(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.

This course is a comprehensive, three-credit introduction to U.S. copyright law. The course begins with an analysis of copyright's underlying policies and theoretical framework.

(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. 

A study of the extent to which various property rights come or fail to be recognized. The course includes both private sector and governmental arrangements and influences on the definition of property rights. Particular topics include the law of finders, landlord and tenant, concurrent ownership, licenses, easements, profits, restrictive covenants, an introduction of zoning and growth control and constitutional "takings" analysis.