Course Catalog

Course description depends on the mini-seminar topic.

• Type: Mini-Seminar

You have just looked at a monthly bill recently sent to a client for a matter you have been working on nearly full time. You note that the supervising partner has taken credit for your work product and billed it at her hourly rates. Your time has been almost completely written off and, with that, any hope for a bonus. What do you do? This course explores real life dilemmas confronted by newer attorneys in their day to day practices within private law firms. It also touches upon prosecutorial ethics. It examines the interplay among the model rules, professionalism and business reality when being ethically correct does not necessarily equate with being professional. The course is interactive and requires active participation by each student. Readings will include Legal Ethics: Law Stories and articles and hypotheticals posted on C-tools. Leaders within the profession will appear as guest lecturers. The course will not examine all of the model rules and is not meant to be a primer for the multi-state professional responsibility examination.

• Type: Upper Class

National Security and Civil Liberties
This course will examine the balance between protecting national security and safeguarding constitutional values. We will explore government tools designed to prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks and to detect espionage. We will also study the impact these tools have on privacy, free speech, free assembly, open courts, and transparency in government. Topics will include electronic surveillance conducted by NSA and FBI pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA"); investigative techniques authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act; use of informants and sting operations; the Classified Information Procedures Act ("CIPA"); the role and impact of leaks, such as those by Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks; detention of enemy combatants at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and military tribunals; free speech implications of prohibiting material support to designated terrorist organizations; the use of immigration law to protect national security; exploitation of social media; free speech and assembly rights of domestic extremist groups; and related topics.

• Type: Upper Class

Law 990 - This course offers students the opportunity to integrate practical experience in a legal setting outside the Law School with a Law School classroom experience. Each student will spend at least EIGHT (Section 1), TWELVE (Section 2), SIXTEEN (Section 3) or TWENTY (Section 4) hours per week working under the supervision of an attorney at a local non-profit, government agency, or court. Students may not receive any compensation for their work. Students will arrange their own placements, though interested students who need guidance about how to pursue a placement are welcome to make an appointment with the course professor, Amy Sankaran (aharwell@umich.edu). Past placements have included the ACLU of Michigan, Family Law Project, Neighborhood Defender Service of Detroit, Magistrate, District, and Court of Appeals Judges, the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office and Office of the Public Defender, and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, to name a few.
Part-Time Externship students will be co-enrolled in the Part-Time Externship Seminar (Law 991, 1 credit). Thus a student participating in the Part-Time Externship, Section 1 will receive 3 credits total, a student participating in the Part-Time Externship, Section 2 will receive 4 credits total, a student participating in the Part-Time Externship, Section 3 will receive 5 credits total, and a student participating in the Part-Time Externship, Section 4 will receive 6 credits total.

• Type: Externship

This contemporaneous, one-credit seminar is held every semester as a required companion to the Part-Time Externship (Law 990). For more information, please visit the course description for Law 990.

• Type: Externship

This course will provide an introduction to basic concepts of patent law, focusing on legal issues that arise in the course of obtaining and enforcing patents. The course is designed to be suitable for students planning to enter a general practice as well as those planning to specialize in intellectual property. A technical background is not a prerequisite, but students will be required to read and discuss cases involving technical facts.

• Type: Upper Class

The Pediatric Advocacy Clinic (PAC) is one of the first medical-legal partnerships to be based in a law school setting. Through this partnership, students are able to reach families most in need of legal assistance and become part of an interdisciplinary team working to improve child health. Casework includes domestic violence and family law, special education, Medicaid appeals, and low-income housing conditions. Students in the clinic take "first chair" responsibility for their cases and are involved in all aspects of a case. They learn a range of advocacy skills, from preventive legal advocacy (focusing on identifying issues at an early stage and on developing creative, multidisciplinary approaches to addressing them) to traditional litigation skills in both administrative and trial court settings. The PAC is 7 credits (4 for the seminar and 3 for the clinic) and all credits are graded. The PAC 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.
For more information, please contact Debra Chopp (dchopp@umich.edu).

