Course Catalog

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

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Mandatory Graded
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: PR, NY

This course concentrates on the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code bearing on domestic corporations. It deals with the tax consequences to corporations and their shareholders as a result of the events that take place during a corporation's life span. The course examines the tax consequences that can arise on: the formation of the corporation, the distribution of assets from the corporation, sales of corporate stock, reorganizations and divisions, and liquidations.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: SR

This is a clinical course in which each student is assigned to help represent an indigent defendant in the appeal of his or her felony conviction, under the supervision of attorneys from Michigan's State Appellate Defender Office. The focus of the course is on the completion of an effectively written appellate brief on behalf of the client, to be filed in state or federal court. The goal of the course is to develop the student's understanding and skill in all phases of appellate advocacy. The student will review the trial transcripts and lower court records, interview the client in prison (with the instructor), develop a strategy for appeal, conduct legal research, and help draft the client's brief on appeal. Feedback is provided by frequent individual meetings with the instructors, as well as oral argument before a panel of attorneys experienced in criminal law. The course gives the student the opportunity to work on a real case with real consequences for the client. While most directly relevant to those interested in criminal law, its lessons in appellate advocacy should be of general interest. Class size is limited to 12 students to assure individual attention to each student.

The Clinic is a 4 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 3 credit clinic and the 1 credit field component, taken concurrently. The 3 credit clinic and 1 credit field component are mandatory graded and ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election.

The Clinic fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

For students who matriculated in or after May 2016, the Clinic can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, fulfill the upper-level writing requirement, or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement -- it cannot be used to fulfill more than one of these three particular requirements.

• Type: Clinic
• Grading Method: Mandatory Graded
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL, PR, WR

This is a clinical course in which each student is assigned to help represent an indigent defendant in the appeal of his or her felony conviction, under the supervision of attorneys from Michigan's State Appellate Defender Office. The focus of the course is on the completion of an effecitvely written appellate brief on behalf of the client, to be filed in state or federal court. The goal of the course is to develop the student's understanding and skill in all phases of appellate advocacy. The student will review the trial transcripts and lower court records, interview the client in prison (with the instructor), develop a strategy for appeal, conduct legal research, and help draft the client's brief on appeal. Feedback is provided by frequent individual meetings with the instructors, as well as oral argument before a panel of attorneys experienced in criminal law. The course gives the student the opportunity to work on a real case with real consequences for the client. While most directly relevant to those interested in criminal law, its lessons in appellate advocacy should be of general interest. Class size is limited to 12 students to assure individual attention to each student.

The Clinic is a 4 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 3 credit clinic and the 1 credit field component, taken concurrently. The 3 credit clinic and 1 credit field component are mandatory graded and ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election.

The Clinic fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

For students who matriculated in or after May 2016, the Clinic can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, fulfill the upper-level writing requirement, or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement -- it cannot be used to fulfill more than one of these three particular requirements.

• Type: Clinic
• Grading Method: Mandatory Graded
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

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
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

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

• Type: First Year Required
• Grading Method: Mandatory Graded
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

This course is an introduction to data and information privacy law. It will survey the common law, statutory, and regulatory regimes governing firms that collect, process, use, and store personal information. Students will be exposed to general consumer protection laws that bear on data privacy as well as to statutes, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act, that apply to particular industries or kinds of data. The course will also touch on privacy law in the European Union and on issues involving the international transfer of data.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

This course is designed to prepare you to perform the responsibilities of a 1st year transactional attorney the day you get your key card and parking pass. Primarily platformed through the execution of a business acquisition, students will learn the fundamental skills requisite to provide legal advice and counsel in nearly every business transaction. Throughout the course you will have the opportunity to analyze, negotiate and draft major acquisition agreements and agreements ancillary thereto, including consulting agreements, licensing contracts, board and shareholder authorizations, commercial leases and more. They say mergers & acquisitions attorneys are the "quarterbacks" of the law firm because they must see the entire transaction plan, put everyone in the best position to reach the goal (of closing a deal), and initiate and execute the offense. In that regard, students will also learn transaction project management, the art of managing clients, direct reporting attorneys, supervising attorneys, as well as third-parties involved and implicated by the deal. Client interaction simulation, internal firm communications and proper record generation are key components of this course. This course is presented in a straightforward, plain-English "how to" style, and incorporates law practice management, customer service and general career success strategies. Having taken business organizations or mergers & acquisitions not required.

