

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

Public advocates — advocates on matters of concern to the public at large — often face big, important issues with few resources against almost overwhelming odds. We find ourselves battling large businesses, governments, or entire industries to stop a polluting mine, to restart a community’s access to clean drinking water, or to restore voting rights. Yet in many cases, we somehow find a way to win. How is that possible? That is the question we will explore in this class. We will look at a series of case studies of successful and unsuccessful public advocacy campaigns that employed a wide variety of advocacy tools: media, organizing, lobbying, and litigation. The case studies will be drawn from civil rights, worker rights, democracy protection, and environmental campaigns. Students also will develop their own case studies and share them with the class. In the process, we will cover quite a bit of public interest law; every case will be grounded in statutes and common law, and many of them include significant litigation. As a class, we will explore why certain advocacy campaigns worked, why others didn’t, who benefited from the victories and who suffered from the losses. As the semester progresses, we will develop rules and guidelines for good advocacy and a list of questions for good advocates to consider. The workload for the class this year will be commensurate with a 2-credit course.

• Type: Seminar

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

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. We’ll discuss both general principles of persuasion and 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, and in-class exercises. Over the course of the semester, you’ll produce several drafts of a brief or portions thereof, focusing both on merits arguments and on some of the other components of a complete appellate brief. Occasionally I might assign other short writing exercises, either for class time or for homework. You’ll present two or more oral arguments during class time.
The simulation exercises will be based on a mock appellate case. I’ll provide you with copies of court decisions, rules, and statutes deemed relevant to the mock case; little if any 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

An investigation of disputing and dispute processing in Iceland of the saga age with side glances at pre-Conquest England and some contemporary pre-industrial, kin-based cultures. Course materials include translations of Icelandic family sagas and early law; there are also assigned readings in secondary historical and anthropological works. No laptop usage is permitted during class sessions. There will be periodic quizzes and a final research paper. There will be no final examination.

• Type: Upper Class

Human trafficking encompasses all forms of compelled labor or services and it occurs around the world. The Business and Human Rights Lab (BHR) works to combat human trafficking by:
(1) assisting responsible business entities in understanding, preventing, and remediating any adverse human rights impacts of their operations, including forced labor; and (2) developing disruptive, systemic solutions to reduce vulnerability to trafficking and forced labor.
Law students enrolled in the BHR will engage in a combination of legal, compliance, and systemic reform work. The legal and compliance work of BHR will revolve around understanding current and prospective human rights due diligence-aligned legislation and developing tools for use by companies to comply with these regulations. The reform work of the BHR focuses on creating change at policy, service, and industry levels through collaborative partnerships across the nonprofit, corporate, and governmental sectors. BHR students work side-by-side with students enrolled in the Human Trafficking Clinic to develop and execute their projects.
Overall, students in the BHR will learn and practice collaboration, problem solving, and corporate client risk assessment and advisory skills. Students are responsible, under supervision, for all of the cases and projects within the BHR.
The BHR is a year-long commitment. Students earn 7 credits in the Fall and 4 credits in the Winter. The BHR meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement.

• Type: Clinic

Human trafficking encompasses all forms of compelled labor or services and it occurs around the world. The Business and Human Rights Lab (BHR) works to combat human trafficking by:
(1) assisting responsible business entities in understanding, preventing, and remediating any adverse human rights impacts of their operations, including forced labor; and (2) developing disruptive, systemic solutions to reduce vulnerability to trafficking and forced labor.
Law students enrolled in the BHR will engage in a combination of legal, compliance, and systemic reform work. The legal and compliance work of BHR will revolve around understanding current and prospective human rights due diligence-aligned legislation and developing tools for use by companies to comply with these regulations. The reform work of the BHR focuses on creating change at policy, service, and industry levels through collaborative partnerships across the nonprofit, corporate, and governmental sectors. BHR students work side-by-side with students enrolled in the Human Trafficking Clinic to develop and execute their projects.
Overall, students in the BHR will learn and practice collaboration, problem solving, and corporate client risk assessment and advisory skills. Students are responsible, under supervision, for all of the cases and projects within the BHR.
The BHR is a year-long commitment. Students earn 7 credits in the Fall and 4 credits in the Winter. The BHR meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement.