• Type: Clinic

The Pediatric Advocacy Clinic (PAC) is one of the first medical-legal partnerships to be based in a law school setting. Through this partnership, students are able to reach families most in need of legal assistance and become part of an interdisciplinary team working to improve child health. Casework includes domestic violence and family law, special education, Medicaid appeals, and low-income housing conditions. Students in the clinic take "first chair" responsibility for their cases and are involved in all aspects of a case. They learn a range of advocacy skills, from preventive legal advocacy (focusing on identifying issues at an early stage and on developing creative, multidisciplinary approaches to addressing them) to traditional litigation skills in both administrative and trial court settings. The PAC is 7 credits (4 for the seminar and 3 for the clinic) and all credits are graded. The PAC 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.
For more information, please contact Debra Chopp (dchopp@umich.edu).

• Type: Clinic

This course covers philosophical issues raised by particular areas of law and matters of statecraft (as opposed to questions about the nature of law in general, which are addressed in Jurisprudence). The course also introduces students to relevant aspects of moral and political philosophy. The legal topics vary by semester. In recent years, they have included: the justification of criminal punishment; the role that luck plays in legal outcomes; the nature of reasonable doubt; the legal import of statistical evidence; torture; abortion; racial profiling.

• Type: Upper Class

From our nation's founding on, we have debated (and, at times, litigated) the appropriate balance of power among the executive (the President), legislative (Congress), and judicial (the courts) branches of government. Emerging issues in the 21st century have amplified those debates. Many of these debates appear to be attributable to Congress retreating from its historical policymaking role. In that legislative vacuum, recent Presidents, seemingly more often than in the past, have exerted policymaking initiatives through executive orders, agency action, and their discretion to enforce federal laws. And many of those presidential acts have been challenged in federal court, leaving the courts to resolve thorny legal issues with profound policy implications. The seminar will focus on the evolution of presidential power, with a focus on the 21st century. The course has three aims. The first is to familiarize students with historical aspects of presidential power. The second is to emphasize legal developments involving the President over the last 25 years. The third aim is more practical. Students will come away with a practical understanding of how the President receives legal advice, and how the Department of Justice represents the President (as well as other actors in the executive branch) in court.

• Type: Seminar

This practice/simulation course covers the legal and legal practice issues of the private equity business. It covers legal issues related to the formation and operation of private equity funds and their investments. It will focus on the process of the fund investing in typical private equity investments and on identifying and understanding the legal, contractual and other issues that arise in structuring, negotiating and documenting private equity transactions.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Pro Bono and BigLaw: Public Interest Work in Private Practice
This seminar will expose students to the real-world considerations related to large law firm pro bono practice in order to help them do pro bono work while being successful associates in their billable practice. The first session will introduce students to law firm economics and explore how the top law firms can run large pro bono programs and how this affects the firm's bottom line. Students will learn about law firm pro bono policies, explore motivations to do pro bono, and learn how to navigate obstacles to pro bono. Finally, we will explore pro bono in practice, including balancing billable matters with pro bono matters, working with legal service organizations, and partnering with clients on pro bono. Students will be provided with reading materials, and leaders within the legal profession will appear as guest lecturers. Grades will primarily be based upon an assignment to interview law firm and public interest leaders and synthesize those conversations.

