One of the hallmarks of being a student at Michigan Law is the unusual level of access to and interaction with professors. The mini-seminar program takes that experience to a whole new level.
If you thought you knew your favorite professors before, consider the insights you’ll have after you’ve had dinner at their houses while their children run around in diapers. And for the reserved student who has avoided more than cursory visits to office hours, the mini-seminar presents the perfect opportunity to take advantage of one of the most special features of our community.
Implemented in 2005, the program has proved enormously popular with students and faculty alike. The mini-seminars capitalize on both the Law School’s unique physical environment, where most faculty live within a stone’s throw of the Quadrangle, and our ethos of collegiality, to provide a new venue for personal connections between students and faculty in a casual forum.
For one ungraded credit, groups of 10 or 12 students meet with a professor (or two) over the course of a semester (or in some cases, the entire academic year) to hold provocative conversations in a series of two-hour sessions in the professor’s home or some other non-classroom setting. Some 1L mini-seminars offer no credit.
The seminar’s theme is faculty-selected—often intensively law-focused, balanced by a handful of topics that might be described as marginally legal. About 15 mini-seminars are offered each year.
2025-2026 Mini-Seminar Topics
Fall
- The Concept of Wilderness (Prof. Nicolas Cornell)
- Criminal Justice Reform by Comedian Jon Oliver (Prof. Imran Syed)
- Ecotheology and the Law: An Exploration of Religious Exercise and Environmental Protection (Prof. Oday Salim)
- Foundational Texts in International Law: Crawford and Anghie (Profs. Julian Arato and Kristina Daugirdas)
- Law and Letters (Prof. Patrick Barry)
- Lawyering When the Law is Against You (Prof. Paulina Arnold)
- Lemonade: Race, Resilience, and Beyoncé (Prof. Jenna Cobb)
- Litigation Against the Second Trump Administration (Prof. Richard Friedman)
- Mind Control in Dystopian Fiction (Prof. Gabe Mendlow)
- The University and Democratic Society (Prof. Sam Bagenstos)
- Women in the Legal Profession (Prof. Rachel Rothschild)
Year-Round (Fall/Winter)
- Lawyering in Washington, DC (Prof. Chris Walker)
- Reading the Michigan Law Faculty (Prof. Gil Seinfeld)
Fall 2025 Mini-seminar Information
Winter
2L/3Ls
- Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and the Law (Prof. Julia Lee)
- Finding Career Satisfaction in Your 100-Year Life (Prof. Matthew Andres)
- International Human Rights in Film (Prof. Steven Ratner)
- Isaac Asimov’s Robot Series (Prof. Tim Pinto)
- Law and History Through Graphic Novels (Prof. Emily Prifogle)
- Lawyers Doing Math (It Happens) (Prof. Belisa Pang)
- Learning the Law by Avoiding It (Prof. David Santacroce)
- Legal Storytelling and Juvenile Delinquency (Prof. Frank Vandervort)
- Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (Prof. Matthew Fletcher)
- The Nuts and Bolts of Clerking (Profs. Jessica Lefort and Kerry Kornblatt)
- Private Enforcement (Prof. Maureen Carroll)
- Recent Developments in Cannabis Law (Profs. Howard Bromberg and Mark Osbeck)
- What Can Short Stories Teach Us About Life, Law, and Life Within the Law? (Prof. Steve Schaus)
Winter 2026 Mini-seminar Information for 2Ls and 3Ls
1Ls
- 1A41L (Prof. Len Niehoff)
- Let’s Talk About Health Justice (Prof. Debra Chopp)
- The Life of a People’s Lawyer: Using the Law to Advance Social Justice (Prof. Michael Steinberg)