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Last revised: November 16, 2006
(This includes all changes through the issuance of the
Spring 2007 Schedule of Classes.)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
Not all elective courses and seminars are offered each year.
Some elective courses are only offered during the evening
hours, beginning at 6:00 p.m. or later. The Law School reserves
the right to add, delete, or change any course, or the credit
for any course, or the courses required for graduation, at
any time. Some elective courses and all seminars and clinical
programs have limited enrollments and may not be available
for every student who wants to take them. Course descriptions
that have been added or revised since 2001 are indicated by
a notation of the date the description was added or revised.
[Elective Courses] [Litigation
and Practice Skills] [Seminars]
REQUIRED COURSES
Doctrinal Courses
Law 258 Civil Procedure. A study of basic restrictions
upon the procedural systems of both the federal and state
courts, and various aspects of civil litigation in the federal
system. The course focuses on the requirements of due process
as a limitation upon the personal jurisdiction that courts
may exercise over defendants and on the subject matter jurisdiction
of the federal courts imposed by Article III and congressional
legislation. The course also addresses pleadings, challenges
and amendments to pleadings, pretrial discovery, adjudication
without trial, and other procedural issues. Five credit
hours.
Law 275 Constitutional Law. This course provides an
introduction to the fundamental law of the United States as
set forth in the Constitution and developed primarily by the
United States Supreme Court. It addresses Supreme Court review,
separation of powers, federalism, and the protection of individual
rights under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process and Equal
Protection Clauses. Specific topics include the Commerce Clause,
race and sex discrimination, abortion and the right to privacy,
and the concept of state action. These topics are explored
in the context of the historical and theoretical foundations
of American constitutionalism, including the role of the Supreme
Court in American government and the controversy over different
approaches to constitutional interpretation. Four credit hours.
Law 251 Contracts. A study of issues of contract formation,
interpretation, breach, defenses, and remedies. Contract doctrines
such as "consideration" and "offer and acceptance"
and modern deviations from the traditional model are presented,
as are various defenses to the prima facie case of contractual
obligation. These include the traditional defenses of duress,
misrepresentation, mistake, impossibility, and frustration.
The contract remedies of monetary damages, specific performance,
rescission and reformation are also explored. Among the other
issues that may be studied are the parol evidence rule, the
statute of frauds, and the rights of third party beneficiaries.
Five credit hours.
Law 257 Criminal Law. A study of the general principles
of criminal liability, including the justification of punishment,
general concepts of act and fault, principles of justification
and excuse, the significance of resulting harm, and accountability
for acts of others. Certain specific crimes, such as murder
and manslaughter, are also examined. Modern statutory developments
provide a significant focus for study. Three credit hours.
Law 206 Legislative Process. This course provides an
introduction to the creation, implementation, and interpretation
of statutes. Topics addressed in the course include: how a
statutue works its way through the legislative system; the
roles that different institutions play in a statute's passage,
interpretation, and enforcement; alternatives to our legislative
processes; the ways in which statutues embody public policy;
theories and doctrines of statutory interpretation; and the
role of coures in the interpretive process. Three credit hours.
(added 8/05)
Law 415 Professional Responsibility. This course is
designed to prepare students to recognize and deal with ethical
issues in the practice of law. Topics investigated include:
conflicts of interest, actual and potential, and the limits
on representation required; confidentiality in the context
of an adversarial system; lawyers' responsibilities as advocates
in and out of the courtroom; ethical problems encountered
by corporate and government lawyers; special problems facing
prosecution and criminal defense lawyers; advertising and
solicitation; and admission to the Bar. Actual and hypothetical
problems are analyzed in light of the Code of Professional
Responsibility and the Model Rules of Professional Conduct,
subjecting both sets of rules to critical analysis. Two credit
hours.
Law 261 Property. An introduction to the law of property.
Topics include: the meaning of ownership, including the right
to exclude and the right to use reasonably; methods of acquiring
ownership; the division of ownership into present and future
interests; landlord and tenant law; multiple ownership; non-possessory
interests and private arrangements for the control of use.
Four credit hours.
Law 253 Torts. An introduction to the basic principles
of liability for harm caused to the person or property of
others. The basic topics covered include the general elements
of the plaintiffs prima facie case (legal injury, tortious
conduct, actual causation and proximate causation), the various
types of tortious conduct (intentional negligence, etc.),
the relevant privileges and defenses that can be raised by
the defendant (e.g. defense of self or others, contributory
negligence, and consent or assumption of risk), and the underlying
principles or policies justifying and limiting liability.
Additional topics may be covered, such as various types of
traditional strict liability (e.g. liability for nuisances
and ultra hazardous activities), an introduction to modern
products liability, vicarious liability, immunities, types
of damages and other remedies, and allocation of liability
among multiple responsible parties. Five credit hours.
Legal Writing Courses
Students who begin law school in Fall 2002 or after are
required to take Legal Writing 1, Legal Writing 2, Legal Writing
3, Legal Writing 4, and a seminar. Students who began law
school prior to Fall 2002 should see the Assistant Dean for
Academic Administration and Student Affairs about their legal
writing requirements.
(revised 11/04)
Law 259 Legal Writing 1. An introduction to legal
analysis, research, and writing through the preparation
of legal memoranda, client letters, and other assignments.
This course emphasizes the basic skills and tools of analysis
and research, and the fundamentals of good writing. Students
research and write legal memoranda and other documents of
increasing length and complexity; develop research skills,
both individually and in group projects; and learn editing
skills and the basics of legal ethics. Students rewrite
several assignments after written comments from and in-person
conferences with the professor. Three credit hours.
Law 260 Legal Writing 2. This course provides additional
instruction in legal research, analysis, and writing, with
a focus on written and oral advocacy. Students write both
a trial and an appellate brief, and are introduced to oral
advocacy through preparing and presenting a mock appellate
argument. Two credit hours.
Law 431 Legal Writing 3. This course provides an introduction
to non-litigation oriented transactional issues and documents,
through shorter assignments than are the norm in Legal Writing
1 and 2, and on oral communication with colleagues and clients.
One credit hour.
Law 432 Legal Writing 4. This course focuses on specialized
legal research in areas such as environmental law, intellectual
property, labor/employment law, and international law, and
on drafting legal instruments common to these areas. Students
are introduced to research resources and techniques in the
particular area of focus, as well as in legislative history,
administrative materials, international legal materials, and
empirical research. Students typically will prepare several
legal instruments for the specialty area and may be assigned
a major paper in the subject area. Three credit hours.
ELECTIVE COURSES
Law 359 Accounting for Lawyers. There is something
about a law student that just doesn't love accounting. Maybe
it's the numbers, although accounting involves only one
basic formula and some addition and subtraction. Or perhaps
you don't know much about business. This aversion to accounting
is unfortunate, not because it's universally enjoyable to
study (although it can be gratifying and sometimes even
fun). It's unfortunate because accounting plays such an
important role in many areas of law practice. Accounting
is the language of business and your clients are likely
to have interests that involve financial matters. Lawyers
should understand certain fundamental things about accounting
and financial statements. Familiarity with accounting concepts
has become even more important since the 2001 Enron scandal,
followed by the obstruction of justice conviction and collapse
of its auditor, Arthur Anderson and Company. Accounting
fraud also affected WorldCom and many other public and private
companies. A lawyer with knowledge of accounting fundamentals
may be able to recognize "red flags" that suggest
their client or another party has committed financial fraud.
The Preface states that the casebook "strives to make
accounting as teachable as possible to law students, recognizing
that many law students approach the subject with considerable
trepidation." Students are not assumed to know anything
about accounting or business when the course begins. All
you need is a couple of pencils and several erasers. Students
who have taken more than one course of undergraduate accounting
may not enroll in the course. Two credit hours.
(revised 11/04)
Law 372 Administrative Law. A study of the legal problems
involved in the creation, functioning, and control of government
agencies (other than courts or legislatures) that engage in
rule making or adjudication. Particular attention is given
to the constitutional constraints on agency action, including
those imposed by due process, separation of powers, and the
nondelegation doctrine. The investigative functions of agencies
and the timing, method, and scope of judicial review of an
agency's actions also are covered. Three credit hours.
Law 427 ADR in the Workplace. This will be a practical
class covering employment-related ADR (alternative dispute
resolution) both in the union setting, focusing on collective
bargaining and arbitration, and in the non-union setting,
focusing on mediation and arbitration. Three credit hours.
(added 11/04)
Law 314 Advanced Criminal Law. This course covers substantive
criminal law issues either omitted from the required criminal
law course or not covered in depth. There will likely be five
main topics: punishment, focusing on the death penalty; defenses,
focusing on self-defense, necessity, duress, and insanity;
inchoate crimes, including conspiracy and solicitation; and
specific crimes, particularly rape and offenses against property.
Three credit hours.
Law 268 Advanced Issues in Family Law. This course
addresses a variety of current family law issues, including
divorce taxation, the drafting of prenuptial agreements, effective
discovery strategies in divorce litigation, evaluation of
closely-held businesses, treatment of deferred income plans,
and effective use of expert witnesses. Recommended preparation:
Family Law. Three credit hours.
(added 12/02)
Law 301 Advanced Property: Real Estate Transactions.
This course involves a detailed examination of the legal issues
arising in connection with the purchase and sale of real property.
Topics include: the role of brokers in real estate transactions,
the contract of purchase and sale, instruments of conveyance,
warranties of title, recording acts, title insurance and other
forms of title assurance, warranties of condition and other
forms of quality assurance and the financing and closing of
real estate transactions. The course examines real estate
transactions from a practitioner's perspective, as well as
from a more theoretical standpoint. Three credit hours.
Law 446 Advanced Torts. The first-year Torts course
is limited, mainly by credit-hour-restrictions, to convering
concepts related to attempted recovery for physical injuries
to the person caused by one's negligence, intentional acts,
or abnormally dangerous activities. In Advanced Torts, students
will analyze actions that seek to protect against intangible
or economic injuries. Among the topics that may be considered
are: Defamation, the Right of Privacy, the Right to Publicity,
Fraud and Deceit, Interference with Contractual Relations,
Interference with Prospective Advantage, Injurious Falsehood,
Malicious Procedution, Abuse of Process, and various Statutory
Torts. In addition, there will be a review of the so-called
"tort reforms" enacted by Congress and state legislatures
in recent years. Two credit hours.
Law 277 Agency Law. This course addresses basic principles
of agency law, particularly the doctrines associated with
authority, vicarious responsibility, and fiduciary duty. It
also addresses how agency principles and doctrines are applied
in such areas as legal ethics, corporation law, contract law,
civil procedure, criminal law, torts, and constitutional law.
Two credit hours.
Law 375 American Legal History. This is a survey course
that examines major themes and interpretations in the history
of American law from the end of the eighteenth century to
the middle of the twentieth. Our primary goal is to explore
the relationship between historical change and changes in
the law and legal institutions. Topics include law in colonial
and revolutionary America, changing understandings of the
U.S Constitution, the law of slavery, the Civil War, the rise
of the corporation and the modern state, debates over the
meaning of rights, and developments in legal education and
the legal profession. We will also consider how shifts in
American culture relate to shifts in legal doctrine, including
contract law, torts, property, family law, and criminal law.
Requirements include regular participation in class discussion
and a take-home final exam. Three credit hours.
(revised 8/05)
Law 363 Antitrust. A study of antitrust law concerning
problems of monopolies, price fixing, horizontal and vertical
restraints on trade and mergers. The major federal legislation
in the field, including the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act,
are considered in detail. Three credit hours.
Law 223 Appellate Courts and Procedure. Appellate courts
make important case law decisions and supervise courts below
them in the judicial hierarchy. This course will examine the
functions of appeals and appellate courts, and the process
of appellate review: appellate jurisdiction, standing to appeal,
timing of review, vehicles for obtaining review, the breadth
and depth of review, and appellate lawmaking. The course also
will consider the structure of our appellate courts, and how
those courts and Congress have responded, and may in the future
respond, to the threat to function posed by the increasing
volume of appeals. The course will acquaint students with
the contemporary role of appellate counsel and with the U.S.
Supreme Court's certiorari policies and practices. Although
federal courts will be the main focus, many of the matters
discussed also will be pertinent to state appellate systems.
Three credit hours.
Law 313 Banking Law. A study of the law of commercial
banking with special emphasis on banking as a "regulated
industry." Among the topics included are the history
and structure of the American banking system and of the federal
regulatory agencies; the regulation of traditional banking
activity, including lending limitations; discrimination based
on sex or marital status; usury; reserve requirements; capital
adequacy; interest limits; the formation of a new bank or
branch; branch banking; management interlocks; criminal liability;
attainment of competitive markets; banks' trust powers; and
failing banks and the FDIC. Three credit hours.
Law 435 Bankruptcy. After surveying the rights of creditors
under non-bankruptcy law, this course focuses on how the Bankruptcy
Code deals with those rights and other relationships involving
the debtor. Topics covered include initiation of bankruptcy
proceedings, the stay and its consequences, definition of
the bankruptcy estate, claims, priorities, exemptions, discharge,
avoidance powers, executory contracts, liquidation, reorganization,
and other issues. Three credit hours.
Law 409 Business Organizations. This course examines
how businesses are organized in the United States and the
variety of legal regulations they face. It considers the different
forms of business organizations, including sole proprietorships,
general and limited partnerships, limited liability companies,
and the various forms of incorporated business enterprises,
with the goal of establishing which form of organization is
best suited for a variety of business goals. The course emphasizes
the rights and obligations of the various parties in the business
relationshipBemployees, promoters, partners, and corporate
officers, directors, investors, and stockholders, as well
as their attorneys. Special focus also is devoted to the question
of control of closely-held corporations. These general themes
are examined in the context of specific corporate issues,
including executive compensation; proxy contests; basic securities
fraud and insider trading; and mergers, acquisitions, and
tender offers. The course also includes an introduction to
basic principles of corporate finance. Four credit hours.
Law 238 Chicago Legal Clinic Practicum. The Chicago
Legal Clinic, Inc. (not affiliated with Chicago-Kent) was
established 23 years ago to offer low-cost legal services
to laid-off steel workers and their families. Today the Clinic
has four offices in Chicago and represents more than 12,000
clients a year, including victims of domestic violence, people
with social security problems, clients with immigration issues,
and organizations with environmental concerns. The Pilsen
Office of the Chicago Legal Clinic assists people who are
seeking to become U.S. citizens as well as persons with other
immigration concerns. In addition to offering direct representation
to individual clients, assistance is also offered at citizenship
workshops. This practicum offers a practical overview to Immigration
Law and includes, as cases permit, preparation of documents,
attendance at government interviews and assistance at Administrative
Hearings. The Clinic also provides representation to immigrants
with consumer fraud problems. Opportunities include: gaining
practical legal experience in the areas of immigration and
consumer law with clients of the Chicago Legal Clinic; representing
clients who are seeking to become U.S. citizens as well as
others with immigration problems before the United States
Citizenship and Immigrations Services; counseling immigrants,
seniors and people with disabilities who have limited sources
of income; creating web-based educational materials and presenting
work-shops for social agencies, caseworkers, caretakers and
potential clients. A 711 license is not required. Students
are expected to work an average of 8 hours a week, in addition
to a weekly meeting. No final exam. Two credit hours.
(revised 11/05)
Law 369 Civil Procedure 2. This course will complete
the overview of civil litigation in the federal system. It
will focus on judicial supervision of pretrial conferences,
the promotion of settlements, and incentives to settle; the
trialBincluding the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial,
judicial control of the verdict through judgments as a matter
of law, new trial orders, remittitur and additur, different
kinds of verdicts, and juror impeachment of the verdict; the
preclusive effects of judgments; and pre- and post-judgment
remedies. Three credit hours.
Law 279 Civil RICO. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations Act (RICO) was enacted a generation ago primarily
as a tool for criminal prosecutors to use against organized
crime. Its civil provisions were added to the legislation
as an afterthought and remained largely dormant for a decade.
