(International LL.M. Students Only)
The course provides an introduction to American law in a comparative perspective which will be particularly valuable for students with experience in non-US legal systems. I will focus on the basics of the American legal system with an emphasis on understanding the vocabulary and mechanisms of the system, but will also provide concepts critical to learning to think as an American counselor and advocate.
(International LL.M. Students Only)
Introduction to legal skills used by American lawyers. Analysis, writing, and research in the context of writing primarily interoffice or predictive memoranda; introduction to the American legal research process and to selected primary and secondary sources of American law; writing clearly in American legal English. Focus on use of common law research and analysis. Students build from early exercises applying a rule to a short set of facts to synthesizing and applying complex rules to more extensive fact patterns.
The study of civil wrongs for which the common law provides a remedy in the form of an action for damages. Topics include how accident losses are distributed; the role of trial judge, jury, and appellate judiciary; the language of negligence; and intentional wrongs.
An introduction to the principles of adjudication of the formalities of litigation in federal courts. Allocation of judicial business between state and federal judiciaries and the civil rights of defendants to be immune from inconvenient civil litigation are examined along with other aspects for jurisdiction. Phases of litigation - pleadings, complaint, discovery, answer and reply, motions for judgment on the pleadings, and summary judgment - are reviewed in depth.