• Type: Practice Simulation
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL

Lawyers routinely use problem-solving skills to tackle difficult, multi-faceted issues for their clients. But lawyers often overlook the ways in which those same skills can be used to improve their own well-being -- to problem-solve their lives. The National Task Force on Lawyering Well-Being observed that the profession "is falling short when it comes to well-being" and that "the current state of lawyers' health cannot support a profession dedicated to client service and dependent on the public trust."

Central to addressing these challenges is the need for lawyers to develop a framework to design the type of life and vocation that they seek.

This course begins this process by exploring how lawyers can use the skills and innovation principles of problem solving to craft their lives and vocations in and beyond law school. We'll approach these lifelong questions with a structured classroom framework in which students can practice their problem-solving skills with their peers, facilitated by upper level students ("peer mentors") who have completed the course.

Topics include exploring views of work and life, defining success, brainstorming different paths, developing approaches to overcome barriers, and prototyping future plans. This class includes seminar-style discussions, personal written reflections, and guest speakers. The capstone assignment is the creation of a long-term plan, focusing on helping students realize the lives they want following post-graduation.

• Type: Problem Solving Initiative
• Grading Method: Mandatory Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

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
• Grading Method: Mandatory Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL

Early American Legal History

This course will introduce students to the major problems and interpretations in the field of American legal history. Through lectures as well as discussions of cases and secondary materials, the course will survey American public and private legal development from the colonial period through Reconstruction. The course employs a braided narrative, interweaving (a) the chronological story of the transformations in law from the local self-governing federalism of the early republic to the rise of a modern American state with (b) a week-to-week sampling of different historical topics, methods, and problematics. Topics to be covered this semester include: the role of law in colonialism, constitutionalism and the American founding, the relationship of law and the emergence of capitalism, legal liberalism, and the transformation of American law in the contests over slavery and civil war. The course also attempts to introduce some of the theoretical and historiographical perspectives that have fueled recent developments in the field

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

Electronic and Class Action Discovery

Electronic (or e-) discovery and class action discovery have revolutionized Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and its ensuing implementing rules. Electronic communication has become so pervasively the prescribed currency of ordinary business and personal discourse that vast amounts of contemporaneously-created information and documentation that simply did not exist before the electronic communications revolution are now available to shed light on every conceivably relevant aspect of legally significant events. The amount of information that has become available electronically (electronically stored information, or ESI), in turn, is so enormous--and so permanent in character--that an entire jurisprudence is developing around the obligation to preserve metadata, the consequences of failure to do so, the allocation of responsibility between litigating parties to bear the enormous cost of extracting and producing this information and even broader conceptual issues like whether traditional doctrines like the statute of limitations and laches should be adjusted to account for the ubiquity and permanency of metadata.

In tandem with the explosion of jurisprudence relating to electronic discovery has been the creation of similar jurisprudence surrounding the maintenance of class actions. At the forefront of class certification jurisprudence is burgeoning case law and rulemaking regarding the permissible scope of discovery in class actions. What pre-certification discovery is appropriate to determine whether a class is suitable? May pre-certification discovery implicate the merits of a dispute, or must it be restricted to discovery which goes only to the issue of whether the criteria of Rule 23 have been met? Who should bear the burden of expense for conducting this discovery? To what extent is electronic discovery available in putative class actions, and are the operative rules pertaining to the availability of electronic discovery different when discovery can be conducted as to literally thousands of putative class members?

Our course will examine electronic and class discovery comprehensively from the ground up. Our primary textbook will be Scheindlin et al's "Electronic Discovery and Digital Evidence: Cases and Materials, 3d," to be supplemented by cases and materials provided by the instructor to address specific class discovery issues and new and breaking developments in this highly fluid area of the law. In the e-discovery context, we will discuss the components of electronic discovery; the obligation to preserve, collect and produce information and the time when that obligation that begins; the sources of ESI; the principles promulgated by the Sedona Conference which have guided the development of the jurisprudence; judicially-approved techniques for the extraction of this data; and the sanctions for failure to preserve or produce evidence. In the class action context, we will discuss the contours of the discovery rules as they apply to class actions; the limits of relevancy in the class certification context; the jurisprudence which has developed regarding the permissible scope of inquiry at the pre-certification and post-certification stage of discovery; and the unique issues posed by seeking electronic discovery in the class action setting.