Today, civil RICO is on the cutting-edge of the debate over
illegal immigration. Mr. Foster has pioneered the use of the
law against employers who hire large numbers of illegal workers
in order to depress wage levels for legal American workers.
These cases have not only made headlines across the country
but have also reached the U.S. Supreme Court. This class will
not only delve into the fundamentals of the RICO statute,
but also touch upon issues of market power over wages, proximate
causation, class action procedure and Supreme Court practice,
concepts with broad application in employment and business
law.
(revised 11/06)
Law 265 Commercial Law: Payment Systems. An examination
of the legal regulation of various methods of payment, with
primary emphasis on checks and wire transfers and some consideration
of letters of credit, credit cards, debit cards, stored-value
cards, and cash. The course also deals with promissory notes,
primarily as a means to explore the concept of negotiability.
Coverage includes Uniform Commercial Code articles 3, 4, 4A,
and 5. Three credit hours.
Law 202 Commercial Law: Secured Transactions. This
course is concerned with the structuring and use of transactions
in which personal propertyBautomobiles, computers, rights
to payment, wheat, etc.Bis used to secure business and consumer
debt. It examines the rights of the parties to a secured transaction
(i.e., debtor and creditor) as between themselves and as against
third parties. The emphasis is on security interests created
under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Three credit
hours.
Law 455 Commercial Law: Survey. This course provides
a survey of the Uniform Commercial Code and is designed for
those students who either do not want to take the individual
commercial law courses (Payment Systems and Secured Transactions),
or have not decided whether to take these courses. Commercial
Law is clearly the most significant substantive subject appearing
on the Illinois Bar Examination, appearing on all four parts
of the exam (the Multistate Bar Examination, the Multistate
Essay Examination, the Illinois Essay Examination, and the
Multistate Performance Examination). In light of the above,
it is advisable that students planning to take the Illinois
Bar Examination should have some exposure to the Code. This
course is not a prerequisite for any other commercial law
course. If you take this course, you will be able to subsequently
(or concurrently) take Payment Systems and/or Secured Transactions.
If you have already taken both Payment Systems and Secured
Transactions, you may not take this course. Four credit hours.
Law 458 Comparative Constitutional Law. This course
will begin with a case study examining a single constitutional
issue from the perspective of
three different constitutional systems. The relationships
between different constitutional systems and the limitations
of comparative analysis will then be discussed more generally.
The next section will look at the role and structure of constitutional
courts, in particular different approaches to judicial review.
Finally, the course will look at constitutional protection
of individual and group rights focusing on the question of
what substantive norms are necessary for a constitutional
system and can such questions be answered across different
constitutional cultures. Prerequisites: Constitutional Law
(please see Professor Harding if you wish to take this course
and are taking Constitutional Law at the same time). Two credit
hours.
(revised 5/03)
Law 430 Comparative Law. This course examines the problems
and issues that arise when a lawyer deals with foreign clients,
foreign lawyers, or foreign law. It focuses on the differences
in substance, procedure, methods, and ways of thinking between
the United States and other countries, revealing the many
ways in which the United States legal system is unique and
evaluating the implications of this uniqueness. The course
examines foreign laws and legal institutions and identifies
ways in which lawyers can learn about and better understand
systems other than their own and develop strategies for dealing
with the effects of differences between systems. Three credit
hours.
(revised 4/05)
Law 473 Comparative Tort Law. Comparative law is important
for at least two reasons. First, law and legal disputes are
increasingly becoming more global, so that knowledge of other
legal systems with different procedural and doctrinal structures,
especially those based on the European civil law tradition
rather than the Anglo-American common law tradition, as well
as law promulgated by international organizations such as
the European Court of Human Rights, is becoming increasingly
important to everyday legal practice. Second, studying how
other legal systems deal with various substantive and procedural
issues can provide useful insights for how those issues might
be better dealt with in our legal system. The premise of this
course is that the benefits of studying comparative law can
be best obtained by focusing on a specific area of law, which
however encompasses issues and doctrines that are fundamental
to all of law. Tort law is such an area. Two credit hours.
(added 11/06)
Law 228 Complex Crimes Prosecution. This course focuses
on issues that prosecutors of complex crimes encounter, including
the expanded role of the prosecutor in the investigation of
criminal offenses and the legal and ethical issues that expanded
role raises; offenses that cross borders (state and national)
and the issues of jurisdiction such offenses raise; and the
statutes most commonly used to prosecute a wide range of complex
criminal activity.
(added 11/04)
Law 327 Complex Litigation. A study of complex litigation
involving multiple parties and multiple claims. By way of
background, we consider joinder of parties and of claims generally,
and treat transfer and consolidation of civil actions. We
then emphasize all major aspects of class action litigation.
The facets covered include ethical considerations, history
and philosophy, federal subject matter jurisdiction, due process
considerations, requirements for bringing a class action,
notice, settlement, administration of judicial relief, appealability,
binding effect of the judgment, attorneys' fees, and trying
complex cases. This advanced course serves to round out a
student's background in civil procedure, and demonstrates
clearly in what respects and why complex litigation has presented
special problems requiring special treatment. Three credit
hours.
Law 371 Conflict of Laws. A study of the legal problems
that arise when the domiciles of the parties or other significant
facts of a controversy are connected with states other than
that where the litigation occurs. Among the topics included
are: the choice of applicable law, jurisdiction of courts,
the effect of out-of-state judgments, and the rules of decision
applicable in multi-state transactions. International conflicts
are becoming increasingly frequent and important, and thus
the class will include discussion of the international aspects
of each of the three main areas of inquiry (choice of law,
jurisdiction, and enforcement of judgments). Similarly, the
application of these rules in the context of cyberspace is
given attention. Three credit hours.
Law 351 Construction Law. A study of contractual relations
among participants in the construction process; legal disputes
arising out of the bidding and construction process; and the
customs of the construction industry as they relate to legal
problems. There will be some discussion of the bidding process
and bonding requirements. The contractual interrelationships
among the owner, the architect, contractors, and subcontractors
as defined by the "contract documents" and as implied
by law will be fully discussed. Finally, an analysis of typical
construction disputes arising from contract interpretation,
change orders, time problems, and payment issues will be made.
An understanding of how contract, and tort principles discussed
in substantive courses are applied and interrelated within
the construction industry will be derived from the course.
Two credit hours.
Law 378 Consumer Health Benefits. This course is designed
to expose students to some of the legal and policy issues
that confront individuals/consumers in our health care system.
The course will explore the basics of our unique system of
health care financing and delivery, focusing on how that system
affects the consumer/employee/patient. Among the topics that
are explored are employer-provided benefits; managed care;
HMO liability; ERISA preemption; litigating benefit coverage
denials; eligibility, funding, and benefits in the Medicaid
and Medicare programs; COBRA benefits; and health care reform.
There is no exam and students are evaluated on the basis of
a paper and class participation. Two credit hours.
Law 212 Consumer Protection Law. This course will cover
the fundamental causes of action and defenses in current consumer
protection law. The course will examine common law antecedents
of modern consumer protection law, contract and tort-based
causes of action, consumer credit, compulsory disclosure statutes,
consumer contract formation issues, collection and foreclosure
issues, complex litigation issues of federal and state provisions,
civil RICO, qui tam, class actions, and governmental enforcement.
Three credit hours.
Law 405 Copyright Law. This course is a detailed examination
of the entire range of copyright law, including protection
for literary, musical, artistic, and other works of authorship.
The course is centered on a consideration of the 1976 federal
copyright statute, as amended by several recent pieces of
legislation, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(the DMCA). Topics covered include what kinds of work are
protected by copyright, ownership of copyright, and the rights
and remedies provided by copyright law. In addition to exploring
basic questions about the purposes, nature, and scope of copyright
raised by the federal legislation, this course gives special
attention to current controversies concerning the extension
of traditional copyright principles to the online environment,
the legality of peer-to-peer networks, protection for computer
programs, Internet service provider liability, the constitutionality
of new and greater forms of copyright protection, the interaction
of copyright and free speech principles, and the effect of
international treaties upon U.S. copyright law. Three credit
hours.
Law 360 Corporate Finance. This course is intended
to provide a basic understanding of how stocks and bonds are
utilized in the capital formation process, how businesses
raise capital, and how the capital formation process is regulated.
In addition, the course covers some fundamental concepts of
financial analysis and investment techniques. Two credit hours.
Law 344 Criminal Procedure: The Adjudicative Process. This
course and Criminal Procedure: The Investigative Process are
a study of the legal rules governing the operation of the
criminal justice system from investigation to trial. Among
the topics included in this course are: the right to counsel,
transcripts and other aids; discovery and the failure of the
state to disclose; pretrial publicity and change of venue;
the right to a speedy trial; plea bargaining and guilty pleas;
the right to a jury trial and problems of jury selection;
ineffective assistance of counsel; sentencing; entrapment;
double jeopardy; hearings into probable cause; and pretrial
release. Three credit hours.
Law 270 Criminal Procedure: The Investigative Process.
A study of the legal rules, primarily constitutional, governing
the operation of the criminal justice system from investigation
to trial. Among the topics included in this course are: the
meaning of due process; arrest, search, and seizure; wiretapping
and electronic eavesdropping; police interrogation and confessions;
eyewitness identification procedures; the scope and administration
of the exclusionary rules; and grand jury investigations.
Three credit hours.
Law 437 Disability Law. This course examines statutes
and cases concerning people with mental and physical disabilities.
Most of the relevant law has developed in the area of schooling,
insurance, employment, access to public facilities, and estate
planning and guardianships. The course also explores the processes
of administrative and judicial review as they have adapted
to resolve these cases. Preparation of disability cases, the
use of expert witnesses, and the role of attorneys in disability
negotiations also are covered. Two credit hours.
Law 215 E-Commerce. This course covers Internet contracting
both domestically and internationally; payment systems and
related privacy concerns; Internet business torts and anti-trust
in e-commerce. Legal issues are examined against the background
of the nature of e-commerce. Three credit hours.
(revised 12/02)
Law 248 Emerging Technologies. Law and the legal system
anticipate and also respond to changes in technology in ways
that may enhance or inhibit the development of new technologies
and new applications of old technologies. This course examines
these changes from a historical perspective using the telecommunications
technologies and regulations as a case study. It then moves
into current technological developments in genetic engineering,
surrogate parenting, interactive cable TV, DNA testing, nanotechnology,
facial recognition technologies, and the like. Legal issues
involving intellectual property, contractual relationships,
constitutional rights of individuals, rules of evidence, negligence,
and products liability will be discussed in the contexts of
a variety of emerging technologies. Questions revolve around
the ways in which the legal system responds to changes with
analogies to the "known and understood," with fear
of the unknown, with conflict between legal and moral issues,
with new law, and with the attorney's role in formulating
change. Three credit hours.
Law 353 Employee Benefits Law. A detailed study of
the law governing retirement plans and related fringe benefits.
Attention will be focused primarily on employer-sponsored
pension plans that qualify for favorable tax treatment under
the Internal Revenue Code. Topics include participation and
vesting requirements, taxation of benefit payments, creditor's
rights, the responsibility of plan administrators and trustees,
and discrimination in favor of highly compensated employees.
Three credit hours.
Law 365 Employment Discrimination. An in-depth examination
of the federal law concerning discrimination in employment
on the bases of race, sex, religion, national origin, age,
and disability. Topics covered include: Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act,
the Equal Pay Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Illinois Human Rights Act also falls within the purview
of this course, as does the common law development regarding
wrongful discharge. Three credit hours.
Law 391 Employment Relationships. This course will
focus on the legal relationship between employer and individual
employee. It will cover the common law aspects of that relationship,
particularly contracts and torts. It will then examine statutory
modifications of the common law. Statutes that may be examined
include ERISA, the Civil Rights Acts, whistle-blower protection
legislation, unemployment and workers compensation acts, Fair
Labor Standards Act and OSHA. The course is recommended for
students contemplating a labor law, corporate or general practice.
Three credit hours.
Law 232 Energy Law. This course offers a basic overview
of the legal framework within which the production, distribution
and sale of energy takes place. It is offered as part of the
Program in Environmental and Energy Law but is open to all
students. After a brief introduction to scientific concepts
of energy and the history of energy technology, the course
will survey the major sources of energy. The traditional sources
have been oil, natural gas and coal converted to consumer
products such as electricity and gasoline. Newer sources include
nuclear and solar energy. Each source and delivery system
has its own network of property rules and contract relationships.
National energy policy will be reviewed and the impact of
interregional competition on the regulation of energy will
be studied, as will constitutional and economic concepts affecting
the pricing of energy. Particular emphasis will be placed
on energy issues in environmental law. Three credit hours.
Law 373 Entertainment Law. A general survey of the
legal principles and business customs and usages of the entertainment
industry. Topics include: contract, labor, copyright, trademarks
and unfair competition, privacy and publicity rights, and
constitutional law cases and material involving the motion
picture, live theater, television, music, and print publishing
branches, and the production, distribution and retail sectors
of each branch. Students interested in intellectual property
and those who may represent individuals or entities in the
entertainment industry should consider taking this course.
The Copyright Law course is recommended preparation. Two credit
hours.
Law 426 Environmental Law and Policy 1. This course
examines the scientific, economic, and ethical foundations
of environmental law and policy and introduces the student
to many of the major biodiversity conservation and pollution
control regulatory programs. The role of courts in policing
environmental regulation and decision-making is also covered.
The course will take an interdisciplinary approach, looking
at history, economic theory and analysis, and other disciplines.
The course covers the common law origins of environmental
protection, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered
Species Act, Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act, and Superfund. The course examines the substance
of the Acts and uses them as vehicles for exploring complex
statutory schemes, administrative policy-making, market environmental
controls, the interplay of federal and state environmental
programs, benefit-cost analysis, risk analysis, and environmental
litigation. This is the first semester of a two-semester course
sequence. While it is required for students concentrating
in Environmental and Energy Law, it is open to all students.
The course can be taken without the second semester course.
Three credit hours.
Law 441 Environmental Law and Policy 2. This is the
second semester of a two-semester course sequence. While it
is required for students in the Program in Environmental and
Energy Law, it is open to all students. Environmental Law
and Policy 1 is not a prerequisite. The course emphasizes
the Clean Air Act as a vehicle for exploring complex statutory
schemes, administrative policy-making, market environmental
controls, the interplay of federal and state environmental
programs, benefit-cost analysis, risk analysis, and environmental
litigation. The course will also examine global warming and
the broader concept of climate change. Two credit hours.
Law 414 Estate Planning. An analysis of the various
methods of achieving proper lifetime and testamentary planning,
including the preparation of documents in connection with
estate plans such as wills and trusts. Two credit hours.
Law 311 Estates and Trusts. A study of the law relating
to the gratuitous transfer of property at death and in trust.
The course will examine the formalities required for the execution
and revocation of a will, will contests, the problems incident
to intestate succession, will substitutes, the creation and
enforcement of private express trusts, the creation and enforcement
of charitable trusts, and the use of class gifts and powers
of appointment to introduce flexibility into estate plans.
The course will also explore certain issues of elder law,
such as living wills and health care powers of attorney. Four
credit hours.
Law 291 European Union. This course is designed as
a general introduction to the legal system of the European
Union (EU). It covers both its constitutional and institutional
structure and focuses on specific key areas of substantive
law. The course starts by introducing the EU's legal order,
and then moves briefly into the EU's legislative process,
where it concentrates on the political and legislative functions
of the various institutions and the division of competences
between the EU and its Member States. The course pays particular
attention to the role of the judiciary in shaping the EU's
legal order. The European Court of Justice developed the fundamental
notions of direct effect and supremacy of European law. Those
notions, through which rights are created for European citizens,
are examined, and the course subsequently turns to how those
rights can be enforced. The area of European Trade Law is
then chosen as a 'test case' to analyse the legal, political
and social developments of the European system. In particular,
the provisions on free movements, competition, and state aids
are thoroughly analysed with reference to the case law of
the European Court of Justice and to relevant secondary legislation.
