Course Catalog

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 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 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

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

Dialoguing across difference is a skill essential for successful lawyering in any specialty, in any context. We must achieve deep understanding of our clients’ perspectives and be able to communicate our own. We must effectively advocate for our clients and negotiate with everyone involved with our clients’ matters, such as their business partners, family members, opposing parties or counsel, etc. We are problem solvers, and often coalition builders and systemic change makers. Students in this course will practice engaging in and facilitating sustained and productive dialogue through the nuanced exploration of their own social/political identities and their perspectives on an assortment of potentially controversial topics of their choosing.

• Type: Practice Simulation

All lawyers are now digital lawyers. From Zoom hearings, to e-discovery, to AI-enhanced research and writing, the practice of law increasingly requires the skillful navigation of a wide range of technological tools. It’s no longer enough to be book smart and street smart. More and more, you also have to be byte-smart. This course is designed to help you navigate that transition. It takes a skill-building approach to advocacy in the age of artificial intelligence. Which tools are worth using? What questions are worth asking? And how do lawyers of all kinds continue to add value to clients in a world where competition for legal services comes from chatbots, algorithms, and a growing number of other powerful digital products?

• Type: Practice Simulation

The course will focus on the effective and strategic use of the Rules of Evidence in litigation. We will look in-depth at several critical areas of evidence, including impeachment, hearsay, expert testimony and privileges. Our study will include both drafting exercises (motions to admit or exclude various pieces of evidence) as well as courtroom based scenarios in which students will have to dissect and apply the various Rules. The goal of the course is for students to have a functional mastery of several critical (and challenging) areas of evidence, preparing them for future work as litigators.

• Type: Practice Simulation

The ability to give and receive quality feedback plays a major role in every lawyer’s career trajectory. Yet few of us are ever taught how to develop this important skill. “Feedback Loops” is designed to help change that. We’ll learn better ways to deliver feedback, better ways to receive feedback, and better ways to solicit feedback. We’ll also experiment with a new kind of feedback: AI-generated feedback.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This course will examine the issues and concerns that are unique to well-funded ventures with “unicorn” valuations. The course will consider the pros and cons of different late-stage investment structures, the deal dynamics arising from the ever expanding pool of capital investing in this asset class, and the implications of unit economics for the investment thesis—all against the backdrop of the ever-blurring line between private equity and venture capital.
Students will learn the primary legal mechanics involved in venture capital investing, as well as the incentives and pragmatic considerations underlying these types of transactions.
Students will be expected to participate in a simulated term-sheet negotiation exercise, become familiar with spreadsheet capitalization tables, and learn to evaluate key deal terms against the backdrop of the broader deal dynamics.
Required readings for each session will include model deal documents and case studies.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This class will be comprised of different tracks that will allow students to explore ways to work in various innovation fields. The weekly class component will examine various legal and business principles related to innovation and support the students’ field work, with the fall term focused on the intricacies of venture capital and the winter term focused on the role of institutional capital. The students will spend significant time working on their projects in the field.
Track 1 — Social Venture Fund (SVF): Students will work as a law student advisor to the Ross School of Business’s Social Venture Fund. Students will be required to attend the weekly SVF meeting (typically on Sunday afternoons) and actively participate in SVF. Once the fund selects potential companies in which to invest, students will join at least one due diligence team and be responsible for the legal due diligence on potential investments. For companies in which SVF votes to invest students will review the financing deal documents. This track is a year-long track, so students will be required to take this course both semesters.
Track 2 — Michigan Climate Venture (MCV): Students will work as law advisors to Michigan Climate Venture, a University-wide initiative. Students will be required to attend the weekly meetings and actively participate in all educational activities. Once MCV selects potential companies in which to invest, students will join at least one due diligence team and be responsible for the legal due diligence on potential investments. For companies in which MCV votes to invest, law students will review the financing deal documents. This track is a year-long track, so students will be required to take both semesters.
Track 3 — Innovation Partnerships: Students will provide legal research support to the Innovation Partnerships team. Students will immerse themselves in the legal and regulatory issues related to innovation partnerships. Enrollment in this Track is allowed only with the permission of Bryce Pilz ([email protected]), the Executive Director of Licensing & Strategic Alliances.
Track 4 — Startup or Venture Capital Immersion: Students may arrange to work for a startup company or venture capital fund and participate in this course. While some opportunities to work with startups may be announced through Professor Ohmer, students may also arrange their own startup work and propose the arrangement to Professor Ohmer.
Note: Because participating students will work with proprietary information related to their field work, as a condition of participating in this program, all students may be required to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements particular to their tracks.
Enrollment in this class is allowed only with permission of Professor Adrian Ohmer.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Are you a forward-looking law student wanting to become a strategic leader in this new era of transformation driven by artificial intelligence, automation, and evolving client demands? The legal world is changing quickly and it’s vital to keep pace. This course gives you a head start on your legal career.
Our focus will be on the real-world impact of AI and other technologies on every aspect of the legal profession. This isn’t about learning specific software or theory through simulations and other nontraditional approaches. It’s about strategy. It’s about ethics. It’s about understanding how technology, people, processes, systems, and data all fit together in today’s law practice. And, most important, it’s focused on the practical, from the perspective of a legal technology thought leader who also practiced technology law as both outside counsel and in-house counsel.
What You’ll Learn:
* Your ethical duty of tech competence. Not optional anymore.
* How AI is already changing the game — and what’s coming next.
* What clients and employers expect from tech-savvy lawyers.
* Strategies to drive innovation in law firms and law departments. Become a leader and shaper, not just a participant.
* How to explore legal services in the AI era, including access to justice and new legal business models.
* How to think critically and practically about technology, especially AI.
* How to develop a personal framework for continuous technological learning and adaptation.
Develop essential leadership skills: You’ll gain the knowledge, ethical grounding, and confidence to participate in technology initiatives, advise clients, shape the future of law, and take charge of your own career.
Assessment: One major research paper (draft and final submission), a short class presentation, and active participation in group simulations. This course meets both the upper-level writing and practice simulation requirements. Get ready to roll up your sleeves and get practical.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This practical course will introduce students to the legislative drafting process, including the tools required for effectively crafting and revising legislation. Students will first learn the fundamental concepts necessary for successful legislative drafting from a practitioner’s perspective, including understanding how laws are made, how issues of statutory interpretation affect drafting choices, and how drafting choices affect other laws already in effect. They will then learn how to draft and organize original and amended legislation, through examples and exercises. In the second half of the semester, students will work towards a final project — original or revised legislation related to a topic of their choice, which includes a narrative explaining the problem to be solved by the legislation and how the drafted legislation solves the problem. During this part of the semester, students will present their project in various stages to the class, and get feedback. Individual feedback will also be given throughout the semester in writing and in conference. By introducing the facets involved in the legislative drafting process, the goal is to help students detect and appreciate concerns that arise from inartful drafting, which could be mitigated before enactment, rather than only upon post-enactment judicial review.