• Type: Seminar

Progressive Prosecution: Law and Policy
Although prosecuting attorneys have typically taken a "tough-on-crime" approach, a growing number of elected prosecutors from across the country are taking a "progressive" approach. These "progressive prosecutors" see their role as combatting overincarceration, eliminating racial and socioeconomic inequity, and changing a criminal legal system that too frequently exacerbates those inequities.
This course, co-taught by Washtenaw County Prosecuting Attorney Eli Savit and Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Victoria Burton-Harris, will explore the theoretical underpinnings behind the "progressive prosecutor" movement; its promises and limitations; and the progress the movement has made over the past several years. During the latter part of the course, students will work on real-world research and writing projects that will be used by the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office to move forward its progressive vision.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Professor Gallanis's section: This course provides an introduction to the legal relationships that arise out of or constitute ownership of property. Subjects covered may include, but are not limited to, the acquisition of rights in personal and real property, the nature of ownership of natural resources, the types of and rules governing concurrent and successive interests in property, the use of and limits on restraints on alienation, the law governing private restrictions on the use of land, the law of conveyancing, and an introduction to the law of takings and of landlord and tenant. Grades will be based on participation and a final examination.
Professor Prifogle's section: This course offers a doctrinal survey of property law, covering topics such as possessory estates in land, concurrent estates, nuisance, easements, covenants, zoning and land-use, eminent domain, and housing law. The course also covers the historical origins and development of property law, its theoretical justifications, and the relationship between property law and resource distribution. In short, we'll study a range of doctrines and concepts that determine what people can own, how interests in property are allocated, and the default rights and obligations that come with ownership. We'll also consider the state's role--both its power and limitations--in determining these issues and how race and gender alter one's experience, and one's community's experience, with property law. After this course you should be able to articulate how the state defines, constructs, and protects property rights, and assess the relationship between doctrinal structures and the varied lived experiences of those structures more broadly.
Professor Cornell's section: This foundational course surveys the law of property, which defines the interests, rights, and duties with respect to spaces and things that the law recognizes and protects. The course covers how property interests may be obtained, held, used, and transferred, as found in the law of possessory estates and future interests in land, concurrent estates, easements, covenants, personal property, bailments, intellectual property, conveyancing, adverse possession, nuisance, zoning and land-use, takings, and housing law. The concepts of property, possession, and ownership--and the consequences flowing from these concepts--will be constantly examined. The overall focus will be on how property law fundamentally structures the rights and duties between individuals in their interactions with the world, shaping our physical, social, and economic spaces.

• Type: Upper Class

This seminar will explore the conceptual and practical ties between ownership and stewardship. Blackstone famously described ownership as "that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world." But many intellectual traditions regard the human relationship with the natural world as one of interdependence and community, not dominion. The course will start with some classic readings in environmental ethics, focusing especially on those that emphasize the obligations of humans within an ecological community. We will then examine the law of property, particularly the common law of real property though statutory law and personal property will also be considered. Across a range of concrete legal contexts, property rights operate to shield owners from obligations to the rest of the world. But there are also ways that the law of property functions to assign responsibilities to owners and to manage resources. This seminar will examine the tensions and also the harmonies between legal ownership and responsibilities toward the natural world. Students will write a seminar paper on a particular doctrinal issue, including potential legal reforms.

• Type: Seminar

Psychologically-Informed Lawyering in Clinical Practice will examine psychological issues that affect lawyers and the clients we serve in critically important and potentially determinative ways. Open to upper-level clinic students, this course will incorporate discussion of clinic clients' legal issues and lived experiences as well as how student practitioners are affected by this work. Topics will include mental health issues, substance abuse, historical, direct, and vicarious trauma, public and private mental health services, challenges to well-being in the legal profession, and developing professional skills informed by these and other considerations. This class seeks to foster dialogue across practice areas, build community across clinics, develop students' understanding of and compassion for clients with psychological challenges, and enhance client representation. We will consider psychological factors at the individual, family, and societal/structural levels to develop a base of knowledge and skills more broadly applicable than in a single case or area of law.

• Type: Seminar

Public Interest Litigation Ethics
Most legal ethics courses tend to fall naturally on the "corporate" or "big firm" side of things. In this seminar we will focus on the ethical issues that arise in public interest practice -- Legal Aid, the ACLU, private offices handling civil rights cases, criminal defense attorneys, government lawyers (including prosecutors), and agencies like the National Wildlife Federation. We will cover a range of ethical issues, but from the perspective of lawyers who are trying to do well while doing good. We will include simulations, like mock grievance hearings in which students will have to defend the ethical positions they have taken. Students will get useful practical knowledge of the ethics rules, and a keener sense of how to stay out of trouble in a public interest practice.

• Type: Seminar

Public-Sector Structural Reform in K-12 Education Externship

The United States is in the midst of a massive restructuring of public-sector service delivery and regulation, particularly as they relate to the governance and management of its public schools. Staffed by broadly interdisciplinary teams of accomplished professionals, the most successful of the new federal, state, and local education organizations are replacing decades-old public bureaucracies and interest group politics with "learning organizations" committed to using public problem solving techniques to accelerate adult and institutional, as well student learning.