This part of the course, by focusing also on specific issues
such as the tension between market forces and values (public
health, European culture, and social prerogatives), is not
confined to legal themes only but indirectly examines the
role of the EU and the values and polices upon which the European
constitutional architecture is founded. Therefore, although
the course is not a comparative one, a discussion on the US
and EU institutional and judicial system is warmly welcome
in each lecture. Three credit hours.
Law 273 Evidence. A study of the rules of evidence
and the reasons underlying these rules, with particular emphasis
on the Federal Rules of Evidence. Among the topics included
are: competency and examination of witnesses, including impeachment;
relevancy; the hearsay rule and its exceptions; privileges;
writings; opinion, expertise, and experts; scientific and
demonstrative evidence; and other issues. Three credit hours.
Law 442 Family and Employment-Based Immigration Practice.
This course is designed to familiarize law students with the
practical, hands-on practice of family and employment-based
immigration to the United States. In an increasingly international
world, the ability to obtain and maintain lawful immigration
status in the U.S., permanent and temporary, is very important.
This course will focus on ways foreign-born persons can obtain
permanent immigration status in the U.S. through their family
and/or employment, both from abroad and from within the U.S.
itself. In addition, the course will examine the temporary
statuses available to persons seeking to enter the U.S. to
work or study. There are no prerequisites, but it is recommended
that students enrolling in this course have previously taken
Immigration Law and Policy or have practical experience in
immigration law. Two credit hours.
Law 340 Family Law. A study of the legal problems involved
in the formation, continuation, and dissolution of the relationship
of husband and wife, and the legal problems arising from the
relationship of parent to child. Among the topics that may
be discussed are are engagements; marriage requirements; marital
rights and responsibilities; divorce; property distribution;
child support; maintenance; parental rights; paternity; legitimacy;
custody; adoption; and modern methods of conception. Three
credit hours.
Law 290 Family Wealth Management. The process of accumulating,
managing and transmitting wealth raises important issues for
individuals and families. This course will expose students
to personal finance and wealth management, which will help
them make informed decisions for themselves and those whom
they advise. This is a practical course that covers the following
subjects: wealth, financial assets and investing; home ownership
and mortgage financing; life and disability insurance; property
and succession; income taxation of the family; wealth transfer
taxation; credit, debt and asset protection; planning for
the costs of higher education, retirement security, and end
of life issues. Many of these topics are the subject matter
of specialized courses in the curriculum, including: Bankruptcy,
Disability Law, Elder Law, Employee Benefits Law, Estates
and Trusts, Estate Planning, Family Law, Gift and Estate Tax,
Insurance, Personal Income Tax, and Secured Transactions.
Family Wealth Management is a survey course that is not intended
to be a substitute for any of these courses. Two credit hours.
(added 11/05; revised 11/06)
Law 370 Federal Courts. A study of the powers of, and
restraints upon, the federal judiciary, derived largely but
not exclusively from Article III. Specific issues addressed
include: the concept of judicial supremacyB the role of courts
in a representative democracy; Article I tribunals; permissible
congressional control of the original and appellate jurisdiction
and remedial arsenal of the federal judiciary; abstention;
sovereign immunity; and federal review of state court decisions.
Three credit hours.
Law 282 The First Amendment. A study of the constitutional
protection of speech and religion under the First Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution. The course will explore the history
and theory of freedom of speech and religion; the constitutionality
of regulating seditious speech, pornography, hate speech,
and commercial speech; the permissibility of state support
for religion; and other topics. Three credit hours.
Law 393 Food and Drug Law. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
regulates products comprising over 25% of the consumer spending
in the United States, yet its practices and mechanisms are
not commonly understood. This one agency regulates most of
the nation's foods, and all of its dietary supplements, pharmaceuticals,
biological products, medical devices, cosmetics, and other
products. It does so with a variety of legal tools and varying
degrees of control over different product types, and yet its
actions are guided by just two key goals -- to protect the
public health and to help new products get to market -- and
a small number of deceptively simple concepts. This course
will examine the primary powers of this important agency,
how the agency has changed over time in response to crises,
business trends, and evolving public policy considerations,
and will address some of the key concepts common to all federal
regulatory agencies. Two credit hours.
(added 4/06)
Law 403 Forensic Sciences. This course is designed
to familiarize students with contemporary scientific evidence
and expert witnesses. Acknowledged experts will present their
specialties with an eye towards what the lawyer should know
about the scientific area and how to select and utilize an
expert witness. Emphasis will be on topics suitable to both
civil and criminal cases. Topics include: pathology, toxicology,
toolmark and firearms identification, questioned documents,
fingerprints, forensic photography, and the polygraph. Two
credit hours.
Law 201 Gender and the Law. This class asks: how does
gender (that is, concepts regarding what it means to be a
man or woman) construct law, and how does law construct gender?
Over the past thirty years a rich and exciting body of scholarship
regarding gender and the law has developed. It poses a significant
challenge to traditional ways of thinking about law, questioning
some of the basic premises of what constitutes justice and
equality in a democracy. This course examines the main tenets,
methodologies, and controversies in this body of literature
including the meaning of equality, the intersection of race
and law, the public/private divide, concepts of objectivity
and neutrality, and how law reproduces hierarchies while also
having the ability to participate in significant social change.
We will also analyze debates regarding sex work, domestic
violence, reproductive rights, the nature of the workplace,
and concepts of the family. The goal of the course is to think
broadly and critically regarding the interaction of law, society,
and gender while exploring the potential and limitations of
our legal system. Three credit hours.
(added 11/06)
Law 298 Genetics and the Law. The current federal Human
Genome Project is attempting to understand the health and
behavioral implications of the 30,000 genes in the human body.
Genetic tests are being offered to let people know if they
are at risk of having a child with a genetic defect or if
they will later in life suffer from cancer or other diseases.
Genetic predispositions are also being investigated for certain
behaviors, such as gay sexual preference, intelligence, and
anti-social behavior. This course will cover the tort law,
family law, constitutional law, criminal law, employment law,
and insurance law implications of developments in genetics.
Three credit hours.
Law 368 Gift and Estate Tax. This course deals with
the federal taxation of gratuitous property transfers during
life and at death and with the techniques for structuring
transactions so as to minimize such taxation. The emphasis
will be on gift and estate taxes, but we will also study the
income taxation of trusts and estates and the generation-skipping
transfer tax. These tax rules will be examined in the context
of the kinds of transactions that give rise to their applicability:
transactions that typically include outright gifts, so-called
"living" trusts, irrevocable trusts, joint tenancies,
powers of appointment, life insurance, and employee benefits.
Three credit hours.
Law 362 Health Care Law. One-eighth of the U.S. economy
involves the delivery and regulation of health care services.
This course addresses the statutory, administrative, and judicial
precedents for regulating health care from the point of view
of patients, health care professionals, and health care institutions.
It covers topics such as informed consent, right to refuse
treatment, medical malpractice, human experimentation, the
regulation of new medical technologies, health care financing,
and health care reimbursement. Three credit hours.
Law 547 IIT Interprofessional Projects (IPROs). Students
may obtain one credit of independent research by joining a
university-wide team to work on projects furnished by industry.
The IPROs offered vary from semester to semester. Recent IPROs
with involvement from the law school have included: Project
Bosnia, where students have helped design computer and telecommunications
packages for linking Bosnian government officials together
through use of intranets, creating internet access for media,
and providing government information on the web; Project Poland,
where students have helped establish a technological infrastructure
that supports the continuing development of the rule of law
in Poland; and the International Rights and Asylum Project,
which used information technology to help educate and inform
attorneys, refugees, and other audiences all over the world
about international human rights. One credit hour.
Law 413 Illinois Civil Procedure. This course focuses
on the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure and the Illinois Supreme
Court Rules. Topics covered include: personal and subject
matter jurisdiction, venue, and pleadings and motion practice,
with an emphasis on how Illinois procedural rules differ from
the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Two credit hours.
Law 304 Immigration Law and Policy. This timely course
explores the historical backdrop to modern immigration law
and policy, its unique status in American law, and post-9/11
issues. Topics include immigrant status (family and employment),
non-immigrant visas, citizenship, bases for exclusion and
removal, and current refugee/asylum policy and procedures.
Students may also visit the immigration court in Chicago.
Two or three credit hours.
(revised 11/03)
Law 561 Independent Research. Research under the supervision
of a member of the faculty. One credit hour per semester.
Law 501 Independent Research in Lieu of Seminar. Research
under the supervision of a member of the faculty leading to
the completion of a substantial paper fulfilling the seminar
requirement. One credit hour per semester.
Law 358 Insurance. Insurance is an increasingly important
tool for the management of risk by both private and public
enterprises. This course provides a working knowledge of basic
insurance law governing insurance contract formation, insurance
regulation, personal, commercial, and professional liability
insurance, and claims processes and disputes. The emphasis
throughout the course is on the link between traditional insurance
law doctrine and modern ideas about the functions of contract
law and public policy. Two credit hours.
Law 281 Intellectual Property and Technology Licensing.
This course emphasizes the management of intellectual
property. The intent is to provide the future corporate practitioner
with important information about managing, marketing, selling,
buying, and licensing corporate intellectual property assets
(including patents, trademarks, copyrights, data, trade secrets,
software, know-how, and other types of valuable information),
and limiting corporate liability with respect to those assets.
The course places particular emphasis on software and other
emerging technologies, but will also cover traditional intellectual
property issues. Two credit hours.
(revised 11/03; formerly Intellectual Property
for Corporate Lawyers)
Law 283 Intellectual Property in the High Tech Era.
This is a survey class in intellectual property law in the
context of the current high tech era. It covers all four intellectual
property regimes –- copyright, trademark, patent, and
trade secret. Questions related to the use of intellectual
property with the current technologies will be explored, including,
for example, issues of the availability of generic drugs to
developing countries and the relationship to the patented
pharmaceuticals, the use of peer-to-peer file transfers across
the internet, re-broadcast of copyrighted works through internet
streaming as well as new digital satellite technologies, and
the relationships among the regimes to protect a variety of
products. This course will meet August 7-August 20, 2004,
starting at 5:30 p.m. (all day on Saturdays). The course is
a survey of intellectual property law for students who are
not pursuing the Intellectual Property certificate; we do
not expect or advise I.P. certificate students to take the
course. However, certificate students are not prohibited from
taking the course. Students who take the course and later
decide to pursue the I.P. certificate may take any I.P. course
in the future. This course will not, however, count towards
the credits needed to earn the certificate. Three credit hours.
(added 4/04)
Law 387 International Business Transactions. An examination
of the legal environment of business, focusing on the legal
considerations specifically related to transactions having
transnational elements. Among the topics discussed are: national
laws relating to aliens and foreign transactions, the extraterritorial
reach of American laws, international contracts, international
technology transfers, international and commercial arbitration,
and international investment. The respective roles of foreign
law, foreign lawyers, and foreign clients in international
business processes are also considered. Three credit hours.
Law 374 International Capital Markets. This course
examines the international aspects of the U.S. regulation
of banking and securities; the international systems of regulating
banking and capital markets including payments, settlements
and capital adequacy; and the capital markets of the European
Union (particularly U.K., Germany and France), and of Canada,
and Japan. The course covers special instruments and techniques
including Eurodollar deposits, Eurobonds, Global Bonds, international
asset securitization, futures, options, swaps, offshore trusts,
and project finance. Included are materials on second-tier
markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Italy,
Spain, several of the emerging markets such as Mexico, Argentina,
etc. and the special problems of the "offshore"
centers such as Lichtenstein, Cayman Islands, Antigua, Jersey,
and the like. Three credit hours.
Law 222 International Commercial Arbitration. This
course is an introduction to a rapidly-expanding field in
international commercial law. An increasing percentage of
all international business contracts contain a clause for
binding arbitration in cases of dispute. The reason is simple:
In June 1958, the New York Convention on the Recognition and
Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards was signed and has
now been adopted by over 100 countries, including all the
major commercial countries. This Convention ensures that an
arbitral award, rendered anywhere in the world, will be enforced
in the courts of the signatory countries. Judgments of courts
do not receive this treatment: court awards are very difficult
to enforce in other countries. Students will gain a working
knowledge of the various international treaties which provide
the structure of international commercial arbitration. The
course will explore the ways in which arbitrations can be
structured: either ad hoc or under the umbrella of an international
organization. The course will examine several umbrella organizations
and their "Rules," including The American Arbitration
Association, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC –
Paris), The London Court of International Arbitration, UNCITRAL
(United Nations Commission on International Trade Law), the
International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes,
and UNCITRAL's Convention for the International Sale of Goods.
Topics to be covered include: under each regime and each set
of rules, how does an arbitration panel obtain jurisdiction,
how are the arbitrators chosen, what is the process, the rules
and the costs, where does the arbitration take place, which
language is used, how is evidence obtained and admitted, etc.
No prerequisites. Three hours credit.
(added 4/04)
Law 235 International Commercial Litigation. This course
will examine international commercial litigation from the
investigation of transnational disputes through the enforcement
of judgments in the United States and abroad. Topics studied
will include, among others, case analysis, jurisdiction over
non-U.S. defendants, service of process on foreign defendants,
obtaining evidence abroad, extraterritoriality, trial of transnational
cases, and enforcement of judgments. International arbitration
will also be examined. The course will be taught from both
an academic and practical perspective, using actual court
documents where appropriate. Three credit hours.
Law 312 International Human Rights. The course involves
both a definition of human rights as well as enforcement procedures
for the implementation of human rights. The historical and
philosophical bases of human rights are examined starting
with the works of various thinkers from the diverse schools,
particularly natural law, positivism, Marxism and the sociological
school. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
later International Covenants are looked at in terms of the
influences of the various schools. The course addresses the
question of whether there is agreement as to fundamental human
rights. Recent developments and tensions in the field of human
rights, particularly since the increased membership of countries
from the "third world" and socialist bloc countries,
are investigated. This is highlighted by focusing on the later
two covenants of the United Nations particularly the Covenant
on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, which enlarges the
scope of human rights to include welfare, cultural, and economic
rights. Finally, the course focuses on the contribution of
international and non-governmental organizations in the protection
and implementation of human rights. Two credit hours.
Law 236 International Intellectual Property. This course
examines issues of intellectual property law raised by the
exploitation and use of creative and commercial products in
an international environment. General topics covered include:
the negotiation and conclusion by states of different types
of agreements prescribing standards of intellectual property
protection under national law; efforts to create supranational
intellectual property rights; resolution of disputes between
states regarding compliance with obligations imposed by international
intellectual property law (primarily under the dispute settlement
system of the World Trade Organization); the interaction of
trade policy and intellectual property laws; and the private
enforcement of intellectual property disputes involving international
components. Under these general headings, the class will address
both fundamental principles underlying the international intellectual
property system and issues of current interest and debate.
For example, in the latter category, the class will discuss
the extent to which states can ensure access to essential
medicines (such as HIV drugs) through compulsory licensing
of patented drugs; the effect of the Internet on territorial
copyright and trademark laws;institutional reforms designed
to facilitate faster international intellectual property lawmaking;
treaty provisions requiring protection under national law
of technological measures designed to restrict access to copyrighted
works; restrictions imposed upon the availability of so-called
parallel imports; cross-border infringement litigation in
a single court seeking relief against conduct in several states;
extraterritorial protection of intellectual property rights;
and proceedings by trademark owners before ICANN-authorized
dispute settlement panels to recover domain names under the
Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. Prerequisite:
any one of Copyright Law, Trademarks and Unfair Competition,
or Patent Law. This requirement may be waived only with permission
of the instructor. Pass/fail not available. Three credit hours.