• Type: Clinic

This course provides an introduction to fundamentals of economic transactions and market analysis. Topics include negotiation and competitive bidding; the economic functions of contracts; the role of prices in aligning incentives, allocating risk, and minimizing disputes; the functions and operation of markets, including fundamentals of futures markets; the nature, sources, and consequences of transaction costs; and the role of firms and other organizations. The primary focus is on the value-enhancing function of contracts and markets, but attention will also be given to potential anticompetitive effects of business practices and their treatment by the antitrust laws.

• Type: Upper Class

The Child Advocacy Law Clinic provides students with an in-depth, interdisciplinary experience representing parents and children involved in the foster care system as well as children in custody cases. 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 as well as children in custody cases. 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

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

This seminar will examine the ways in which transsubstantive procedural doctrines shape the enforcement and meaning of civil rights laws. Topics will include the Ashcroft v. Iqbal standard for granting a motion to dismiss; judicial applications of the summary judgment standard; obstacles to the certification of classes seeking injunctive or declaratory relief; the process for amending the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; restrictions on the use of federal legal aid funds; and statutory fee shifting.

• Type: Seminar

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 controversy in Detroit where police officers “removed” unhoused individuals from tourist-friendly areas against their will. Students will gain experience in client interviewing, public records requests, writing demand letters, drafting complaints, responding to motions to dismiss, oral argument, depositions, and negotiations. They will also 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 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.
Although the Civil Rights Litigation Practicum (Law 807) is not a prerequisite, students who take the class will generally be given preference in enrollment. 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

Civil Rights: Latinos and the Law addresses legal norms and events that have shaped — and been shaped by — the experience of LatinX people in the United States. On the heels of conquest, colonization, and immigration, the LatinX community has consistently turned to law and legal processes, as well as activism and the arts. This course will explore historical and current legal and public policy concerns in such areas as lawyering, policing, immigration, education, land rights, voting, labor, employment, and health law. The course will involve traditional (a Casebook with excerpts from published opinions and historical sources) and non-traditional (music, film, art, poetry) materials, through which students will confront invisibility, resistance, assimilation, identity-formation, cross-racial alliances (and tensions), gender, indigeneity, Blackness, and the legacies of colonization and slavery.

• Type: Seminar

The Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic (CCLC) is designed to prepare students to litigate in any substantive field in any practice setting, from large firm to legal services. Our students nearly uniformly report that they are steps ahead of most of their peers on the first day of work as summer associates and as new lawyers entering practice. Students represent multiple clients each term at every stage of a case, from intake, through investigation and discovery, motion practice, negotiation, trial, and, occasionally, appeal. Students take “first chair” responsibility for every aspect of the work. They leave with the ability to approach a case with confidence, research and develop a legal strategy, and litigate it, no matter what practice setting or substantive field. We also emphasize improving students’ legal writing, oral advocacy, communication skills, and teamwork.
Students must concurrently enroll in the corresponding 4-credit Clinic course and 3-credit Clinic seminar (LAW 920 AND LAW 921). The seminar component helps students develop fundamental litigation skills they use in representing their real clients. In the seminar, students participate in multiple simulations covering everything from interviewing to negotiation, multiple simulated courtroom exercises, and a mock jury trial at the end of the term. Other class sessions cover the role of the lawyer, ethical issues in law practice, client-centered lawyering, the adversarial process, issues affecting the Clinic’s client populations, and case rounds. Both the seminar and fieldwork are graded. The Clinic meets the New York State Bar pro bono requirement (https://michigan.law.umich.edu/academics/experiential-learning/clinics/…). The 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 Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic (CCLC) is designed to prepare students to litigate in any substantive field in any practice setting, from large firm to legal services. Our students nearly uniformly report that they are steps ahead of most of their peers on the first day of work as summer associates and as new lawyers entering practice. Students represent multiple clients each term at every stage of a case, from intake, through investigation and discovery, motion practice, negotiation, trial, and, occasionally, appeal. Students take “first chair” responsibility for every aspect of the work. They leave with the ability to approach a case with confidence, research and develop a legal strategy, and litigate it, no matter what practice setting or substantive field. We also emphasize improving students’ legal writing, oral advocacy, communication skills, and teamwork.
Students must concurrently enroll in the corresponding 4-credit Clinic course and 3-credit Clinic seminar (LAW 920 AND LAW 921). The seminar component helps students develop fundamental litigation skills they use in representing their real clients. In the seminar, students participate in multiple simulations covering everything from interviewing to negotiation, multiple simulated courtroom exercises, and a mock jury trial at the end of the term. Other class sessions cover the role of the lawyer, ethical issues in law practice, client-centered lawyering, the adversarial process, issues affecting the Clinic’s client populations, and case rounds. Both the seminar and fieldwork are graded. The Clinic meets the New York State Bar pro bono requirement (https://michigan.law.umich.edu/academics/experiential-learning/clinics/…). The seminar fulfills the Law School’s professional responsibility requirement for graduation but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