Since much of discovery practice pertaining to electronic and class discovery involves weighing competing considerations of relevance on the one hand and burden and expense on the other, the course will emphasize both the theory and the practice pertaining to these forms of discovery.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

In this seminar survey course students are introduced to major areas of poverty law as well as access to justice issues facing our legal system.

Through readings and classroom discussions with experts, students will explore emerging issues in poverty law such as:

* Housing: landlord/tenant - eviction defense, subsidized housing and mortgage foreclosure defense;

* Family: domestic violence - protection orders and child custody and child support;

* Government entitlements: Food Stamps, Medicaid, Social Security Disability - SSI, Social Security Retirement, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (welfare);

* Consumer protection: fair debt collection, bankruptcy, fair credit reporting, truth in lending and unfair and deceptive acts and practices;

* Worker-side employment and Unemployment Insurance;

* Education law: expulsions and special education;

* Elder law; and

* Access to justice.

Students choose a pressing poverty law issue and write a modest length paper and present it to the class. Grades will be based on class presentation and paper.

• Type: Seminar
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: WR

Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation

This course is an introduction to the various subjects that comprise the employee benefits and executive compensation legal specialties. The course will emphasize the overall structure and policy underpinnings of rules governing employer-sponsored retirement and health plans in the U.S., as well as executive compensation arrangements such as stock option and deferred compensation plans. The federal income tax code and Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) are the most prominent sources of these rules, but benefit arrangements are also regulated by other laws, including the Affordable Care Act as well as securities and employment discrimination statutes. The course will survey the relevant portions of all these topics, with detailed analysis of selected issues and applications to transactions such as corporate mergers and acquisitions. Taxation of Individual Income (747) is highly recommended but not a required prerequisite.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: SR

This course focuses most prominently on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." The course considers the basic frameworks for proving discrimination under Title VII and the jurisprudence defining Title VII's protected classes. The course also investigates newer Title VII fields, like the law of sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination. The course then compares Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which protects "a qualified individual with a disability" from employment discrimination based on his disability. The course explores the jurisprudence on who counts as a disabled person for purposes of the ADA, and examines the rights that a protected person enjoys under the statute. In addition, the course considers various state and local employment discrimination statutes.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: SR

The Zell Entrepreneurship Clinic (ZEC) supports the University's burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystem by representing student-led entrepreneurial ventures as well as local startups and small businesses. Student attorneys in the ZEC encounter real-world transactional lawyering experiences with a focus on developing a business-oriented, client-centered mindset.

The ZEC offers transactional and counseling legal services to startups and established small companies in the following areas:

* Selecting and forming a legal entity and structuring ownership and capital

* Counseling on and prosecuting intellectual property matters (e.g., copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret)

* Drafting and negotiating contracts

* Advising on employment matters

* Assisting on corporate fundraising and finance issues

Students in the ZEC typically represent multiple clients and assume primary responsibility for all client matters under the close supervision of ZEC faculty. Student attorneys plan client matters; interview and counsel clients; draft various legal agreements, documents, correspondence and memos; prosecute patent and trademark applications; and identify and research legal issues to help their clients implement their decisions. Student attorneys also take turns offering community office hours where they provide legal information to local entrepreneurs. Furthermore, student attorneys are exposed to the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem through attendance of local events as a class. During the weekly seminar sessions, students discuss lawyering skills and values, ethical issues, client issues and some substantive law. Student attorneys review and reflect on their work and receive detailed feedback from ZEC faculty during weekly supervision meetings.

There are no prerequisites for taking the ZEC. Because much of the client work will be in corporate, tax, intellectual property, employment, and other business areas, students will likely find prior course work in those areas helpful.