Law 383 International Law. This course introduces students
to the key concepts and doctrines of international law. Students
learn the sources of international law such as custom and
treaty, the role of international organizations such as the
United Nations, the bases of international jurisdiction, laws
governing the use of force and the protection of human rights,
and the constitutional structure of U.S. participation in
the international legal system. An understanding of these
core concepts, rules and institutions is vital to more advanced
and in-depth study of world events, such as the Persian Gulf
crisis and war in 1990-91 and the disintegration of the Soviet
Union in 1991-92, and places these events in the context of
the development and application of international law. The
course also examines the development of regional organizations
such as the European Union and North American Free Trade Agreement
and the role the institutions of these arrangements play both
in international and municipal legal systems. Three credit
hours.
Law 312 International Organizations. This course will
focus upon the legal and policy issues raised by the development
and functioning of intergovernmental organizations, with the
emphasis on organizations having wide membership, particularly
the UN. It will encompass a course in United Nations law and
a comparative study of international organizations with a
focus upon how these organizations deal with human rights
issues. Issues relating to rulemaking, dispute settlement,
and enforcement will be central to this course. It will consider,
among other topics, the privileges and immunities of international
organizations, relations between the United States and the
United Nations, the past role of and future composition of
the Security Council, and restructuring proposals for the
economic and social functions of the U.N. Three credit hours.
(added 11/04)
Law 384 International Trade. This course involves a
comprehensive study of the international trading system, with
attention to the role of the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade, the IMF, and regional and bilateral trading arrangement
(e.g. the European Union and the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement).
The U.S. legal system with respect to international trade
will be considered in detail, including discussion of constitutional
issues, treaty-making, and Congressional and Executive authorities.
Attention will be given to specific legislation and regulations
involving export and import controls, as well as remedies
against unfair trade practices. Current issues such as the
implications of the EU's 1992 plan, the treatment of nonmarket
economies, trade-related aspects of intellectual property,
trade in services, and controls on the use of economic sanctions
will be analyzed. Three credit hours.
Law 400 Internet Law. This course covers legal and
policy issues raised by the impact of the Internet on existing
law. Topics considered include: freedom of speech, privacy,
intellectual property, trademark and copyright, commercial
transactions, computer crime, and jurisdictional issues. Course
materials are available only on the Internet. It is a prerequisite
of this course that students have a laptop with ability to
connect to the Internet from home and the classroom. Three
credit hours.
Law 210 Introduction to the American Legal System.
This course provides an overview of American constitutional
and procedural law, with an introduction to the U.S. judicial
system, legal methodology, and government structure. The course
is open only to exchange students and students in the LL.M.
Program in International and Comparative Law. Two credit hours.
(added 5/03)
Law 456 Juries, Judges & Trials. This course will
look at juries and judges as decisionmakers, but will focus
primarily on the jury. As background, we will examine the
constitutional rights to a civil and criminal jury trial,
and then focus on such features of the jury as venire, voir
dire, peremptory challenges, instructions, deliberations,
and differences in perception. We will consider the scope
of jury authority, including jury nullification, as well as
various models for the proper role of the jury in our society.
There will be a take-home exam at the end of the course. Three
credit hours.
Law 346 Jurisprudence. Many people submit to the law
simply because they believe that the institutions administering
it are just. But what if a law itself is unjust? The duty
to obey law presupposes that laws are both consistent and
just: because they sometime aren't, difficult cases arise
in which appeals to a higher political morality become necessary
if justice is to be served. But what is this higher political
morality and what is its connection to the institutions we
rely upon to do justice and protect our human rights as well
as to the laws that are actually produced? Is this higher
political morality the morality of our society or something
broader? And, if it is something broader, how do we discover
what it is? In this course, we will attempt to answer these
and other questions by considering the relationship between
legal and political philosophy, showing how the former is
incomplete without the latter. Taking the problem of how to
solve difficult cases as our point of departure, we will look
at the inherent incompleteness of conventional theories of
law with the idea of developing a meta-theory that would enable
judges to decide difficult cases by drawing upon the best
available theory of politics appropriate to the case's level
of abstraction. By so doing, it is hoped that we will be able
to produce resolutions for some kinds of controversial cases
and open doors to the way we should think about others. It
is also hoped that the course will provide an avenue for a
broad critique of the way legal and political institutions
operate including the way law schools educate and judges actually
decide cases. Two credit hours.
Law 329 Juvenile Law. This course examines federal
and state laws and cases involving juveniles. The Illinois
Juvenile Court Act is covered in depth. Areas covered include
delinquency, neglect, adjudications, dispositions, sentencing
alternatives, social service agencies and constitutional safeguards
for minors. Three credit hours.
Law 380 Labor Law. An examination of the theory and
practice of the law governing the relationships between labor
unions and employers. Among the topics covered are: the historical
background of labor relations law; union organizing and the
law; procedures for the selection of union representation;
the law and process of collective bargaining; strikes, boycotts
and picketing; and grievance and arbitration procedures. Four
credit hours.
Law 401 Land Use. A course exploring land use controls
such as zoning and subdivision regulations as exercised by
local and state governmental units. The course analyzes the
history of land use controls and explores topics such as flexibility
and discretion, improper influence and corruption, alternative
land use control schemes, suburban zoning and racial/economic
exclusion, environmental protection by land use schemes, and
growth control. In the process of exploring land use controls,
the course analyzes the local institutions and procedures,
constitutional issues, and the question of when an improper
taking of property occurs in our legal system. Three credit
hours.
Law 243 Latin American Business Law. This course will
provide an introduction to the national law of various Latin
American countries as well as a practical introduction to
Latin American business law. Students study another legal
system to try to help them understand their own laws better,
and to see how different cultures handle similar legal problems.
They also gain a better appreciation of to what extent the
law shapes the life of a community. Among the possible topics
covered in the course will be comparative aspects of contract
law, sales law, commercial paper, banking law, securities
law, tax regimes, natural resources law, choice of business
entity, corporate law and corporate forms, cost of capital
problems and general corporate finance, and intellectual property
law. The instructor is a passionate believer in the value
of Roman law and legal history as a fascinating and valuable
introduction to civil law systems for a student of the common
law. The course will also briefly address macroeconomics and
microeconomics with regard to Latin American economies, the
relationship between the cost of capital, cost of entry for
firms and competition, and corporate culture in Latin America.
Two credit hours.
(added 11/01; revised 11/04)
Law 286 Law and Literature. This is not a course in
intellectual property. Nor is it a course in literary criticism.
It is a law course, but a law course that employs literary
works the way other law courses employ cases and statutes.
Works of the literary imagination will be used as texts to
be mined for the insights they might provide into the nature
of law and justice and as stimuli to more wide-ranging discussions.
We shall explore legal issues involving criminal law, family
law, contract law, military law, civil rights law, Biblical
law, property law, professional responsibility, international
law, morality, justice. We shall consider issues of race,
class, religion, gender, sexual orientation. The reading list
will consist of plays, rather than novels or short stories.
Prerequisite: a willingness to engage with your fellow students
in vigorous discussions. Three credit hours.
(added 11/04)
Law 471 Law, Economics and Justice. This course is
a "capstone" course that will review basic doctrines
covered in the first year courses (property, contracts, torts,
criminal law, and procedure), and possibly other topics, with
the purpose of exploring the extent to which those doctrines
and areas of law can be explained, justified, criticized,
or revised from the perspectives of economic efficiency and
justice. Students who take the course should benefit from
a more systematic analysis and review of the basic legal doctrines
that form the foundation for most of the law, an understanding
of basic (microeconomic) efficiency theory as applied to the
law, a better understanding of the principles of justice and
their application to various areas of the law, and an ability
to recognize, employ and criticize efficiency and justice
arguments in and outside the law. Three credit hours.
(added 11/06)
Law 250 Law, Literature and Feminism. This course will
examine the development of feminist legal theory by focusing
on several cases, writings of theorists, and novels that provide
further illustration of the theories. The early advocates
of women's rights argued in court cases for equality; this
theme is also developed in Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their
Eyes Were Watching God. The Supreme Court case focusing on
maternity leave raised the question whether women should be
arguing for equality or difference; Toni Morrison's novel
The Bluest Eye asks a similar question. Catharine MacKinnon
and Carol Gilligan gave the debate a slightly different turn,
with MacKinnon focusing on the need to rectify an existing
power imbalance and Gilligan emphasizing an appreciation of
difference. Both these approaches intersect in Gloria Naylor's
The Women of Brewster Place and Cristina Garcia's Dreaming
in Cuban. The course will require attendance, participation,
four ungraded writing assignments (1-2 pages), and a take-home
final exam. Two credit hours.
(added 5/03)
Law 252 Law of Privacy. Privacy may be one of the most
pervasively discussed issues in this decade as a result of
the increased concerns for security in travel, the openness
of the Internet, the consolidation of information in massive
databases both by corporations and by governments, high incidence
of identity theft, and the development of more and more highly
sophisticated "listening and viewing" devices. This
class examines privacy as protected by statute B through a
patchwork of privacy acts B and the concomitant freedom of
information requirements of a democratic government, as developed
through tort doctrine in the courts, and as articulated through
the Constitution of the United States and those of the various
states. All aspects of privacy are considered, including wiretapping,
government-required personal and business information, personal,
family, and reproductive autonomy, the "right to be let
alone," and the right of publicity. Three credit hours.
Law 237 Law of Trade Secrets. This course examines
trade secret law, a fourth intellectual property regime. It
will include the common law development of trade secrets as
well as the philosophical underpinnings in contract, property,
and tort law, and the development to the present through the
Restatement and the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. It will also
examine the relationships between federal and state trade
secret law, the relationships between trade secret law and
the other three intellectual property regimes, and the relationships
between trade secret law and other areas of law, such as employment
law and law governing business relationships. Three credit
hours.
(added 12/02)
Law 467 Lawyer as Investigator. In this course, we
will explore how lawyers gather, analyze, and present facts.
While law school does a marvelous job training students to
find the law, it has ignored the vital role lawyers play in
discovering the facts. This role has garnered much attention
lately as lawyers have been accused of breaching ethical duties
thru techniques, such as pretexting, used in the Hewlett-Packard
scandal. While criminal litigators have focused extensively
on this role, civil lawyers also do a great deal of investigating.
Lawyers will do more of these as more regulation is imposed
on corporate America thru legislation, such as Sarbanes Oxley.
Accordingly, students will learn how to: (1) develop physical
evidence; (2) conduct interviews and interrogations; (3) process
physical evidence; (4) retrieve electronic evidence; (5) use
investigators and experts; and (6) utilize formal discovery.
Students will be required to develop two investigation plans
- one for a criminal case, one for a civil case. Students
will also be required to do several presentations to the class.
Class participation will also count toward the final grade
- there will be no final exam. Three credit hours.
(added 11/06)
Law 463 Legal Aspects of Startups. This course will
explore legal issues common to starting a new business and
raising venture capital. The course will be divided into two
parts. Part one will deal with business plans, entity choice,
intellectual property issues, initial equity issuances, contracts,
license requirements, etc. Part two will deal with venture
capital financings. Two credit hours.
(added 4/06)
Law 267 Legislative Advocacy. Corporations, public
interest groups, governmental entities and other business
clients frequently seek advice on legislative matters. Lawyers
need to know how to access and communicate legislative information
to their clients, and be adequately informed about the legislative
process. This course is designed to train students in effective
advocacy techniques to competently present matters to policy
makers and work within the legislative process. The course
is divided into four general modules: the law of politics;
the legislative process; lobbying; and effective advocacy
techniques. In addition to the traditional lecture format,
students will learn through the use of role-playing, research
assignments and a hands-on advocacy assignment involving actual
legislation. Students will learn how to research legislation,
present initiatives to policy makers, and influence the process.
Two credit hours.
Law 239 Management of Intellectual Property Portfolios.
This class examines the various types of business and personal
transactions that implicate or center on intellectual property
assets, particularly where business and legal considerations
tend to collide. Topics include the securitization of intellectual
property; intellectual property valuation for various purposes;
tax consequences of intellectual property transfer; strategic
use of intellectual property through licensing and litigation;
due diligence in assessing intellectual property portfolios
for mergers and acquisitions; and the role of intellectual
property in bankruptcy. Prerequisites: Intellectual Property
in the High Tech Era, or completion of two of the following
courses: Copyright Law; Patent Law; Trademarks &
Unfair Competition; Law of Trade Secrets. Two credit hours.
(added 11/05)
Law 334 Medical Malpractice. This course will examine
various topics relating to medical malpractice litigation.
Among the topics to be considered are: pleadings, discovery,
expert testimony, damages, statutes of limitations, res ipsa
loquitur, informed consent and independent contractor issues.
Two credit hours.
Law 227 Money Laundering. This course will first cover
the historical antecedents to the newly revised regime of
"money laundering" -- criminal fraud, the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Acts, bank fraud, the Bank Secrecy Act,
mail and wire fraud, and the rise of "white collar crime"
generally. The central portion of the course covers the law
of bank reporting (Currency transaction reporting, Suspicious
Activity Reports, etc.); confiscation, forfeiture and asset
freezing; how the different types of underlying criminal activity
(tax evasion, trafficking in drugs, arms, people, etc.) affects
the application of second-line enforcement mechanisms; and
use of "offshore" havens for "asset protection,"
in the contexts of evading creditors (tax authorities, divorce,
bankruptcy). The third portion of the course will cover the
new regime created by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999,
the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of
2002, and the particular liabilities of attorneys. Included
will be the international aspects of enforcing money laundering
and privacy laws, the OFAC, and an examination of the various
international agencies operating in the financial areas such
as FinCen. Topics may also include identity theft, the rise
of forensic accounting, and the use of religious groups and
other non-profits for money laundering. Two credit hours.
(added 12/02)
Law 472 Natural Resources Law. This course covers the
legal regimes that control the choices that individuals and
society make about the use of natural resources. These resources
include water, public lands dedicated to mining, timber production,
recreation and preservation, and renewable living resources
such fish stocks. The course will emphasize the tension between
regimes put in place in the 19th century to encourage the
exploitation of natural resources for human benefit and legacy
of the environmental movement with emphasis on conservation,
mitigation, and preservation. Three credit hours.
(added 11/06)
Law 255 Nonprofit Law. Nonprofit organizations -- including
churches, hospitals, universities, cultural institutions,
social service charities, advocacy groups, unions, trade associations,
and social clubs -- make up about 10 percent of the economy.
Their operations and role in society raise important and difficult
issues that cut across a variety of legal fields. In addition,
as "ownerless" enterprises serving the public good,
nonprofits present challenges for good governance, public
oversight, and appropriate public subsidy. We will study the
relevant aspects of constitutional law, trust and property
law, corporate law, and tax law. Three credit hours.
Law 402 Patent Law. Public policies underlying various
invention protection systems are analyzed as background for
understanding the fundamental concepts of U.S. patent law.
The nature of patentable subject matter in the U.S. and the
statutory requirements of utility, novelty, and nonobviousness
are examined in detail. Students also consider the process
of obtaining and enforcing patent rights. Such consideration
includes an overview of the disclosure, enablement and claim
requirements for a patent application, as well as the scope
of protection granted to the owner of an issued patent. The
interpretation of patent claims is covered, with special emphasis
placed on construing claims under the evolving doctrine of
equivalents. Remedies for patent infringement are also reviewed,
as well as the defense of patent misuse. Three credit hours.
Law 211 Patent Litigation. Students will examine major
issues of substantive law and strategy facing a lawyer involved
with patent litigation. The class sessions will focus on the
leading cases in emerging areas of patent law. Such areas
include infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, the
scope of remedies available to a patent owner, the proofs
required to establish patent invalidity, and the role of a
jury in deciding complex technological issues. The class will
also address procedures for developing and presenting at trial
a credible theme and conducting a coherent program of trial
preparation. Prerequisite: Patent Law. Three credit hours.
Law 284 Patent Office Practice. This course focuses
on the substantive and procedural requirements for preparing
and prosecuting patent applications. Strong emphasis is placed
on drafting patent claims and preparing effective responses
to rejections of applications by the U.S. Patent Office. The
course also covers other aspects of practice before the Patent
Office, including interviews, appeals, and applications for
the reexamination and reissue of a patent. The nature of nonobviousness,
the doctrine of equivalence, and the patent applicant's duty
of candor are reviewed in detail. Patents is a prerequisite.