• Type: Practice Simulation

The Public Defender Training Institute is an intensive immersion into the world of indigent defense designed to train aspiring public defenders. This second half of the course is only open to students who have enrolled in and completed participation in Part I. In this second semester, students learn about plea bargaining, evidence, motions practice, jury selection, and trial advocacy (openings, direct examinations, cross examinations, closings, and sentencing hearings).

• Type: Practice Simulation

Professor Kaye’s section:
Learning to negotiate effectively involves negotiating, observing, critiquing, and consciously applying effective strategy and skill. This course introduces students to the science, the art, and the practice of negotiation through a sequenced series of simulation exercises, which students will perform inside and outside of class. Class sessions will be used, in part, for negotiations, debriefing results, and discussion. Course readings will include negotiation literature and theory that inform effective practice. Students will be evaluated based on some combination of class participation, negotiation exercises, and periodic reflection papers.
Professor Kimball’s section:
Learning to negotiate effectively involves negotiating, observing, critiquing, and consciously applying effective strategy and skill. This course introduces students to the science, art, and practice of negotiation through readings, discussion, and simulated negotiation exercises performed inside and outside of class. Class sessions are used, in part, for negotiation exercises and debriefing about results. Readings will include negotiation literature and theory that inform effective practice, and application of ethical concepts and rules as they pertain to negotiations in particular, and more generally, to work with clients, other counsel and the courts. Students will write a research paper about an actual negotiation of their choice, applying negotiation concepts to such real world examples as mergers, acquisitions, labor disputes, settlements, treaties, and a variety of transactions and controversies.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Conflict involving youth, family, communities and institutions inexorably finds its way into state court justice systems. Once there, litigants find that institutional pathways available to them not only effect legal consequences to their actions, but more importantly, have longstanding affects on their lives, as well as the lives of others. This class introduces students to the emergence of one such path in state court justice systems: peacemaking.
The introduction begins with the exploration of the roots of peacemaking from indigenous nations within our national border. Students will learn from nationally renowned native guest lecturers about world views, tribal justice systems, tensions between native justice systems and western-model court systems and the opportunity for nurturing communication, collaboration and finding common ground between the two.
Thereafter, students will engage in exploring the practical application of peacemaking in state justice systems in family, probate, civil and criminal proceedings. As part of that engagement, students will first conduct a mock trial in a subject area of their choosing through a traditional adversarial model, and then through a peacemaking approach.
Finally, students will explore emerging branches from peacemaking in state justice systems. This exploration will include current models around the country, as well as inspiration from models outside of our borders such as South Africa, Canada and Ireland.
The class is co taught by a trial attorney with criminal and family court experience, and a state court presiding judge of a peacemaking court. In addition to the mock trial, a final paper will serve in lieu of a final exam.