• Type: Clinic
• Grading Method: Mandatory Graded
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: PR

In the last two decades, federal prosecutors have brought more criminal cases against corporations for environmental crimes than for any other form of white collar crime, and criminal enforcement has become an integral part of pollution prevention efforts in the United States. This course considers the criminal provisions of federal environmental laws, including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act, and their application in selected precedent-setting prosecutions. We focus on the legal and policy issues raised by prosecution of corporations and their officers and employees, including the role of criminal enforcement in a complex statutory and regulatory scheme, the coordination of parallel criminal, civil, and administrative proceedings, and controversies surrounding the government's strategies, including obtaining corporate waiver of attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: SR

Every day with regard to the environment, decisions are made and actions are taken that disproportionately impact people of color, indigenous peoples, and the poor. Can we ever achieve environmental justice through the law?

This course examines whether and how our legal system can address environmental racism and other forms of environmental injustice. After covering the history of the environmental justice movement as both a social and legal phenomenon, we will explore and assess the legal frameworks available to address environmental injustice. With regard to legal frameworks, we will spend most of our time on tort, civil rights, environmental-administrative, and land use & zoning. The environmental administrative framework will include pollution control laws (e.g. Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act), utility rate-setting, management of natural resources & public lands, and climate change. Apart from traditional legal materials, we will also read social science & public health scholarship, newspaper articles, history, philosophy, and literature.

• Type: Seminar
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: WR

The Clinic offers students the opportunity to learn to be effective advocates while representing the National Wildlife Federation. NWF pursues its mission to conserve wildlife in administrative, judicial, and legislative forums, and through a wide range of educational programs and publications. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. Clinical work will teach students the mechanics of litigation, primarily in state or federal appellate venues, as well as pertinent environmental laws and administrative law. Students will also practice investigative, research, and writing skills. Class work will introduce students to principles and techniques relevant to the clinical work, and may include such subjects as drafting pleadings and motions; oral argument; and negotiation. The Clinic is a graded seven-credit-hour offering. Students must enroll in the 4 credit clinic and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently. Credits count toward New York's pro bono requirement. Courses in administrative and environmental law are not prerequisites, but would be helpful.

The Clinic fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL

The Clinic offers students the opportunity to learn to be effective advocates while representing the National Wildlife Federation. NWF pursues its mission to conserve wildlife in administrative, judicial, and legislative forums, and through a wide range of educational programs and publications. The course has both a clinical and a classroom component. Clinical work will teach students the mechanics of litigation, primarily in state or federal appellate venues, as well as pertinent environmental laws and administrative law. Students will also practice investigative, research, and writing skills. Class work will introduce students to principles and techniques relevant to the clinical work, and may include such subjects as drafting pleadings and motions; oral argument; and negotiation. The Clinic is a graded seven-credit-hour offering. Students must enroll in the 4 credit clinic and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently. Credits count toward New York's pro bono requirement. Courses in administrative and environmental law are not prerequisites, but would be helpful.

The Clinic fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: PR

This seminar will examine central concepts of moral philosophy and normative ethics, with attention to applications in law and statecraft. Specific topics may include utilitarianism, rights, wellbeing, social contract theory, abortion, self defense, racial profiling, criminal punishment, torture, and warfare. There will be several short writing assignments and a final paper.

• Type: Seminar
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: WR

What is the European Union and how does it work? The EU remains our single largest trading partner and our most important regulatory counterpart around the world. The EU is also a key benchmark against which we assess the effectiveness of international legal regimes from trade in goods and services to migration and human rights. And yet, as an institution of governance, the EU itself is often poorly understood.

This course assumes no prior knowledge of international, transnational, or European law or politics. It will introduce you to the basic structure of the European Union, and to core substantive law from free trade and the common market to citizenship, migration, and fundamental human rights. The course covers what every lawyer needs to know about the Union and its path from international organization to body politic.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: IC, WR

What is the European Union and how does it work? The EU remains our single largest trading partner and our most important regulatory counterpart around the world. The EU is also a key benchmark against which we assess the effectiveness of international legal regimes from trade in goods and services to migration and human rights. And yet, as an institution of governance, the EU itself is often poorly understood.