Three credit hours.
Law 276 Personal Income Tax. A study of the federal
income tax laws as they affect individuals. Major topics include:
identification of income, deductions, exclusions, and credits;
assignment of income; timing principles; capital gains and
losses; and deferral and nonrecognition provisions. Three
credit hours.
Law 468 Practical Litigation: From Start to Finish.
The intent of this course is to give aspiring lawyers a taste
of what it is really like to litigate matters in state and
federal court in Illinois and throughout the United States.
The course will cover initial case evaluation, preparation
of the Complaint or Answer to the Complaint (including applicable
affirmative defenses), motion practice intended to narrow
triable issues, discovery (written and oral), and trial preparation.
In other words, the course will cover practical litigation
skills necessary to handle a case from start to finish - the
things that many lawyers say "they don't teach you in
law school." The course will address only civil litigation,
not criminal. Two credit hours.
(added 11/06)
Law 271 Practice Before the Federal Circuit. This unique
course will focus on the practice of law before the Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). The CAFC has exclusive
appellate jurisdiction to hear patent cases and appeals from
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as well as cases involving
several non-patent related issues. Prerequisite: You must
have taken, or presently be taking, Patent Law. Course Requirements:
(1) The course will begin in September, but will also include
several classes in January. Students will be required to attend
class on most Mondays during the Fall semester from 7:35 -
9:25 p.m. (2) Students will be required to compete in the
Chicago-Kent intramural Giles Rich Moot Court Competition,
submitting an appellate brief and presenting an oral argument
on a Saturday afternoon in January. The problem used for the
intramural competition will consist of the Giles Rich Moot
Court Problem. Such problems frequently involve patent law
and occasionally trademark or trade secret law. Why take this
course? This course will teach you appellate advocacy, both
with respect to how to identify the issues and write a convincing
appellate brief and how to prepare for, and present, a winning
oral argument. Top students in the class will be invited (but
not required) to represent the school in the Giles Rich Moot
Court Competition. Chicago-Kent students taking this course
last year placed second in the Midwest Regional Competition
and advanced to the National Competition in Washington, D.C.
Two credit hours.
(revised 4/04)
Law 470 Practicum in Business Transactions. This course
will introduce students to "real life" business
transactions through a series of simulations. The transactions
covered will include business acquisitions and combinations
(M&A), joint ventures, project finance and other financings,
purchase and sale arrangements, licensing arrangements, distribution
arrangements, and dispute resolutions. Students will work
in teams on opposite sides of a transaction and will walk
through all stages in the evolutions of a transaction (planning,
negotiating, drafting, closing). Time permitting, ancillary
issues such as tax and regulatory matters will also be considered.
Two credit hours.
(added 11/06)
Law 350 Products Liability. A study of the source,
development, and limits of the law of products liability,
including theories of liability rooted in negligence, warranty,
and strict liability and the liability of sellers, manufacturers,
and others to users, bystanders, and other parties for "defective"
products. Two credit hours.
Law 434 Property Rights and Social Conflict. This course
will explore the role of property rights in resolving current
social conflicts. We will cover a significant range of topics,
many of which are taught more comprehensively in other courses,
but the purpose of addressing them here is to discuss how
we use the idea of property rights in a wide array of areas
as tools for resolving social issues. We will begin by looking
at some general material on the nature of rights, including
who/what is entitled to be a rights-bearer, and from there
look more specifically at the nature and extent of property
rights. Following this general and theoretical introduction
we will move on to an exploration of how and why the constitution
protects property. In this section we will also look at examples
of how other nations with newer constitutions have chosen
to protect property interests. Given that many current constitutional
property rights cases -- the regulatory takings cases -- concern
the impact of conservation policies, our constitutional discussion
will be followed by a section focusing more broadly on property
rights and the environment. In particular, it will examine
whether property rights are effective or alternatively ineffective
as tools for environmental protection. From here we will move
into areas of discussion that overlap with intellectual property
-- in particular the nature of property rights in personal
information, genetic information, aspects of human reproduction
and body parts and substances. Following this exploration
of property rights in what we might consider deeply personal
material, we move on to a discussion of property rights in
uniquely cultural material, cultural property, and traditional
knowledge. In this section we will also address property in
its temporal dimension (historic injustices) through the concepts
of reparation and repatriation. If you wish to receive seminar
credit for this course, please see Professor Harding. Three
credit hours.
(added 11/04)
Law 464 Public Interest Law and Policy. This course
offers an overview of the issues faced by lawyers representing
low income clients and lawyers who serve under-represented
and disenfranchised groups. The course will begin with an
investigation of the meaning of public interest law. The bulk
of the course will cover the key cases decided and legislation
passed since the 1960s when the Johnson Administration launched
its war on poverty in the United States. These cases may include
court decisions and legislation affecting income support for
low income people including federal welfare programs, social
security and state general assistance programs. Low income
housing, medical care, nutrition and access to courts may
also be explored. In addition, the course will explore ethical
issues that arise when lawyers represent low income clients
and professionalism questions that are raised by the special
role lawyers play in providing access to justice. Three credit
hours.
(added 4/06)
Law 469 Real Estate Fundamentals and Syndications.
This course will take a practical approach to understanding
current issues in real estate. Covered topics will include
syndications, tax and securities law implications, real estate
financing, zoning and land use, title and survey review, leases,
condominium development, closing and post closing issues,
Forcible Entry and Detainer, and commercial real estate asset
management. Two credit hours.
(added 11/06)
Law 433 Religion and the Law. The goal of this course
is to understand the tensions between religious beliefs and
practices and the claims of civil society and its governments.
A selection of historical materials will be analyzed to provide
a variety of ways such issues have arisen. Examples from countries
with other practices and traditions will assist in understanding
the issues that face the United States internally and in its
relations with the rest of the world. A part of the course
will cover the particular U.S. formulations, whether as constitutional
issues under the First Amendment, as favorable taxation treatments,
as issues in enforcement of the police powers, as operations
of public welfare, as questions of education goals, or as
controversies in public policy. Three credit hours.
(added 4/04)
Law 280 Remedies. The course addresses the forms of
relief available through the judicial process. Among the topics
covered are equitable remedies such as injunctions and specific
performance; damages; restitution; remedies for injuries to
tangible and intangible property, personal injuries, breach
of contract, and invasions of civil rights. Three credit hours.
Law 377 School Law. This course briefly explores the
historical underpinnings and the sources of state and federal
power relating to an entitlement that we take for granted:
free public education. Additional topics include many issues
that are continually in the news and in the courts: church-state
conflicts (especially school prayer and school vouchers);
desegregation, school financing, student disability accommodations,
free speech issues (both students and teachers); and other
student rights (including locker searches, dress codes, and
due process). Three credit hours.
Law 361 Securities Regulation. A study of the Securities
Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Among
the topics included are: the registration and distribution
of securities by issuers; exemptions from the registration
requirements; offerings by underwriters and dealings; reorganizations;
federal disclosure obligations; regulation of the securities
markets, broker-dealers, proxy rules, tender offers, and civil
liabilities for insider trading, Rule lOb-5 and shout-swing
profits. Three credit hours.
Law 333 Sports Law. This course explores the contract,
labor law and antitrust problems facing professional and collegiate
athletic institutions and athletes. Principles of negotiation
and ethical considerations are also considered. Two credit
hours.
Law 216 Sports, Law and Society. This course will address
sports, society, and law as a dynamic function of history,
economics, and culture in America. The focus will be on legal
issues unique to professional and amateur sports, including
(a) the paradox of sports as a business that embraces competition
on the field but not off, (b) the entertainment value of sports
as a function of hero worship and the vicarious pursuit of
personal identity, (c) the history and influence of society
on sports, and (d) the effect of sports on society, including
politics (Muhammad Ali), business (the Jordan effect), and
sociology (such as the 18-year continuum from Jesse Owens
to Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, and ultimately Brown v.
Board of Education). Topics will include the baseball antitrust
exemption, athlete eligibility, due process, sports injuries
and violence, the evolution of sports broadcasting, Title
IX, disabled athletes, drugs, and such contemporary issues
as the Cubs rooftop cases, baseball steroids, and sports violence.
Two credit hours.
(added 11/04)
Law 245 State and Local Government Law. In 1805 there
lived a total of approximately 5.3 million people in the United
States B far fewer than the 6 million people who today live
in Massachusetts or any of 15 other States of the Union. In
1828 James Fenimore Cooper, an American born commentator on
American life, took note of the burgeoning population growth
and projected that in one hundred years America's population
might reach "near or quite 100 million." Continue
Cooper, "the first impression that strike the mind is
the impossibility that 100 million people should consent to
live quietly under the same government." Today's population,
of course, is not only much larger but is far more diverse
than Cooper imagined. One of the reasons our country has been
able to grow and still remain united, ironically, is that
under our federal system much political power is decentralized
at the state, local, and other subfederal levels. And that
is what this course is about: the decentralization of power.
The course explores the conflicts inherent in the allocation
of power between the national, state, and local governments.
It tries to answer questions like: Why do we still have states?
What are the maximal powers that states and local governments
have, and should have, to create environments that both shape
and reflect their citizens' desires? In answering these and
related questions the course will look to both law and political
theory. Explored in detail will be many of the constitutional
doctrines that define our country's federal structure. Also
examined will be vital doctrines concerning local government
formation and annexation, statutory and home rule powers,
the relationships between local governments (including city
: suburb), participation in local government, as well as important
issues in taxation and finance. Three credit hours.
Law 309 Strategies in Intellectual Property Law. This
course is one of the three ways in which students participating
in the Intellectual Property certificate Program can satisfy
the requirement of a Capstone Experience. (The Capstone Experience
requirement may also be satisfied by participation in the
Intellectual Property Law – Patent Clinic, or the completion
of an Intellectual Property Externship). The course may be
taken only by J.D. students enrolled in the Intellectual Property
Certificate Program. It is intended to be taken in the last
year of legal studies. This is a problem-solving course that
will bring together learning from different intellectual property
courses and from non-intellectual property courses, bringing
home the inter-relationships between different bodies of law
and asking students to apply that knowledge to a concrete
problem faced by a fictional client. The course will be taught
by several faculty members. During some class meetings, the
class will meet as a group. Between these "team"
meetings, the class will break into smaller groups (of approximately
8-12 students). These smaller groups will work with teams
of two faculty in researching and discussing particular parts
of the overall problem, will make oral reports to other members
of the small group, and after the small group decides on the
appropriate strategy will make oral and brief written reports
to the entire class. The entire class will then discuss how
best to advise the client to proceed and how best to effectuate
the social and commercial objectives of the client. The course
is intended to allow students to develop an appreciation of
the contexts in which intellectual property problems arise,
how to apply knowledge developed in intellectual property
and other courses to a concrete problem, the considerations
(legal and non-legal) that guide how lawyers approach those
problems, and the real-life dynamics that affect the practice
of intellectual property law. The class will be graded on
a pass/fail basis, based upon performance in class (both when
the entire class is present and in small groups) and based
upon oral and written presentations. Three credit hours.
(added 11/03)
Law 310 Tax Planning for International Business. This
course provides an introduction to the U.S. tax structure
that applies to international transactions, i.e., investment
and business undertakings by U.S. persons overseas and similar
undertakings by foreign persons in the U.S. The first part
of the course will use a problem approach to examine the basic
U.S. tax principles governing international transactions (including
a discussion of treaty implications). The second part of the
course will examine strategies in the formation, acquisition,
financing, operation and disposition of international business
activities. Two credit hours.
Law 580 Tax Procedure. This course involves a study
of the procedural aspects of the federal income tax system,
with special attention to the tax controversy process. Topics
include the organization of the Internal Revenue Service,
professional responsibilities in tax practice, returns, statutes
of limitations, interest, civil penalties, audits and administrative
appeals, assessments, refunds, litigation forums, IRS investigatory
powers, and collection procedures. Two credit hours.
Law 428 Taxation of Business Enterprises. This course
examines and compares the federal income tax treatment of
the various forms of business enterprises and their owners.
We begin with the traditional corporation, which is treated
as a taxpayer separate from its owners. Because of the important
changes made by the Tax Reform Act of 1986, we devote the
second half of the course to the "conduit" business
vehicles -- partnerships, S corporations, and limited liability
companies. Topics covered include: organizing and setting
up the capital structure of the entity; how operations are
taxed; transactions between the entity and its owners; taxable
or tax-deferred sales or termination of the entity, and "exit
strategies" for the owners; and the choice of entity
for various business purposes. Four credit hours.
Law 207 Technology and the Practice of Law. This course
examines the role of technology in the practice and the business
of law. The course considers the impact of technology on the
profession, its economic value, and the types of technology
systems available, offering students an analytical framework
to examine information technology platforms and the future
of the legal profession. A number of advanced technology systems
will be evaluated, including personal productivity systems,
knowledge management, and enterprise integration systems,
commonly known as "portals." Two credit hours.
(added 4/02)
Law 203 Telecommunications Law and Policy. This course
addresses the legal and regulatory aspects of the telecommunications
environment from the development of the telegraph and wireless
communication at the beginning of the Twentieth Century to
the current implementation of innovative telecommunications
technologies today. It explores the latest technologies in
the legal framework of modern society, but with a practical
view toward the changing business landscapes and the nexus
between the law and regulation of business and the policy
considerations for the citizenry. That telecommunications
technologies do not observe national boundaries provides opportunities
to explore some of the policy issues in the international
context. Three credit hours.
Law 416 Trademarks and Unfair Competition. This course
covers the creation, maintenance, and enforcement of trademark
rights, as well as related forms of protection under principles
of unfair competition law. The course includes an examination
of the public policies and economic considerations underlying
trademark law, as well as all the basic issues (such as the
prerequisites to trademark protection, the registration process,
the grounds for excluding signs from protection or registration,
the scope of trademark rights, restraining the distribution
of imitation and counterfeit goods, and remedies available
in trademark litigation). The course will also cover protection
available under the general rubric of unfair competition law
(including prohibitions on false advertising), as well as
publicity rights afforded by state laws. In addition to these
basic issues, the course will address issues of current interest,
such as: protection of non-traditional subject matter such
as product designs or colors; conflicts between trademark
protection of non-traditional subject matter and the copyright
or patent laws; protection of trademark rights against dilution,
and the conflicts with free expression that this and other
protection might precipitate; licensing of trademark rights;
and reconciling the rights of competing users of trademark
terms. Throughout, the course will address the application
of trademark principles in new as well as traditional media,
and will consider the problems raised by online use of trademarks
(in such contexts as metatagging, hyperlinking, sale of keywords,
domain name warehousing, and cybersquatting). Three credit
hours.
Law 398 Workers' Compensation Law. This course will
study the rights and responsibilities of injured employees
and their employers under workers' compensation and occupational
diseases statutes. Third-party actions also are examined.
Two credit hours.
LITIGATION AND PRACTICE SKILLS
Law 575 Alternative Dispute Resolution. This course
provides an introduction to negotiation, mediation, and
arbitration as alternatives to traditional litigation, and
studies the ADR movement in general. The course will combine
lectures and class discussions based upon assigned readings
with a series of increasingly complex simulated exercises,
with the goal of exposing students to the theory and practice
of various ADR techniques. You may not take this course
if you have taken either negotiations or mediation. Two
credit hours.
Law 406 Appellate Advocacy. This is a required course
for new members of the Chicago-Kent Moot Court Honor Society.
The goal of the course is to provide students with advanced
training in appellate litigation, and as such will concentrate
on developing professional skills in brief writing and research,
and oral advocacy. In addition, the course will include an
introduction to various aspects of appellate procedure. Students
will prepare a brief and will be required to participate in
an intramural oral advocacy competition. The Moot Court Honor
Society will choose members for Chicago-Kent's spring interscholastic
competition teams based in large part on students' performance
in this course. Two credit hours.