Climate change represents one of the most significant challenges of our time, but the problem has been long in the making. Humans first started emitting greenhouse gases during the industrial revolution of the 18th century, and scientists began to study the possibility that these pollutants could alter the climate as far back as the 19th century. By 1995, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that greenhouse gas emissions had caused a discernible human influence on global climate and posed severe future risks to the planet — a view shared by the vast majority of climate scientists and professional scientific organizations. Despite these warnings, over the past three decades the U.S. and the world have barely reduced annual greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, transportation, and other sectors of the economy. Indeed, some countries have dramatically increased their greenhouse gas emissions during this period. Nor are we on target to lower emissions fast enough to stabilize global temperatures at levels that will avoid the most serious environmental and public health harms. How did we get here, and how can we now address this seemingly existential threat? What role do science, technology, and the law have to play in solving the climate crisis?
This course aims to give law students a broad understanding of climate change history, law and policy. It will first cover the basics of how the planet’s climate has changed over time and how scientists came to understand humanity’s role in causing the phenomenon. The course will then examine the most significant legal and policy proposals for addressing climate change, including both mitigation of emissions and adaptation to a warming world. While including a discussion of international regimes, the course will focus on U.S. law, such as agency regulations, climate litigation, and legislative solutions. Students who wish to do a deeper dive on international climate law should take International Law of Climate Change (Law 661). The course will also not devote significant attention to aspects of energy law that will be part of any comprehensive effort to address climate change. Students who wish to do a deeper dive on energy regulations should take Energy Law (Law 534).

• Type: Seminar

This course covers the law and practice of commercial arbitration, from both a caselaw standpoint of cases interpreting and applying the Federal Arbitration Act and from practical experience and class exercises drawn on the professor’s over 30 years of experience practicing arbitration. The course also examines ethical and societal issues in arbitration, including arbitrator conflicts and consumer access to justice, all of which have created an active SCOTUS arbitration docket in the past 15 years. The goal of the course is to ground any future lawyer in arbitration practice and procedure. The course is very much hybrid in nature, since we do both traditional case readings and also participate in class exercises, including negotiation sessions and a practical organizational conference with the Arbitrator. From time to time, schedules permitting, I will ask my experienced arbitration colleagues to join us, either live or by Zoom. These have been popular events in past years.

• Type: Upper Class

This course primarily concerns the law governing credit transactions in which the collateral is personal property, but we will also touch briefly on some aspects of mortgages. Topics to be covered include collateral classification, attachment and perfection of security interests, priority among creditors, default and foreclosure, and the impact of bankruptcy law on secured transactions. We will pay close attention to Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, the fount of this law, as well as other UCC provisions, but we will also examine some real estate laws across the states. Instruction is driven by problem sets discussed in class.

• 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