This Public Education Policy Seminar and Practicum originates at Columbia Law School, and attracts upper-level graduate students in law, business, education, and policy from Harvard, Michigan, NYU, Penn, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale, and other universities for a full semester of intensive engagement with each other around transformational change in public education. Second and third-year law students may take the course either in the fall semester or the spring semester. 13 units of credit are awarded, and all of the credits are graded, with the grades transferring to Michigan Law School.

Participants in the program take part in a rigorous and rewarding learning experience, including:

(i) An engaging interdisciplinary seminar in the design, regulation, governance, democratic accountability, and transformation of K-12 school systems and allied public- and social-sector organizations; [4 credits]

(ii) Comprehensive skills training in team-based problem solving, managing multidimensional (legal, operational, etc.) projects to specified outcomes in complex environments, client counseling, and effective communication [2 credits]; and

(iii) A high-priority project designing and implementing legal and policy solutions to a complex problem at the core of a client public- or social-sector organization's mission to improve the educational outcomes and life chances of children. [7 credits].

The Program Offers:

* Intensive experiential learning on interdisciplinary teams and cutting-edge projects

* Deep engagement in public education improvement strategies and debates

* Panels and field trips interacting with prominent education leaders

* 1:1 mentoring, K-12 education career support, and networking opportunities

* Merit scholarships for exceptional students

* Challenging, fun, and meaningful work helping to improve kids' learning and lives

Admission to the course is by application. A limited number of $25,000 scholarships are available for exceptional students to apply to their law school tuition in return for a commitment to spending time after graduation and judicial clerkships in a public or nonprofit job in the education sector.

For more information, including a course FAQ, names of Michigan Law students who have taken the previous version of the course, or lists of past projects in which students have engaged in the Course, please email cprl@law.columbia.edu or Professor Amy Sankaran at aharwell@umich.edu.

*This description was adapted from Columbia Law School's own course description, which can be found on Columbia Law School's web site: http://www.law.columbia.edu/ (search on L8016).

• Type: Externship

Public-Sector Structural Reform in K-12 Education Practicum

The United States is in the midst of a massive restructuring of public-sector service delivery and regulation, particularly as they relate to the governance and management of its public schools. Staffed by broadly interdisciplinary teams of accomplished professionals, the most successful of the new federal, state, and local education organizations are replacing decades-old public bureaucracies and interest group politics with "learning organizations" committed to using public problem solving techniques to accelerate adult and institutional, as well student learning.

This Public Education Policy Seminar and Practicum originates at Columbia Law School, and attracts upper-level graduate students in law, business, education, and policy from Harvard, Michigan, NYU, Penn, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale, and other universities for a full semester of intensive engagement with each other around transformational change in public education. Second and third-year law students may take the course either in the fall semester or the spring semester. 13 units of credit are awarded, and all of the credits are graded, with the grades transferring to Michigan Law School.

Participants in the program take part in a rigorous and rewarding learning experience, including:

(i) An engaging interdisciplinary seminar in the design, regulation, governance, democratic accountability, and transformation of K-12 school systems and allied public- and social-sector organizations; [4 credits]

(ii) Comprehensive skills training in team-based problem solving, managing multidimensional (legal, operational, etc.) projects to specified outcomes in complex environments, client counseling, and effective communication [2 credits]; and

(iii) A high-priority project designing and implementing legal and policy solutions to a complex problem at the core of a client public- or social-sector organization's mission to improve the educational outcomes and life chances of children. [7 credits].

The Program Offers:

* Intensive experiential learning on interdisciplinary teams and cutting-edge projects

* Deep engagement in public education improvement strategies and debates

* Panels and field trips interacting with prominent education leaders

* 1:1 mentoring, K-12 education career support, and networking opportunities

* Merit scholarships for exceptional students

* Challenging, fun, and meaningful work helping to improve kids' learning and lives

Admission to the course is by application. A limited number of $25,000 scholarships are available for exceptional students to apply to their law school tuition in return for a commitment to spending time after graduation and judicial clerkships in a public or nonprofit job in the education sector.

For more information, including a course FAQ, names of Michigan Law students who have taken the previous version of the course, or lists of past projects in which students have engaged in the Course, please email cprl@law.columbia.edu or Professor Amy Sankaran at aharwell@umich.edu.

*This description was adapted from Columbia Law School's own course description, which can be found on Columbia Law School's web site: http://www.law.columbia.edu/ (search on L8016).