Law 505 Business Entity Formation and Law 345 Business
Entity Transactions. Business Entity Formation and Business
Entity Transactions are two three-credit business courses
that are offered as part of the Law Offices clinical education
program. Both courses are taught with extensive use of simulation
exercises. Business Entity Formation provides an opportunity
for students to form various types of business entities including
partnerships, limited liability companies and corporations.
In Business Entity Transactions, students implement various
business transactions such as employment and consulting agreements,
shareholder agreements and agreements in connection with the
purchase and sale of a business. In both courses, the students
apply the legal doctrine learned in Business Organizations
and other courses to a series of progressively more sophisticated
simulation exercises and prepare the documents necessary,
in Business Entity Formation, to create and organize the entities;
and in the case of Business Entity transactions, to implement
the various business transactions required by the exercises.
In both courses the students utilize information gathering,
planning, counseling and negotiating skills in the development
of the documents. Each course is three credit hours.
Law 238 Chicago Legal Clinic Practicum. The Chicago
Legal Clinic (not affiliated with Chicago-Kent) represents
more than 12,000 clients a year, including victims of domestic
violence, people with social security problems, clients with
immigration issues, and organizations with environmental concerns.
Students in the practicum will support the work of the newest
program of the Chicago Legal Clinic, Legal Advocates for Seniors
and People with Disabilities, which offers legal assistance
to people whose assets and sources of income are protected
by law and who have significant financial problems. Students
will work on one or more of the following types of projects:
creating web-based educational materials for the benefit of
caseworkers, caretakers and potential clients; presenting
workshops to caseworkers, caretakers and potential clients;
counseling seniors and people with disabilities who have limited
sources of income and significant financial problems; researching
potential cases against collection agencies that violate the
Federal Fair Debt Collection Act; and assisting with the litigation
of cases against collection agencies that violate the Federal
Fair Debt Collection Act. A 711 license is not required. Students
are expected to work an average of 8 hours a week, in addition
to a weekly meeting with the instructor.
(added 11/04)
Law 324 Employment Litigation. Employment Litigation
is a simulation course, designed to introduce students to
the representation of a client in an employment discrimination
case, from the initial client interview through a motion for
summary judgment. Students are assigned as members of either
the plaintiff or defense law firm, and work with a “senior
partner”/professor in interviewing the prospective clients;
preparing engagement letters; drafting a Complaint or an Answer;
drafting and responding to written discovery; preparing for,
taking, and defending depositions; and preparing or opposing
a motion for summary judgment. Three credit hours.
(revised 5/03)
Law 521 Environmental Law Clinic. The Environmental
Law Clinic will help students develop their lawyering skills
by giving them the opportunity to represent individuals and
community organizations with environmental concerns. Students
will interview clients, represent clients in meetings with
corporations and government officials, and represent clients
in court. Cases range from assisting an individual who discovers
she has lead paint in her home to helping communities with
problems arising from active facilities, abandoned sites,
and proposed facilities. The class sessions will provide an
opportunity to observe and practice lawyering skills, develop
an understanding of the key substantive environmental law
areas involved in the clinic's work, and discuss ongoing cases.
Students are required to perform 10 hours a week of fieldwork
for the 3-credit version of the clinic, and 12 hours a week
of fieldwork for the 4-credit version, in addition to the
classroom component. Students are required to perform 5 hours
a week of fieldwork for the 1-credit version. The clinic is
open to 8 students each semester. If a selection process is
necessary, you will be notified regarding the interview process
after you register for the class. There are no course prerequisites
for this clinic. Students must have completed 30 credit hours
to take the Clinic. One, three, or four credit hours.
Law 588 Environmental Law Externship. Students in the
Program in Environmental and Energy Law have the opportunity
to explore environmental opportunities in the public and public
interest sectors. These externships help students develop
their legal research and writing skills and substantive knowledge
of environmental law. Externships are currently available
at several government agencies and public interest groups:
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Office,
the Illinois Attorney General's Office (Environmental Division),
the City of Chicago Law Department (Environmental Unit), the
State's Attorney's office (Environmental Division), the Illinois
Pollution Control Board, the Chicago Legal Clinic, the Lake
Michigan Federation, the Illinois Commerce Commission, and
the Environmental Law and Policy Center for the Midwest. Students
should contact Professor Gross for more information about
enrolling in this externship. Four credit hours.
Law 502-535 In-House Clinical Programs. The In-House
Programs of the Law Offices constitute one of the largest
In-House clinical programs in the United States. In seven
of the In-House Programs -- the Employment Discrimination/Civil
Rights Litigation with some General Practice Clinic, the Criminal
Defense Litigation Clinic, the Health and Disability Law Clinic,
the Mediation and Other ADR Procedures Clinic, the Low Income
Taxpayers Clinic, the Immigration Law Clinic, and the Family
Law Clinic -- students are given the option of enrolling for
three or four credits. Students who enroll for four credits
put in a minimum of sixteen hours per week and students who
enroll for three credits put in a minimum of twelve hours
per week during the fourteen-week semester. In the Advice
Desk Clinic and the Legal Aid Hotline/CARPLS Clinic, students
enroll for two credits and put in a minimum of eight hours
per week.
(revised 11/04)
Each of the In-House clinical programs provides classroom
as well as field-work instruction to the students enrolled
in that program as part of their weekly hourly requirement.
With permission, students may enroll for a second semester
in each of the In-House programs, with the exception of
the Mediation and Other ADR Procedures Clinic and the Legal
Aid Hotline/CARPLS Clinic. A unique feature of Employment
Discrimination/Civil Rights Litigation with some General
Practice Clinic, the Criminal Defense Litigation Clinic,
the Health and Disability Law Clinic, the Immigration Law
Clinic, and the Family Law Clinic is their fee-generating
practice, which enables their student interns to receive
their clinical experience in non-poverty as well as poverty
cases and to have the opportunity to work in a realistic
practice environment.
Students who intern in the Employment Discrimination/Civil
Rights Litigation with some General Practice Clinic work
on employment discrimination disputes and civil rights cases
in the federal and state courts and at administrative agencies;
the work also includes some general civil practice.
Students who intern in the Criminal Defense Litigation
Clinic work on criminal defense matters in the trial and
appellate courts in both the federal and state legal systems.
The program represents clients accused of felonies and misdemeanors
of all types.
Students who intern in the Health and Disability Law Clinic
have an opportunity to work on Social Security disability
cases, which generally involves proving at the administrative
hearing level or beyond the medical disability of individuals
in order to establish their eligibility for federal benefit
programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits,
Supplemental Security Income, Medicare and Medicaid. Students
will also work on other civil litigation matters which generally
involve health, disability or discrimination issues.
Students who intern in the Immigration Law Clinic work
on cases in all areas of immigration law, including professionals,
aliens of extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts and
business, individuals seeking immigration benefits for family
members, asylees and individuals threatened with removal
from the United States by the government.
Students who intern in the Mediation and Other ADR Procedures
Clinic engage in training and practice in mediation, arbitration,
and other ADR techniques. They become certified as mediators
and conduct a number of mediations over the course of the
semester. Typical cases include juvenile court cases, criminal
misdemeanor cases, employment discrimination cases, landlord-tenant
disputes, and small claims court disputes. They also assist
the clinical professors in arbitrating cases and drafting
arbitration opinions.
Students who intern in the Low Income Taxpayers Clinic
provide free assistance to impoverished clients in connection
with a wide variety of federal tax disputes. Students have
primary responsibility for advising and representing taxpayers
who are battling the Internal Revenue Service and in the
midst of ongoing civil examinations, administrative appeals,
and enforced collection actions. Students also work closely
with the supervising professor to prepare and try cases
before the U.S. Tax Court and the U.S. District Court. Typical
issues include proving entitlement to the Earned Income
Tax Credit, establishing status as an Innocent Spouse, substantiating
business or personal deductions claimed on tax returns,
seeking relief from various civil penalties, and stopping
the IRS from seizing a client's wages or other assets.
Students who intern in the Family Law Clinic work on cases
dealing with legal separation, divorce, and child custody.
Students who intern in the Advice Desk Clinic provide interviewing,
counseling and limited representation to indigent defendants
who seek assistance at the Circuit Court of Cook County.
Approximately sixty percent of the cases involve eviction
defense and forty percent involve tort, contract, personal
injury and collection matters. Students are taught interviewing
and counseling techniques and the substantive law needed
to assist these clients. A limited number of students may
enroll for a second semester and provide complete representation
including trial, if necessary, to defendants in Landlord/Tenant
Court who are threatened with eviction.
Students who intern in the Legal Aid Hotline/CARPLS Clinic
talk to clients who call the Coordinated Advice and Referral
Program for Legal Services (CARPLS) Hotline seeking legal
advice in the areas of landlord-tenant and family law. Students
are supervised by an experienced CARPLS attorney.
Pretrial Litigation for LADR Students Only is open only
to students who are in the Litigation and Alternative Dispute
Resolution (LADR) Certificate Program. A primary goal of
the course is to teach both the mechanics and the theory
of Pretrial Litigation, which is the activity in which civil
litigators are engaged for the vast majority of their lawyering
careers. The course also has as its goal to educate practitioners
who will have the capability to solve professional problems
within the indeterminate, real world of the practice of
law. Students will be introduced to the process of developing
professional judgment and making them reflective practitioners
who will have the skills, abilities, and training to attain
success and the highest degree of competence in their professional
lives. In this course students will meet with their "simulated"
client and interview him/her. Students will conduct both
a legal and factual investigation, which will include research
into the law and the interviewing of potential witnesses.
Students will take part in preparing and filing pleadings,
a discovery plan, written interrogatories, requests for
production of documents, requests to admit facts, and any
discovery-related motions that they deem necessary to fully
prepare their client's case. Students will also participate
in a simulated deposition. Students will then prepare and
argue a motion for summary judgment. After the defendant's
motion for summary judgment is denied, students will conduct
a counseling session with their client in preparation for
a simulated negotiation session with opposing counsel. Finally,
the students will take part in the preparation and filing
of a Joint Pretrial Order, including a trial brief. The
course will end on the eve of trial with a pre-trial conference
with the judge. The complaint or answer, written discovery
requests, and brief in support of or in opposition to summary
judgment, will take the place of an advanced legal writing
course.
Law 590 Intellectual Property Externship. The Intellectual
Property Externship Program enables third-year students enrolled
in the Intellectual Property Certificate Program to receive
academic credit (without pay) for working 16 hours a week
in an approved legal placement under the supervision of a
designated attorney. The program is unique in that it enables
students to gain practical experience and develop their legal
skills while at the same time making themselves more marketable
to prospective employers. The externship consists primarily
of a fieldwork experience under a supervising lawyer, supplemented
by individual meetings between the extern and Professor Gross
throughout the semester. For more information about available
externship opportunities, contact Professor Vivien Gross (vgross@kentlaw.edu).
Four credit hours.
(added 11/03)
Law 249 Intellectual Property Litigation. As intellectual
property becomes more critical to the success and survival
of many businesses, intellectual property disputes become
more frequent and more significant. This course explores the
life cycle of an intellectual property dispute, including
initial client meetings, cease and desist letters, temporary
restraining orders/preliminary injunctions, seizures, deposition
strategies, experts, summary judgment strategies, settlement
negotiations and licensing resolutions, mediations, trials,
damages, and enforcement techniques. We will use cutting edge
intellectual property issues as a vehicle to explore these
issues. Prerequisites: two of the following courses: Copyright
Law, Trademarks & Unfair Competition, and Patent Law.
Recommended preparation: Remedies. Three credit hours.
(relocated 11/04 to Litigation and Practice
Skills section)
Law 226 Intellectual Property Trial Advocacy. This
course will explore the stages, issues, and techniques involved
in trying an intellectual property lawsuit. Special emphasis
will be given to the unique procedural and evidentiary considerations
that arise in intellectual property trials. The course will
rely heavily on materials from actual patent infringement,
trade secrets, and other cases. Students will participate
in mock proceedings involving motions in limine, opening statements,
direct and cross examinations, and closing arguments. Students
seeking the Intellectual Property Law Certificate have priority
for this course. Recommended preparation: Evidence and either
Patent Law or Trademarks & Unfair Competition. If you
have taken both Trial Advocacy 1 and Trial Advocacy 2, you
may not take this course. Three credit hours.
(relocated 11/04 to Litigation and Practice
Skills section)
Law 541 Intensive Trial Advocacy 1. This is an intensive
one-week version of Trial Advocacy 1 (see separate description).
The course is offered every August prior to the start of the
Fall semester and every January prior to the start of the
Spring semester. Students who take Intensive Trial Advocacy
are required to take Trial Advocacy 2 in the semester immediately
following completion of the Intensive course. Three credit
hours.
Law 560 International Law Moot Court. Preparation of
an appellate brief for the Jessup International Moot Court
Competition. Students must have taken, or be taking concurrently,
the course in International Law. One credit hour.
Law 519 International Rule of Law Externship. The Rule
of Law Externship Program seeks to develop externships in
emerging democracies such as Bosnia, Poland and Macedonia.
Students spend some time prior to the externship familiarizing
themselves with the relevant law of the country in which they
will extern and they then spend two or three weeks in the
country in which the externship placement is situated performing
their assigned tasks. Students receive two externship credits,
graded on a pass/fail basis. After they return to Chicago-Kent,
students write a scholarly paper on a topic related to their
externship for which they receive graded credit.
Law 573 Judicial Externship. Judicial Externship is
a four-hour pass/fail program open to second- and third-year
students only, and is offered Fall, Spring, and Summer terms.
The prestigious fieldwork component of the program provides
externs with the opportunity to work with a federal judge
and/or the judge's law clerks by researching law, writing
memoranda and drafting opinions. The judicial extern becomes
involved in particular legal problems and is able, through
research and writing, to contribute to the resolution of those
problems. Depending upon the judge, an extern may have the
opportunity to observe the day-to-day routine of the courtroom
and to discuss with the judge or the judge's law clerk those
legal problems which judges confront in their courtroom. There
is an accompanying discussion component that focuses on various
aspects of federal judicial decision-making and, where appropriate,
how those aspects affect the extern's work product. Selection
of an extern is made by the individual judge through the application
process which the law school oversees. To apply, students
must meet the minimum G.P.A. requirement, which is approximately
the top 22% in the second- and third-year classes, respectively.
The exact G.P.A.'s will vary from year to year. For more information,
contact Professor Vivien Gross (vgross@kentlaw.edu). Four
credit hours.
(revised 11/03)
Law 503 Justice Web Collaboratory Externship. This
externship provides students the opportunity to explore access
to justice issues, including the use of technology in legal
services, alternative legal services delivery models, e-lawyering,
and pro se litigant assistance. Students work in conjunction
with the Justice Web Collaboratory and its Illinois Technology
Center for Law & the Public Interest (ITC), a statewide
collaboration of legal services providers, whose mission is
to provide low-income individuals with greater access to the
legal system through the use of technology. The externship
allows students to acquire direct client service experience
and to use that experience to assist in the development and
upgrading of innovative web resources for pro se litigants
and the public. Students will split their time between these
two activities and will have the flexibility to choose opportunities
that most appeal to them. Students who have computer and web
design skills will have the ability to utilize those skills.
The direct client service portion of the externship provides
students with experience in assisting self-represented litigants
and/or providing brief legal services to low-income individuals.
Examples of these opportunities include the following: Assisting
pro se litigants at courtBbased help desks; providing legal
advice over telephone hotlines; and negotiating on behalf
of tenants in eviction court. The development and upgrading
of web resources for pro se litigants and the public involves
the following activities: working with expert attorneys selected
from the Illinois legal aid community to build and maintain
the Illinois poverty law web portals (www.itcweb.org); researching,
drafting, and editing of web based legal education materials
and legal forms with instructions for the public; and developing
appropriate user interfaces for web based document assembly.
The externship requires at least 16 hours per week spent on
externship activities. Students can earn additional credit
the following semester by arrangement. Four credit hours.