This course assumes no prior knowledge of international, transnational, or European law or politics. It will introduce you to the basic structure of the European Union, and to core substantive law from free trade and the common market to citizenship, migration, and fundamental human rights. The course covers what every lawyer needs to know about the Union and its path from international organization to body politic.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: IC

This course focuses on the procedural rules that regulate the use of evidence at trial. The rules covered include those relating to the competence of witnesses, the mode of examination, relevance, impeachment, character evidence, hearsay, expert evidence, privileges, and judicial notice. Particular attention is paid to the Federal Rules of Evidence.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

This course focuses on the procedural rules that regulate the use of evidence at trial. The rules covered include those relating to the competence of witnesses, the mode of examination, relevance, impeachment, character evidence, hearsay, expert evidence, privileges, and judicial notice. Particular attention is paid to the Federal Rules of Evidence.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

This course simulates the real-life practice of family law. The course has two primary goals. First, you will learn the principles of drafting transactional, non-litigation documents, such as settlement proposal letters, custody agreements, and agreement addenda. You will also draft litigation pleadings, discovery documents and learn trial advocacy. The course emphasizes role play, hands-on exercises and individualized critique of student work. This course is extremely practical for aspiring litigators in any discipline. Topics covered include, but are not limited to, custody, child support, grounds of divorce, spousal support, and property distribution. Having previously taken family law is beneficial, but not required.

• Type: Practice Simulation
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL

This course will examine laws administered by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration with a focus on the regulation of drug development and drug sales. Topics to be covered include the new drug approval process, regulatory obstacles to generic drug competition, regulatory sources of exclusivity in drug markets including the Orphan Drug Act and the Hatch-Waxman Act, reimportation of approved drugs from abroad, internet drug sales, prescription versus over-the-counter drug sales, and regulation of advertising claims made to physicians and consumers. We will also consider the relationship between drug regulation and other laws, including patent, antitrust and tort laws. Time permitting, we will examine recent state legislative measures designed to reduce the costs of new drugs. There will be no final examination. Students will be required to write a 25-page research paper.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: SR

National antitrust policy under the Sherman, Federal Trade Commission, and Clayton Acts. Restraints of trade and monopoly problems including agreements among competitors (such as price-fixing, trade associations, and joint ventures), vertical relationships (such as resale price maintenance and exclusive territories), single firm exclusionary conduct (such as predatory pricing and predatory product innovation), and merger policy. Students do not need to have any prior economic training, but should be prepared to learn some basic industrial organizational theory and microeconomics.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: N/A
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

In the Federal Appellate Litigation Clinic, second- and third-year law students will gain hands-on experience in various stages of federal appellate litigation. Under the supervision of their clinic instructors, students will prepare and file briefs on behalf of criminal defendants and/or habeas petitioners in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Each student will manage an appeal from its inception, and will gain hands-on experience by reviewing the district court record and identifying issues for appeal, developing a theory of the case, researching substantive law, and preparing the client's merits brief. When appropriate in view of timing and subject matter considerations, students will have an opportunity to write reply briefs and conduct oral arguments in Cincinnati before a panel of judges on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Weekly class meetings will include case discussions and instruction on how to litigate effectively a federal criminal appeal. Students will meet frequently with instructors who will provide individualized feedback as students prepare their appellate briefs and oral arguments. In addition to developing their written and oral advocacy skills, students can expect to gain an understanding of the practical aspects of federal appellate litigation. While the clinic will be relevant to all students of law, it will be particularly valuable to students who plan to pursue federal clerkships or who have an interest in criminal or appellate litigation. The Federal Appellate Litigation Clinic meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. FALC is a 5 credit course of which all credits are graded.

The Clinic fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

For students who matriculated in or after May 2016, the Clinic can either fulfill the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, fulfill the upper-level writing requirement, or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement -- it cannot be used to fulfill more than one of these three particular requirements.

