Course Catalog

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

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 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 three-credit version of Federal Courts differs from the traditional four-credit Federal Courts course offered at the law school. Modeled after Stanford Professor Pam Karlan's Constitutional Litigation course, this is a course in advanced and applied constitutional law in the federal courts. It focuses on one of the central ways in which constitutional claims are litigated: in lawsuits against public officials and local governments. The bulk of the course looks at litigation against state officials under 42 U.S.C. section 1983. We will consider topics such as what it means to act "under color of state law"; absolute and qualified immunities; government liability for the acts of individual officials; justiciability barriers to bringing suit such as standing, ripeness, and mootness; remedies for constitutional violations, including monetary and injunctive relief; structural reform litigation; and attorney's fees awards. The course will also connect the substantive law to the practical and strategic choices a civil rights litigator makes before and during litigation.

This course is particularly useful for students who plan to work in government or in government-related public interest organizations as well as those who plan to clerk in federal court. Although this three-credit version will not cover all of the material in the four-credit course -- and has a more action-oriented, practical, and progressive structure than the traditional course -- it covers the major doctrines of federal jurisdiction needed to hit the ground running in a federal clerkship. Due to its focus on litigation strategy in addition to substantive law, it is also a great course for students interested generally in a career in civil litigation.

• Type: Upper Class

The civil rights movement, Brown v. Board of Education, and the passage of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s were milestones in American history. Those events, along with the election (and re-election) of Barack Obama as the nation's first Black president, suggested that the eradication of racial subordination in America was achievable, if not imminent. To date, that hasn't happened. Throughout our history we have attempted to overcome race, only to be disappointed by the illusion that race had been overcome. The law has not been a neutral force in this dynamic. It has created and maintained a regime of white supremacy in the United States. At the same time, the law has also provided the tools essential to resist that regime. This course explicates this paradox. It is designed to reveal the pervasiveness, complexity, richness, and significance of racial controversies as they relate to the law. To that end, the class will examine the intersection of race and the law across a range of settings, subject matters and time periods including slavery, Reconstruction, K-12 and higher education, affirmative action, the First Amendment, and voting and political participation. The materials consist of a mix of cases, videos and scholarly commentary.

• Type: Upper Class

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

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

An intensive and critical examination of the role of federal courts in maintaining a constitutional order in the United States. Among the topics considered are justiciability, the power of Congress to control the jurisdiction of federal and state courts, Supreme Court review of state court decisions, federal habeas corpus for state prisoners, and suits challenging official action.

• Type: Upper Class

This course examines the law made by The Supreme Court concerning the freedom of speech, and the freedom and establishment of religion.

• Type: Upper Class

Only international LL.M. students may enroll in this course. It is a special LLM survey course, which will expose students to the structure and basic ideas of the most important areas of US constitutional law, in historical and political context. The course considers a selection of fundamental cases in Constitutional law, the questions they raise, and the modes of thought and criticism appropriate to this field. Major questions include: What is the justification for judicial review? What are appropriate occasions and standards for the exercise of this power? How has the power been used throughout our history? These questions are considered in the context of doctrinal fields chosen for variety of issues and to allow consideration of historical development over the full life of the Constitution. These fields usually include: the scope of federal powers; powers of the President; relations between branches of the federal government; basic principles of equal protection and due process; and Congressional enforcement power under the Reconstruction Amendments.

• Type: Upper Class

Privacy, Technology, and the Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures operates in a rapidly changing world. For example, advancing technology gives law enforcement and national security officials the power to hear or read most of our communications (through wiretapping our phones, tracking our phone calls, and reading our emails), read most of our private records (through searching our computers and smartphones and social media websites), and detect our whereabouts (through cell phone tracking or public cameras). Courts have struggled to interpret and apply established judicial doctrines as they adjudicate these and other novel conflicts between privacy and law enforcement / national security interests. Legislative efforts to draw additional lines have produced mixed results. And as technology continues to advance, the stakes grow ever higher.

This seminar will assume basic knowledge of Fourth Amendment doctrine and address the scope of Fourth Amendment rights and remedies in this era of rapid technological change. We will carefully read judicial decisions and analyze constitutional rulemaking, as well as investigate cutting-edge issues in the field. While the course should particularly interest students inclined to become prosecutors or criminal defense lawyers, it should also interest students wanting an intense exposure to constitutional legal reasoning.

• Type: Seminar

Regulating the Political Process: Voting and Election Law

This course will explore the law governing the right to vote in the United States. It will examine the way the law and other forces have shaped the structure of American political participation, and will consider alternative directions American democracy might take. Topics will include the 2000 presidential election dispute, the individual right to vote, reapportionment, representation of minority interests in democratic bodies, preclearance procedures, political and racial gerrymandering, direct democracy, and alternative voting systems. A central aim of this course is to explore general issues of democratic theory in the context of the legal frameworks and the actual institutions that regulate American democracy.

• Type: Upper Class

Regulating the Political Process: Voting and Election Law

This course will explore the law governing the right to vote in the United States. It will examine the way the law and other forces have shaped the structure of American political participation, and will consider alternative directions American democracy might take. Topics will include the 2000 presidential election dispute, the individual right to vote, reapportionment, representation of minority interests in democratic bodies, preclearance procedures, political and racial gerrymandering, direct democracy, and alternative voting systems. A central aim of this course is to explore general issues of democratic theory in the context of the legal frameworks and the actual institutions that regulate American democracy.

• Type: Upper Class

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

An intensive and critical examination of the role of federal courts in maintaining a constitutional order in the United States. Among the topics considered are justiciability, the power of Congress to control the jurisdiction of federal and state courts, Supreme Court review of state court decisions, federal habeas corpus for state prisoners, and suits challenging official action.

• Type: Upper Class

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In 1980, approximately 500,000 people were behind bars in this country. Now, even after significant pandemic-related, the figure approaches 2 million (over two-thirds of whom are non-white), incarcerated in jails, state prisons, and federal prisons. This course will examine the constitutional law, and some statutory law, relevant to their incarceration. The central topics will be the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments and its Fourteenth Amendment analog, and Congress's regulation of litigation brought by prisoners in the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Other classes will examine First Amendment rights in prison, solitary and supermax confinement, race discrimination inside jails and prison, and the law of injunctive relief in constitutional cases brought by inmates. (We will not discuss criminal procedure, habeas corpus, or sentencing.) This course is for anyone interested in civil rights, criminal prosecution, or criminal defense.

The course will be co-taught by UM Prof. Margo Schlanger and Amy Fettig, the director of the Sentencing Project and former Deputy Director of the ACLU's National Prison Project. It is 2 credits, meeting 4 hours per week for the first 5 weeks of the semester, with one weekend day negotiation exercise on Feb. 5 or 6. Note: Professor Schlanger has been nominated for an administration position. If she is confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Fettig will teach the class alone from that point forward.

• Type: Upper Class