• Type: Practice Simulation

In this class, we will use the world of collective bargaining in professional sports leagues as a platform for practicing a variety of legal skills: analysis, negotiation, drafting, and oral and written advocacy. We’ll spend a bit of time learning the basics of the law regarding collective bargaining, but this class will not involve a deep dive into labor law. We’ll read existing collective bargaining agreements and disputes, and read about past negotiations, but this class will not be a deep dive into the intricacies of those labor-union relationships. Instead, the focus of the class will be to learn just enough so students can do in-class and out-of-class skills exercises.

• Type: Practice Simulation

The professor of this practice simulation will submit cutting-edge problems which he has faced in practice. The students will resolve those problems by structuring transactions to accomplish the client’s business goals within the framework of non-tax legal requirements, without incurring unnecessary tax liabilities and in a manner that otherwise optimizes the client’s tax posture. Typically, the students will be assigned to work in teams. With each problem, the students submit their solutions in writing, and one team will present its solution to the class orally. The professor will discuss and evaluate the teams’ solutions in light of the one that was employed in practice. Prior to the students preparing and submitting their solutions, there will be lectures and discussion of the tax issues involved in each problem.
The goal of the practice simulation course is to immerse the students in the process of approaching problems from a transactional perspective. The students will be given a set of facts and objectives, and will be required to determine what steps should be taken to achieve those objectives. An additional goal is to provide the students with exposure to the manner in which experienced lawyers utilize their skills to solve complex problems. The principal issues on which the problems will focus are corporate tax issues, but other areas will likely be covered. For example, partnership tax issues and issues involving the taxation of financial instruments have played a significant role in certain case studies. In recent semesters, problems have involved, among other matters, complex tax-free corporate mergers, corporate divisions (spin-offs), acquisitions of controlling interests in non-U.S. corporations, and transactions designed to illustrate the difference between legitimate tax planning and abusive corporate tax shelters.

• Type: Practice Simulation

In this practice simulation course, students will begin to develop the skills needed to represent clients in business transactions. Among other things, the course covers translation of client business objectives into legal concepts and enforceable contract language that is clear, consistent, and concise. Students will learn how to analyze a contract from the client’s perspective, with an eye to advancing the client’s interests and protecting the client as much as possible from risk. The practice simulation course also identifies how attorneys can use drafting techniques and the negotiation process to resolve issues and improve outcomes for clients. Students will engage in simulations and exercises in class and undertake drafting assignments outside of class, including communications with clients and opposing counsel about contract terms, risks, and potential resolutions.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This course explores a more diverse and deepened analysis of trial advocacy tied to the subject matter of the conflict and potential resolutions for that conflict. Students will learn basic tenants of all trial advocacy. These tenants include mechanics of pre- trial practice (motion practice including the differences between written and oral advocacy) as well as simulated trial tasks. Those trial tasks focus on the chronological development of a trial: jury selection; opening statement; direct and cross examination; exhibits; objections; impeachment and rehabilitation; experts and closing arguments.
As part of the analysis, students provide weekly written reflections on the oath of office all attorneys are required to make as a condition for the privilege to practice law. That reflection includes identification and discussion of core values and expectations that their advocacy choices reflect those values.
In lieu of a final exam, students will engage in a competition in conjunction with students from Wayne State Law School.

• Type: Practice Simulation