• Type: Clinic
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL, PR, WR

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
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

The practice/simulation course introduces students to the major categories of federal criminal investigations -- public corruption, national security,

organized crime, economic crime, drug and firearm offenses, and child

exploitation -- to the law enforcement agencies that conduct these

investigations, to the techniques they use (e.g. electronic

surveillance, search warrants, and informants) and to the front-line

constitutional issues at stake. The course then turns to the role of the

prosecutor, focusing on the critical strategic decisions made by

assistant United States attorneys during grand jury investigations, plea

negotiations, trial, and sentencing. Caselaw and statutory materials are

supplemented by guest lectures and panel discussions that include

representatives from the principle federal law enforcement agencies --

FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE, and Secret Service -- as well as transcripts from

recent prosecutions in the Eastern District of Michigan. Students will

draft search warrants and indictments, argue from both the government

and defense perspective in mock detention and sentencing hearings,

negotiate plea agreements, calculate sentencing guidelines, and conduct

voir dire, as well as observe first-hand ongoing federal criminal cases

in Ann Arbor and Detroit.

• Type: Practice Simulation
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL

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 get to practice a crucial and often overlooked kind of feedback: self-feedback.

• Type: Practice Simulation
• Grading Method: Mandatory Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL, WR

The course introduces students to the legal aspects of filmmaking. Using the production cycle as a road map (from fundraising and marketing to insurance and distribution), we'll explore applicable substantive law (e.g., fair use, free speech, privacy), consider how relationships among principals are structured (e.g., producers, directors, talent, investors), analyze the main types of contracts negotiated (e.g., licensing, services, distribution, investment deals), and investigate the kind of disputes that typically arise in the film production context (e.g., credit, ownership, payment). The goal of the class is to provide students with a working knowledge of relevant doctrines as well as insight into the ways film productions are structured and managed through contracts and risk analysis.

• Type: Upper Class
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

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
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

The Full-Time Externship Program offers an exciting opportunity to augment classroom study with real-world work experience. Students (under the guidance of both a Law School faculty member and a field placement site supervisor) immerse themselves full-time in legal work with local, state, and federal governmental agencies, and with nonprofit organizations located throughout the country and world. The externship is expected the complete the student's personal agenda of study, complementing courses carefully chosen at the Law School and enabling the student to pursue sophisticated work and research in a particular field beyond our curricular offerings.

Students will receive twelve credits total, eleven for the field work portion and one for the accompanying seminar (Law 941). Since field placement proposals must be approved by a faculty committee, EVEN IF A STUDENT DOES NOT HAVE A PLACEMENT FINALIZED, the student must apply for a Full-Time Externship by the proposal deadline, which is set every semester, and is typically 6 to 8 weeks prior to the end of classes the semester before the externship. Thus, e.g., if a student wants to extern in the fall, the proposal deadline will likely be in March the semester prior to departure. If a student's placement is not secured, the student is welcome, even encouraged, to propose a few potential placements for faculty consideration.

For more information, visit our website at https://www.law.umich.edu/curriculum/externshipsandindependentstudy/Pages/default.aspx or contact lawexternships@umich.edu. We are happy to meet with students to answer questions, give guidance on potential placements, provide information on how to apply, etc. Further, every semester we hold an informational meeting, so please watch for that announcement. Please note that if students are interested in the Geneva, India, or South Africa Externship Programs, they should visit the websites for each of those programs separately, as their details and deadlines are different.

• Type: Externship
• Grading Method: Mandatory Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL, Non-64

This contemporaneous, one-credit seminar is held every semester as a required companion to the Full-Time Externship (Law 940). For more information, please visit the course description for Law 940.

• Type: Externship
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL, Non-64

Gun control raises legal issues cutting across a host of subjects central to the US legal system: constitutional powers and rights, federalism concerns and municipal autonomy, state and local legislation and regulation, law enforcement and criminal sanctions, regulatory approaches and civil liability. Underlying these more particular issues are larger questions about the difficulty to reach political and social consensus, the unique situation in the United States (when compared with other countries), and even the relationship between political freedom and citizenship access to firearms.

• Type: Seminar
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: WR

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights was pivotal in popularizing the use of "human dignity" in human rights discourse; human rights are increasingly seen as based on the concept of "human dignity." But what does the concept of "human dignity" mean? In the legal context, it has become increasingly clear that "human dignity" is a vital yet increasingly contested term. Apparently rival conceptions of the human person and the common good of society are emerging from this concept. This seminar will study the use of "human dignity" in modern constitutional and human rights law, in the U.S. and elsewhere, and consider its historical and philosophical background. We shall consider whether "human dignity" possesses a basic minimum core, and whether it provides a universalistic, principled basis for judicial decision-making in the human rights context, or whether the meaning of dignity is context specific, varying significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and over time within particular jurisdictions. Potential students may prepare for this class by reviewing Professor McCrudden's article "Human Dignity in Human Rights Interpretation," 19 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 655 (2008), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1162024.