• Type: Externship

Public-Sector Structural Reform in K-12 Education Seminar

The United States is in the midst of a massive restructuring of public-sector service delivery and regulation, particularly as they relate to the governance and management of its public schools. Staffed by broadly interdisciplinary teams of accomplished professionals, the most successful of the new federal, state, and local education organizations are replacing decades-old public bureaucracies and interest group politics with "learning organizations" committed to using public problem solving techniques to accelerate adult and institutional, as well student learning.

This Public Education Policy Seminar and Practicum originates at Columbia Law School, and attracts upper-level graduate students in law, business, education, and policy from Harvard, Michigan, NYU, Penn, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale, and other universities for a full semester of intensive engagement with each other around transformational change in public education. Second and third-year law students may take the course either in the fall semester or the spring semester. 13 units of credit are awarded, and all of the credits are graded, with the grades transferring to Michigan Law School.

Participants in the program take part in a rigorous and rewarding learning experience, including:

(i) An engaging interdisciplinary seminar in the design, regulation, governance, democratic accountability, and transformation of K-12 school systems and allied public- and social-sector organizations; [4 credits]

(ii) Comprehensive skills training in team-based problem solving, managing multidimensional (legal, operational, etc.) projects to specified outcomes in complex environments, client counseling, and effective communication [2 credits]; and

(iii) A high-priority project designing and implementing legal and policy solutions to a complex problem at the core of a client public- or social-sector organization's mission to improve the educational outcomes and life chances of children. [7 credits].

The Program Offers:

* Intensive experiential learning on interdisciplinary teams and cutting-edge projects

* Deep engagement in public education improvement strategies and debates

* Panels and field trips interacting with prominent education leaders

* 1:1 mentoring, K-12 education career support, and networking opportunities

* Merit scholarships for exceptional students

* Challenging, fun, and meaningful work helping to improve kids' learning and lives

Admission to the course is by application. A limited number of $25,000 scholarships are available for exceptional students to apply to their law school tuition in return for a commitment to spending time after graduation and judicial clerkships in a public or nonprofit job in the education sector.

For more information, including a course FAQ, names of Michigan Law students who have taken the previous version of the course, or lists of past projects in which students have engaged in the Course, please email cprl@law.columbia.edu or Professor Amy Sankaran at aharwell@umich.edu.

*This description was adapted from Columbia Law School's own course description, which can be found on Columbia Law School's web site: http://www.law.columbia.edu/ (search on L8016).

• Type: Externship

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

In this course, we consider the salient aspects of a variety of real estate transactions. Students (i) learn to identify the issues involved in each one, (ii) become familiar with the documents often utilized, (iii) determine the perspective the respective parties bring, and (iv) consider how various issues might be resolved. This course satisfies the "practicum" requirement.

• Type: Practice Simulation

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

This course is restricted to foreign students in the advanced degree program. Its purpose is to acquaint students from civil law countries with American legal analysis, research, and writing.

• Type: Upper Class

Peaceful assemblies have played a key role in bringing about many major social changes. Examples include challenging and ending apartheid, the women's suffrage movement, bringing to a close colonialism in India, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the fall of communist dictatorships and, less successfully, the Arab Spring. But these historically momentous examples of the people outdoors often build on mundane and long-forgotten assemblies (for example, the labor protests against Governor Walker in Wisconsin or the fuel protests that preceded the 2007 'Saffron revolution' in Burma). Indeed, the political importance of public gatherings extends beyond whether groups achieve their particular ends. For participants and for democracies the very presence of citizens gathering together (physically or online) offers opportunities to build social solidarity and collective identities through peer-to-peer experiences of citizenship.
Despite the critical role of public assembly in politics, including democratic politics in the United States, the constitutional right of assembly is underdeveloped, in U.S. and in international law. In the United States, this problem is extreme. There is no separate doctrine of peaceful assembly despite the First Amendment's explicitly textual enumeration of the right. Instead, those who seek to gather with others are protected by a host of First Amendment doctrines that treat assembly as a lesser form of free expression.
This seminar will explore this dilemma. Its primary focus will be on U.S. constitutional law, exploring the U.S. Supreme Court's approach to the right of peaceful assembly and the range of doctrines that those who seek to assemble outdoors must navigate. The seminar will, however, go further to situate this law in three ways. First, it will explore different theoretical understandings of assembly and its political functions. Second, it will ground both the theoretical and legal discussion in historical accounts of particular events to provide students with a concrete sense of the variability of assembly. Third, it will compare the U.S. Supreme Court's approach to the way the right is articulated and implemented in international law.
Professor Tabatha Abu El-Haj