Law 421 Labor/Employment Law Externship. The Labor/Employment
Law Externship Program is offered through the Labor/Employment
Law Certificate Program. The externship is available to students
enrolled in the Labor/Employment Law Certificate Program during
their last year of law school and is used to satisfy the experiential
learning requirement of the certificate program. The educational
objective of the externship is to provide the student externs
with a well-supervised lawyering experience in labor or employment
law by enabling each of them to extern with a law school-approved
placement. Student externs are placed with a law firm, corporation,
union or governmental agency. Externs spend approximately
fifteen hours per week during the fourteen-week semester at
their designated placements and attend periodic meetings with
the faculty supervisor. Students in the program enroll in
a three-credit field-work course graded on a pass/low pass/fail
basis and a one-credit graded classroom course.
Law 550 Law Review. Preparation of articles and comments
upon current legal and social problems for inclusion in the
Chicago-Kent Law Review. Open only to members of the Board
of Editors and the staff of the Law Review. One credit hour
per semester. (Maximum credit not to exceed five credit hours.)
Law 559 Legal Externship. The Legal Externship Program
is a four-hour pass/fail program that enables a law student
to receive academic credit (without pay) for working 16 hours
a week in an approved legal placement under the supervision
of a designated attorney. The program is unique in that it
enables students to gain practical experience and develop
their legal skills while at the same time making themselves
more marketable to prospective employers. Legal Externship
consists primarily of a fieldwork experience under a supervising
lawyer, supplemented by individual meetings between the extern
and his/her faculty advisor throughout the semester. Externs
interested in civil law may select to work in corporations,
firms or government agencies, specializing in such diverse
legal areas as immigration, tax, commodities, securities,
health care, medical malpractice, or general corporate law.
Externs in criminal law may choose to work with the States
Attorney's Office, Public Defender's Office, or the U.S. Attorney's
Office. Some externships offer the opportunity to obtain a
711 license and appear in court. For permission to do an externship
or for more information about available externship opportunities,
please contact Professor Vivien Gross (vgross@kentlaw.edu).
Four credit hours.
(revised 11/03)
Law 254 Litigation Technology. This course will teach
law students interested in becoming trial lawyers how to integrate
technology into their trial presentations. Students will learn
how to apply principles of persuasion to the creation of courtroom
visuals which they will then present in the trial advocacy
portion of the course. The course will use hypothetical problems
and cases to allow students to develop presentations that
persuade and will include computer lab sections, some lecture,
and student participation with instructor critique. Students
will try civil cases and criminal cases. Students should own
their own laptop computers and be prepared to bring them to
class every week. The machine should be Windows-compatible.
The class may run longer than three hours when students try
their mock trials. Maximum class size is 16 students. Prerequisite:
one semester of Trial Advocacy. Three credit hours.
(revised 11/03)
Law 420 Mediation. An exploration of the mediation
process as an alternative to traditional litigation. The course
explores the role of the mediator as well as the role of attorneys
in the mediation process. This is a simulation course in which
students participate in several mediations. Two credit hours.
Law 551 Moot Court Honor Society. Instruction in, and
preparation of, appellate briefs and appellate oral arguments
in intramural and national competition. One credit hour per
semester. (Maximum credit not to exceed five credit hours.)
Law 429 Negotiations. This course examines the negotiation
process engaged in by lawyers. It is intended to increase
a student's understanding of that process and to develop his/her
skills as a negotiator. Experts in various fields discuss
negotiations as they apply in those areas of the law. Students
engage in mock negotiations in a variety of contexts, such
as divorce, real estate, contracts, commercial law, labor
law, and criminal law. Not all instructors cover each of these
areas of substantive law, and different instructors emphasize
different areas of substantive law. Two credit hours.
Law 595 Refugee & Asylum Law Externship. This is
a Spring semester practical training course offered by Hearland
Alliance's Midwest Immigration & Human Rights Center (MIHRC)
for law students interested in immigration law. The course
is offered through Chicago-Kent's Legal Externship Program.
In addition to the Law School externship meetings, students
must attend weekly evening classes at MIHRC's downtown office,
and are assiged an asylum case to prepare for presentation
before the Chicago Asylum Office. The class schedule will
be arranged once students are selected. Students will prepare
cases of asylum applicants previoulsy interviewed and accepted
by MIHRC. Each student will interview and assist in the preparation
of their client's affidavit. After researching domestic and
international law, as well as country conditions pertinent
to the claim, students will assemble an asylum application
with supplemental documentatin and will draft a legal memorandum
in support of their client's application. At the end of the
program, students will file clients' applications with the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security and accompany their clients
to their interviews at the Chicago Asylum Office. Prior immigration
law experience is not required. Fluency in a second language
is preferred, although not a requirement. Please contact Professor
Vivien Gross for more information about applying to this program.
(revised 11/05)
Law 555 Trial Advocacy 1. An introduction to litigation
taught by leading trial attorneys and judges. The course uses
hypothetical cases to teach the student trial preparation,
strategy, and conduct in a courtroom setting. Although the
instructor will demonstrate from time to time, the primary
teaching method is student participation with instructor critique.
Classes often run longer than three hours. Three credit hours.
Law 558 Trial Advocacy 2. An in-depth study and performance
of litigation skills in certain trial settings. The course
is a continuation of Trial Advocacy 1. Classes often run longer
than three hours. Three credit hours.
SEMINARS
(Except where indicated, all seminars are two credit hours.)
Following is a list of seminars that have been offered
recently, although not necessarily every year. Each year
new seminars are introduced and old ones retired. Seminar
study provides students with an opportunity to work closely
with members of the faculty in their areas of expertise.
Some elective courses are also offered for seminar credit;
where this is the case, it is noted in the registration
materials for the particular semester. Enrollment in all
seminars is limited to fifteen students.
Law 671 Access to Justice and Technology. Studies repeatedly
demonstrate that 80% of the legal needs of the poor in the
United States remain unmet, despite existing federal, state,
and volunteer programs that provide some civil legal services
to low income people. The seminar will explore the parallel
problems of lack of access to legal services by low income
people, on the one hand, and the flood of underrepresented
litigants appearing before state and federal courts, on the
other. Barriers to access to the justice system will be examined
and various solutions explored with special emphasis on the
potential of the Internet and related technologies to improve
access to justice. The seminar will be both experiential and
experimental. You will visit courts and legal services offices
to observe our current justice system in action. You will
also be encouraged to write papers that explore innovative
approaches to increasing access to justice.
(added 12/02; revised 4/04)
Law 689 Advanced Evidence. This seminar will focus
on the three areas of evidence that matter most in the trial
and appeal of lawsuits, civil and criminal. These areas are:
character, hearsay and confrontation, and expert witnesses.
Class discussion will track the most recent developments in
these areas, focusing on ways to successfully object and respond
to objections at the trial court level. Through the use of
fact situations from reported decisions, we will develop a
realistic and effective approach to evidence law, while exploring
its strengths and weaknesses.
Law 661 Advanced Issues in Patent Law. This seminar
will look at historical text, current legal scholarly work,
and popular non-fiction to examine why we give people patents
(incentive to innovate, public disclosure) and why people
seek patents (the limited monopoly, defensive tools, vanity).
We will also look at how patentees are currently using their
patents and examine whether the reality of what patents are
being used for matches the understood bases for granting and
seeking patents. Topics will likely include patent data mining,
moral blocking patents (e.g., the Newman chimera application),
patent portfolios and thickets, raising venture capital, patents
and personhood, and other relevant topics. Students will have
some choice in the topics to be discussed, as student papers
will for the basis of some class discussions.
(added 4/05)
Law 662 Advanced Tax Transactions. This seminar examines
the tax and business planning aspects of mergers and acquisitions,
including taxable and nontaxable transfers of businesses and
real estate. Transactions covered include installment sales,
earn-outs, options, technology transfers, reverse mergers
and like-kind exchanges. Particular attention will be given
to planning whether to use asset sales or stock sales, structuring
financing for acquisitions and techniques for compensating
investors. The seminar will also explore the taxation of partnerships,
S corporations and limited liability companies and their special
application to corporate and real estate acquisitions.
Law 626 Antitrust and Intellectual Property. This seminar
explores the overlap and apparent tension between Intellectual
Property and Antitrust laws. We will discuss how substantive
Antitrust law constrains owners of intellectual property.
The seminar will not discuss how to obtain a patent or copyright
(which is taught in substantive Intellectual Property courses);
rather, we will determine when the acquisition, licensing,
and/or enforcement of Intellectual Property rights violate
Antitrust laws. The seminar is designed and intended for:
(1) students of Intellectual Property law who want to understand
how Antitrust law limits the exercise of IP rights, and/or
(2) students who have taken Antitrust and want to study how
this body of law operates in the context of Intellectual Property
rights.
(added 11/03)
Law 604 Biblical and Rabbinic Law: A Comparative Analysis.
If you've ever wanted to know about the legal system of the
Hebrew Bible, as well as the jurisprudential approaches used
by Talmudic and later Rabbinic authorities in interpreting
this ancient text and confronting new problems, then this
is the seminar for you. We will closely examine the relevant
texts and the religious/moral/social/economic/political assumptions
underlying the legal rules in those texts. We will also consider
how those rules were (and are) to be applied and by whom.
The comparative aspects of the seminar will emerge as we address
the ways in which Biblical and Rabbinic law are both similar
to, and vastly different from, American law, particularly
constitutional law and tort law. The seminar has no language
requirement beyond English, since we will be using translated
texts. In addition, this seminar is open to everyone, regardless
of religious belief or non-belief. Your attendance and active
participation in class are essential.
Law 642 Capital Punishment and the Judicial Process.
A review of the constitutional limitations on the death penalty
in America including right to counsel, questions of race and
gender, jury selection, retroactivity, the balance of aggravating
and mitigating circumstances, use of psychiatric experts,
and state and federal habeas corpus proceedings. Federal death
penalty laws and international aspects of capital punishment
will also be explored.
Law 641 Civil RICO. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations Act (RICO) was enacted a generation ago primarily
as a tool for criminal prosecutors to use against organized
crime. Its civil provisions were added to the legislation
as an afterthought and remained largely dormant for a decade.
Today, civil RICO is on the cutting-edge of the debate over
illegal immigration. Mr. Foster has pioneered the use of the
law against employers who hire large numbers of illegal workers
in order to depress wage levels for legal American workers.
These cases have not only made headlines across the country
but also reached the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year.
This class will not only delve into the fundamentals of the
RICO statute, but also touch upon issues of market power over
wages, proximate causation, class action procedure and Supreme
Court practice, concepts with broad application in employment
and business law.
(revised 11/06)
Law 668 Collective Bargaining and Arbitration. This
seminar focuses on the practical aspects of employment law.
In class, students will draft proposals for a labor agreement
and negotiate a labor agreement. The class will also engage
in the following mock arbitrations: an interest arbitration
to determine contract terms, an arbitration concerning discipline,
and a contract interpretation arbitration. Students will prepare
a research paper related to collective bargaining and/or arbitration.
The research papers will be subjects of discussions in class.
Law 682 Commercial Arbitration. More and more business,
consumer, securities, and other disputes are resolved, not
by courts, but by private arbitrators whose services are paid
for by the parties. Law governing the operation of these private
dispute resolution mechanisms and the enforceability of arbitration
awards is therefore of critical importance to lawyers practicing
in a vast range of substantive areas. At the same time, this
law—part statutory, part judge-made—continues to
change in fundamental ways and important legal issues remain
unsettled. The seminar will examine historical and modern
U.S. arbitration law and explore issues of interest in the
dynamic legal relationship between arbitrators and courts.
Law 652 Comparative Tort Law. Comparative law is important
for at least two reasons. First, law and legal disputes are
increasingly becoming more global, so that knowledge of other
legal systems with different procedural and doctrinal structures,
especially those based on the European civil law tradition
rather than the Anglo-American common law tradition, as well
as law promulgated by international organizations such as
the European Court of Human Rights, is becoming increasingly
important to everyday legal practice. Second, studying how
other legal systems deal with various substantive and procedural
issues can provide useful insights for how those issues might
be better dealt with in our legal system. The premise of this
course is that the benefits of studying comparative law can
be best obtained by focusing on a specific area of law, which
however encompasses issues and doctrines that are fundamental
to all of law. Tort law is such an area.
(added 11/06)
Law 648 Constitutional Torts/Section 1983. This seminar
deals with the important subject of constitutional torts,
specifically 42 U.S.C. ' 1983 and Bivens actions, whereby
state, local and federal officials, as well as local governments,
may be held liable in damages when they violate peoples' constitutional
rights. Constitutional torts is a subject that is fascinating
at both a theoretical and practical level. It raises deep
issues of federalism and justice as well as real-world problems
of how to make governments accountable to their citizens without
undermining their effectiveness. Thousands of constitutional
torts cases are filed annually, and they generate considerable
controversy, e.g., Rodney King filed a section 1983 damages
action against Los Angeles and certain of its police officers.
Those who should take this seminar include persons who expect
to do federal litigation of any kind, as well as any students
who hope to clerk for federal or state judges or work for
state and local governments. Not only does the seminar deal
with constitutional law but it also addresses federal courts
issues, damages and injunctive relief and attorney's fees,
among other important subjects.
Law 602 Current Issues in Education Law. This seminar
will focus on some of the most provocative education law topics
of the moment, including First Amendment voucher and school-prayer
issues, Fourth Amendment issues following Columbine, accommodation
and inclusion of children with disabilities (ADA and IDEA),
school funding disparities, and the current state of school
desegregation. In addition, the study of these timely issues
provides valuable insights into the interplay of state and
federal constitutional and statutory law.
Law 624 Current Issues in Environmental Law. This seminar
will address cutting-edge issues in a variety of environmental
law areas. Among the topics that may be addressed are land
use and land transfers, environmental implications of corporate
transactions, facility citing, public participation, environmental
justice, environmental enforcement matters, and Brownfields.
Law 615 First Amendment Theory. This seminar will explore
the history and theory of the First Amendment freedom of speech
and press. After examining some of the leading theoriesBwhich
view free expression as essential to individual self-fulfillment,
democratic self-government, and the search of truthBwe will
debate how the First Amendment should apply to a variety of
contemporary issues, including flagburning, pornography, and
hate speech.
Law 618 Government Enforcement of Environmental Laws. This
seminar will give you an understanding of how local, state,
and federal governments enforce violations of environmental
laws. It will also give you insight into how these levels
of government interact in the enforcement of these cases.
You will learn how a case proceeds from the time of its discovery,
to the investigation, to the decision to proceed administratively,
civilly, criminally, or not at all. You will work through
case studies of actual air, land and water pollution violations
from their discovery through their prosecution.
Law 681 Graduate Seminar in International Intellectual
Property Law. This is a year-long mandatory seminar for
all students enrolled in the LL.M. Program in International
Intellectual Property Law. It is open only to those students.
The seminar will introduce students to all the relevant institutions
of international intellectual property law (including most
notably the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual
Property Organization). It will also cover the principal scholarly
and policy debates that are presently occurring regarding
international intellectual property law. As the year proceeds,
the seminar will be structured around the masters thesis being
drafted by each student for his or her LLM in International
Intellectual Property Law. Two credit hours (Fall); one credit
hour (Spring).
(added 5/03)
Law 619 International and Comparative Antitrust. During
the last few years, the role of law in protecting economic
competition from restraints (“antitrust law” or
“competition law”) has become an increasingly important
factor in international business and in legal practice relating
to international business. It is likely to become even more
important as the globalization of economic activity advances.
This course is designed to introduce students to this area
of law and to the basic tools they will need to understand
and provide legal services in it. We will examine U.S. antitrust
law as it relates to transactional conduct. We will then look
at antitrust law in Europe and, in a superficial way, other
parts of the world. The final section of the course will deal
with recent developments in international antitrust cooperation
and with moves toward the development of a transnational antitrust
regime.