• Type: Seminar
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: WR

The Human Trafficking Clinic (HTC), launched in 2009, is the first clinical law program solely dedicated to the issue of human trafficking. Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery, forced labor, and servitude.

The HTC offers students the opportunity to work on both domestic and international human trafficking issues and cases. The HTC provides a range of services, including direct representation of both domestic trafficking victims and foreign nationals trafficked into the United States, advocacy for trafficking victims, and community education and training. The HTC also provides students with the opportunity to learn, practice, and improve essential advocacy skills. Students working in the HTC obtain real-world experience by working on behalf of victims of human trafficking. They also collaborate with a variety of stakeholders, including survivors of human trafficking, law enforcement, government officials, and nongovernmental organizations, to identify solutions to combat human trafficking. Students are responsible, under supervision, for all of the cases and projects within the HTC.

The HTC is a 7 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 4 credit clinic and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently. The 4 credit clinic and 3 credit seminar are mandatory graded and ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P") election.

The Clinic seminar fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

The Clinic fulfills the International or Comparative Law Distribution Requirement for graduation.

• Type: Clinic
• Grading Method: Mandatory Graded
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL, IC

The Human Trafficking Clinic (HTC), launched in 2009, is the first clinical law program solely dedicated to the issue of human trafficking. Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery, forced labor, and servitude.

The HTC offers students the opportunity to work on both domestic and international human trafficking issues and cases. The HTC provides a range of services, including direct representation of both domestic trafficking victims and foreign nationals trafficked into the United States, advocacy for trafficking victims, and community education and training. The HTC also provides students with the opportunity to learn, practice, and improve essential advocacy skills. Students working in the HTC obtain real-world experience by working on behalf of victims of human trafficking. They also collaborate with a variety of stakeholders, including survivors of human trafficking, law enforcement, government officials, and nongovernmental organizations, to identify solutions to combat human trafficking. Students are responsible, under supervision, for all of the cases and projects within the HTC.

The HTC is a 7 credit course and meets the New York Pro-Bono requirement. Students must enroll in the 4 credit clinic and the 3 credit seminar, taken concurrently. The 4 credit clinic and 3 credit seminar are mandatory graded and ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass ("P").

The Clinic seminar fulfills the Law School's professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

The Clinic fulfills the International or Comparative Law Distribution Requirement for graduation.

• Type: Clinic
• Grading Method: Mandatory Graded
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: PR, IC

Spend a semester working with other students to support lawyers from the Michigan Immigration Rights Center who work on asylum cases here in Michigan. Under faculty supervision, students will deepen their understanding of immigration law and policy, develop historical and legal research skills, and explore the history of violence and migration in Central America since the 1980s through work on real-life asylum cases. They will also learn to summarize and translate historical texts, research effective legal arguments, and contribute to developing a national research database for use in asylum cases. This class is ideal for students who are eager to work conscientiously and ethically with others in teams. Instructor permission required.

• Type: Practice Simulation
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL, IC

Innovation in the Life Sciences

The life sciences generate tremendously exciting new innovations--drugs to cure cancer, algorithms to predict disease and recommend treatment, and medical devices that can pull individual cells out of the bloodstream for analysis. These technologies are the object of a complex array of laws that govern their invention, development and deployment. This seminar will provide an introduction to this set of laws, focusing on how they provide incentives for and shape the process of innovation. We will likely consider some combination of intellectual property, FDA gatekeeping and regulatory exclusivity, insurance reimbursement, prize systems, and potentially other regimes. While there are no prerequisites, including no requirement for a technical background, students should be prepared to grapple with both biomedical technologies and with the mix of law and policy questions presented.

• Type: Seminar
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled:

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 (bpilz@umich.edu), 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
• Grading Method: Optional Pass/Fail
• Degree Requirements Fulfilled: EL, Non-64