• Type: Seminar

This course covers the regulation of securities offerings and trading under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. It examines offerings and the registration process under the Securities Act, along with reporting requirements under the Exchange Act. The course will also cover fraud, insider trading and civil liabilities under both Acts.

• Type: Upper Class

In the Senior Judge Seminar students work closely with Legal Practice professors in connection with various aspects of the first-year Legal Practice course. Each Legal Practice professor interviews, chooses and supervises the Senior Judge Seminar students for the Legal Practice section taught by that professor.

• Type: Upper Class

The Senior Judge Seminar II is a graded course intended to allow selected students who have excelled in the Senior Judge I seminar to work in greater depth with a Legal Practice professor in connection with the Legal Practice course. Each Legal Practice professor interviews, chooses and supervises the Senior Judge Seminar II students for the Legal Practice section taught by the professor.

• Type: Upper Class

Tax Planning for Real Estate Transactions
This practice/simulation course will deal with the tax planning related to real estate transactions, including particularly the choice of entity and the acquisition, development, operation and sale or other disposition of real estate. Within this context, we will discuss a number of issues, including capitalization vs. deductibility of expenses, deferring gain on disposition through various techniques, creative financing in today's markets and the consequences of troubled real estate.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This is the basic course in federal income taxation. It is a statutory course, and the principal source of law will be the Internal Revenue Code. The topics covered will include the definition of gross income and the determination of permissible deductions from gross income. The class will also analyze numerous Code provisions and doctrines that raise issues of tax timing (that is, in what year should a given item of income or a given deduction be taken into account) and income attribution (that is, to whom should a given item of income or a given deduction be attributed). The bulk of the course will be devoted to learning basic statutory analysis. In addition, however, the class will spend some time studying the policy rationales underlying the structure of the current federal income tax laws and will consider the pros and cons of alternative systems. This course is a prerequisite to a number of other courses, including Corporate Taxation, Partnership Tax, Business and Estate Planning, and International Tax.

• Type: Upper Class

When assembled correctly, diverse teams consistently outperform homogeneous teams in a wide range of fields. They come up with more creative ideas. They make better decisions. And particularly in the business world, they produce more sales revenue and profit. Yet many organizations still can't figure out how to create and maintain these kinds of teams.
This course explores that disconnect through a combination of low-stakes practice and high-stakes projects. You'll form diverse teams. You'll critique diverse teams. And along the way, you'll have plenty of opportunities to develop two skills that can help members of any team operate more effectively: speaking well and writing well.

• Type: Practice Simulation

Commercializing intellectual property and technology is a central part of our economy, around which lawyers play a critical role. This course will serve as a practical guide to technology transactions, through which students will learn how to counsel clients and negotiate and draft contracts on the client's behalf. Through hands-on practical exercises and simulations, students will be introduced to the typical work of technology transactions lawyers and learn foundational concepts and skills, such as technology deal structures and how they are papered, the anatomy of intellectual property and technology contracts, working as outside counsel with client teams consisting of in-house lawyers and business units, and the nuances of advising effectively from a legal and business perspective, both in writing and verbally. Through this course, students will develop not only technical lawyering skills but also the professional skills necessary to be a trusted advisor on technology transactions.

• Type: Practice Simulation

This seminar will explore a series of legal questions related to the United Nations. The class will start by considering the way the UN Charter structures the organization, its relationship to its member states, and the organization's status and authorities under international and national law. (Why was the United Nations established? Can the United Nations legally reject the Palestinian application for membership? Why is the United Nations immune from suit in national courts -- and should it be? Under what circumstances can member states withhold financial contributions?) The class will then turn to the United Nations' role in maintaining international peace and security -- and the legality, legitimacy, and effectiveness of the United Nations' efforts. Topics covered will include sanctions, peacekeeping, and territorial administration.

• Type: Seminar