(added 5/03)
Law 675 International Criminal Law. This seminar explores
three principal areas: (1) international procedural mechanisms
for enforcing national criminal laws (such as the extradition
process and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties); (2) substantive
international criminal laws (such as war crimes, crimes against
peace, and crimes against humanity); and (3) international
criminal law issues that arise in doing business abroad (such
as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act). Particular attention
will be given to international criminal law issues arising
out of the Bosnian war (including the UN's establishing a
war crimes tribunal). An introductory course in international
law is strongly recommended as a prerequisite.
Law 686 International Human Rights. The seminar involves
both a definition of human rights as well as enforcement procedures
for the implementation of human rights. The historical and
philosophical bases of human rights are examined starting
with the works of various thinkers from the diverse schools,
particularly natural law, positivism, Marxism and the sociological
school. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
later international covenants are looked at in terms of the
influences of the various schools. The seminar addresses the
question of whether there is agreement as to fundamental human
rights. Recent developments and tensions in the field of human
rights particularly since the increased membership of countries
from the "third world" and socialist bloc countries
are investigated. This is highlighted by focusing on the later
two covenants of the United Nations, particularly the Covenant
on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, which enlarges the
scope of human rights to include welfare, cultural, and economic
rights. Finally, the seminar focuses on the contribution of
international and non-governmental organizations in the protection
and implementation of human rights.
Law 672 International Labor and Employment Law. This
seminar will focus on how and why international labor and
employment law have developed as a response to globalization,
exploring intellectual foundations and surveying the latest
developments in the field. The aim is to become conversant
with key policy issues, and with the architecture of the main
regimes of international labor and employment law, preparing
students to provide well-rounded advice, arguments, and opinions
on a set of issues at the center of contemporary debates over
international economic integration. Topics will include the
mutilateral system of worker rights (the International Labor
Organization and international human rights conventions),
the linkages between labor standards and international trade
law, regional systems of worker rights (the European Union,
the NAFTA), unilateral application of worker rights within
the international system, litigating international worker
rights in U.S. courts, and corporate social responsibility
and private sector codes of conduct.
(added 11/04)
Law 687 International Patent Law. U.S. Patent Law is
increasingly influenced and modified by international treaties
and considerations. This seminar will provide an in-depth
look at patent laws on the international level. Issues that
we will explore include prosecuting patents pursuant to the
Patent Cooperation Treaty and the extraterritorial reach of
U.S. patent law. We will also examine recent efforts at patent
harmonization through the TRIPS Agreement and the dispute
resolution proceedings available under that regime. We will
take a comparative look at U.S. and foreign patent laws and
systems. Finally, we will consider current controversies surrounding
patents on the international arena, such as access to medicines
and the Doha Declaration that interprets TRIPS, the appropriation
of gene patents through the use of isolated populations abroad,
and the appropriation of indigenous knowledge and skills.
Patent Law or International Intellectual Property are prerequisites.
These requirements can be waived only with the permission
of the instructor.
(added 5/03)
Law 685 Law and the Holocaust. This seminar focuses
on the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, its seizure of political
power in 1933, Nazi race laws, the Nazi legal system, the
Nuremberg trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity
and, time permitting, subsequent trials, including the prosecution
of Adolph Eichmann and more recent trials. This is more than
a history seminar because we will also consider the current
significance of these events. The materials used are those
developed by Professor Harry Reicher, who has taught this
subject for several years at the University of Pennsylvania
Law School.
(added 11/05)
Law 628 Law, Economics and Justice. This course is
a "capstone" course that will review basic doctrines
covered in the first year courses (property, contracts, torts,
criminal law, and procedure), and possibly other topics, with
the purpose of exploring the extent to which those doctrines
and areas of law can be explained, justified, criticized,
or revised from the perspectives of economic efficiency and
justice. Students who take the course should benefit from
a more systematic analysis and review of the basic legal doctrines
that form the foundation for most of the law, an understanding
of basic (microeconomic) efficiency theory as applied to the
law, a better understanding of the principles of justice and
their application to various areas of the law, and an ability
to recognize, employ and criticize efficiency and justice
arguments in and outside the law. Three credit hours.
(added 11/06)
Law 622 Law in Contemporary East Asia. This seminar
will examine law in contemporary East Asia and its relations
with law and lawyers in the United States. Legal relations
between the United States and the countries of China, Korea,
and Japan have become extremely important over the last decade,
and they are likely to continue to grow in importance. This
seminar will look at how law operates in East Asia and compare
its operations there with the functioning of law in the United
States. We will also analyze some of the basic patterns of
East Asian law and note similarities and differences between
the three countries involved. The common basis for thinking
about law has deep roots in Confucian thought, but modern
law has been heavily influenced by many other factors such
as political ideology and the varying forms of influence of
Western law. Examples of possible paper topics include negotiating
with East Asian lawyers, legal aspects of investing in East
Asia, and the differing roles of lawyers in East Asia and
the United States.
(added 11/04)
Law 678 Law of Nationbuilding. International intervention
in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq have raised
a number of questions about public international law, administrative
law, and how best to create a legal framework for development
of democratic institutions and market economies. Students
will write papers on some aspect of law related to these nationbuilding
challenges. The seminar will be integrated with the Nationbuilding
IPRO, which will have students working on projects related
to the political trusteeship in Kosovo, including promotion
of tourism, resolution of legal issues related to privatization,
compiling applicable law, especially pertaining to property
and commercial transactions. (Note: IPROs are IIT Interprofessional
Projects that draw students from various colleges and departments
throughout the university.)
(added 12/03)
Law 670 Law, Policy and International Development. This
seminar will explore legal strategies for promoting economic
and political development in emerging economies. The first
part of the course provides an overview of the theories underpinning
development policy and is intended to establish the necessary
foundation and vocabulary for the rest of the course. The
second part delves into various legal strategies for development
with a focus on the discourse of property rights, rule of
law, economic and social rights, and judicial reform. In the
third and final portion of the course, students will scrutinize
specific law and development projects funded by multilateral
institutions such as the World Bank to assess their effectiveness
in increasing the well-being of indigent populations living
in the developing world.
(added 4/05)
Law 646 Legal Rights of Children. This seminar examines
the increasing state intervention in family decision-making
with regard to children. Among the topics included are: neglect,
child abuse, dependency, child custody problems resulting
from the dissolution of marriage, the rights of putative fathers
to custody of children, adoption of children, guardianships,
and children's rights in the mental health commitment process.
Law 610 Military Law. This course involves a study
of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). It considers
the UCMJ's past, present, and future. The military courts-martial
system is compared with its civilian criminal justice counterpart.
The required materials are furnished (without charge).
(added 11/06)
Law 605 Nanotechnology: Societal Implications of the Next
Technology Wave. Public and private funding is pouring
into nanotechnology research and development (some $8 billion
annually worldwide). Seen by many as the key disruptive technology
of the 21st century, nanoscale manipulation is already affecting
many industrial sectors and has the capacity to revolutionize
not only the economy but the culture. The "21st Century
Nanotechnology R. and D. Act" was signed into law by
President Bush in December, 2003, and alongside generous research
funding provision (of the order of $1 billion per annum) stresses
the need for attention to its societal implications. In this
seminar we examine key social and ethical questions raised
by the technology, and assess the manner in which both United
States and international (especially European Union) policy
is being developed. Particular attention will be paid to reports
on the implications of nanotechnology that have been generated
by both the federal National Nanotechnology Initiative and
the European Commission. We shall also review the approach
of key advocacy groups, both those critical of the technology,
and those who consider that the federal project is insufficiently
ambitious.
(added 11/05)
Law 635 Philosophy of the Criminal Justice System.
What is law? The discussion will contrast the points of view
of the legal positivists, the American realists, and natural
law adherents. The focus will include statutes passed during
the Hitler era in Germany, some civil rights cases, and civil
disobedience cases during the Vietnam war, with references
to Aquinas, Aristotle, Martin Luther King, H.L.A. Hart, Fuller,
Rawls, etc. What is justice? The focus here will be on the
death penalty with references to United States Supreme Court
cases attempting to define justice in the criminal area. This
seminar will also address decision-making in the criminal
area B what legal reasoning models are used.
Law 660 Privacy Rights in Employment. This seminar
focuses on the emergence in employment law of matters affecting
the privacy rights of the individual employee in the private
sector. Topics addressed include drug and alcohol testing,
defamation, the tort of invasion of privacy (and its various
forms), confidentiality of employee communications, including
e-mail, employer rights of search and seizure, and employee
surveillance and monitoring. Legislative developments and
case law in the area will be the subject of discussion in
each class.
Law 656 Public Sector Employees. This seminar will
examine the constitutional, common law, and statutory issues
arising in labor relations and collective bargaining between
governmental units and public employees and their unions.
Particular emphasis will be placed on the essential differences
between labor relations and collective bargaining in government
and that same process in the private sector. Seminar participants
will be expected to write a major research paper on those
differences, exploring whether they are substantial enough
to warrant the adoption of private sector labor law concepts,
and if so, to what extent.
Law 643 Reproductive Technology. Technologies related
to diminishing or enhancing fertility (such as contraception,
in vitro fertilization, cloning, artificial insemination,
and surrogate motherhood) raise issues that cut across a variety
of legal domains. This seminar will explore the constitutional,
tort, and family law implications of the technologies and
attempt to develop appropriate policies for their use.
Law 644 Religion and the Constitution. This seminar
focuses on the role that religion plays, and should play,
in American public and private life under the Constitution.
Emphasis will be on the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses
of the First Amendment, with a fair does of the history necessary
to understand this controversial subject.
(added 4/04)
Law 659 Science and Law: Research, Ethics, and Accountability.
Emerging technologies from embryo stem cell therapies to nanomachines
raise important new legal issues. This seminar will explore
the laws, regulations, and professional organization guidelines
that relate to the rights and responsibilities of researchers
who are developing technologies that are expected to transform
our health, our capabilities, and the way we live. Students
will write an in-depth seminar paper on a subject chosen in
consultation with the professor.
(added 4/05)
Law 688 Selected Problems in Globalization and International
Business Transactions. This seminar will analyze selected
advanced topics in international business transactions. Areas
addressed will include comparative business structures; commercial
dealings ranging from basic purchase/sale contracts to joint
ventures; international finance and currency movements; international
trade and import/export issues; jurisdiction, litigation,
and dispute resolution; cross-border antitrust law; and public
bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank. Prerequisite: International Business Transactions completed
or taken concurrently; or permission of instructor.
(added 11/05)
Law 621 Seventh Circuit Review: Honors Seminar. This
course is an in-depth investigation of the current term opinions
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
and their impact on contemporary jurisprudence. As part of
the class, students will publish an on-line journal, tentatively
titled the Seventh Circuit Review of Published Opinions. The
Seventh Circuit Review will present and comment on current
term published opinions in such areas of the law as civil
and criminal procedure, administrative law, alternative dispute
resolution, employment law, constitutional law, criminal law,
tort, and contract. Upon successful completion of the course,
students will receive both a course grade and publication
credit as a member of the staff of the Review. During the
semester, students will identify cases to be included in the
Review, prepare initial drafts for discussion of the assigned
cases based on in-depth analysis of the cases and background
research, edit case discussions, prepare final publishable
drafts of case discussions, integrate individual case discussions
into the online journal, and "defend" analysis at
a semester-end roundtable.
This is an honors seminar. To enroll, students must meet one
of the following criteria: (1) cumulative GPA in previous
legal writing courses of 3.5 and class rank at the time of
registration within top 50% of class, (2) recommendation of
Legal Writing 1and 2 professor and/or Legal Writing 4 professor,
(3) Law Review membership, (4) Moot Court Honor Society membership,
or (5) approval of course instructor. If more than 15 qualified
students register for the course, enrollment will be determined
by random drawing among the qualified students.
(added 11/05)
Law 651 Sexual Orientation and the Law. Despite recent
efforts by a few states and localities to protect gay men
and lesbians from discrimination or to recognize domestic
partner relationships, society's attitude toward homosexuality
continues to be ambivalent. This is particularly true in the
areas of marriage and childrearing, but it is also true in
a number of states where adult consensual same-sex relations
are still illegal, where no protection is provided against
public or private employment discrimination, or where openly
gay teachers are restricted from teaching in the classroom.
This seminar will establish a theoretical framework for approaching
lesbian and gay issues by critically looking at various conceptions
of homosexuality and society's purported justifications for
affecting behavior. It will then apply this understanding
to the interaction between gays and the criminal justice system;
discrimination in public and private employment; First Amendment
issues posed by gay students and teachers in public schools
and universities; legal problems faced in same-sex relationships;
and child custody and visitation rights, as well as the ability
to become foster and adoptive parents. While not limiting
itself solely to questions of privacy, the seminar will also
challenge the 1986 Supreme Court decision in Bowers V. Hardwick
and argue that the decision should now be overruled.
Law 609 State Constitutional Law. This seminar examines
the emerging role of state constitutions with respect to state
law and relevant policy issues of our time. We will we study
the origins and basis of state constitutions in addition to
the separation of state and federal constitutional powers.
In criminal law, state and federal constitutional law on search
and seizure will command particular emphasis. In recent civil
law and policy, state legislators and voters have considered
state constitutional amendments on same-sex marriage and tax-dollar
funded stem cell research. We will examine the state constitutional
basis for these and other relevant proposals.
(added 11/06)
Law 649 Tax Policy. This seminar addresses the economic,
political and social theory underlying our current system
of federal taxation. Topics covered include: (1) use of the
tax law to implement governmental policy, (2) analysis of
tax rate structure (progressive versus flat tax), (3) taxation
of home ownership and other non-monetary benefits, (4) capital
gains treatment, (5) the proper taxation of the family unit,
(6) the proper taxation of corporations and other business
organizational forms, and (7) the appropriate role of the
tax lawyer as a participant in the federal tax system.
Law 605 Trade and Intellectual Property Rights. In
1994, a historic international agreement on trade-related
aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPs) was concluded
under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO),
signaling the beginning of a new era in international intellectual
property law. The trade dimension was now placed front and
center of intellectual property lawmaking, presenting new
challenges for trade lawyers and for intellectual property
lawyers. Now that we have ten years of experience with TRIPS,
this seminar explores legal and institutional issues related
to the TRIPs Agreement and the incorporation of intellectual
property within the trade regime. The seminar will address
the critical "case law" that has developed under
the TRIPs Agreement (seven reports of the WTO dispute settlement
panels, including successful challenges to two US intellectual
property laws) as well as other important policy challenges
presented by the intersection of trade and intellectual property
rights. In the latter context, as part of our discussion of
the current and future significance of TRIPS, we will consider
efforts in the TRIPS Council (another important part of the
WTO's intellectual property branch) to address mechanisms
to ensure that patents encourage, rather than impede, access
to essential medicines, as well as efforts to develop an international
system for the protection of so-called "geographical
indications" (e.g., Champagne). Evaluation will be by
completion of a seminar paper. Prerequisite: International
Trade or any I.P. course (e.g., Copyright Law, Patent Law,
Trademarks & Unfair Competition, International Intellectual
Property, Law of Trade Secrets, I.P. in the High Tech Era);
or permission of the instructors. Students who take the seminar
will receive full credit toward the IP Certificate.
(added 11/05)
Law 674 White Collar Crime. This course focuses on
the federal prosecution of fraud, with a particular focus
on health care fraud, securities fraud, and bank fraud. The
course will also explore civil prosecution of fraud and prosecutorial
discretion in corporate criminal liability. Two credit hours.
Law 625 World Trade Organization. This seminar will
examine aspects of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and
its roles. The WTO has become a central feature in international
economic relations, requiring states to follow specified rules
and procedures in regulating the flow of trade across their
borders and in structuring their intellectual property laws.
It has also become a symbol of globalization and a target
for those opposed to that process. The seminar will examine
topics such as the following: the WTO as an organization,
its rule-setting and dispute resolution processes, its objectives
and the prospects for attaining them, and criticisms of the
WTO.
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