Second-Third-Year

Pre/co-req: Gratuitous Transfers/Trusts & Estates or Wills & Trusts Fundamentals; Recommended: Taxation

This course will benefit students by ensuring that students (i) learn advanced real estate topics; (ii) adequately prepare for real estate topics on the Florida Bar Exam; (iii) learn from leading industry experts; (iv) experience a variety of teaching styles; (v) participate in weekly “real life” real estate assignments; and (vi) are exposed to diverse attorneys practicing throughout the state.

This course explores the craft and style of legal writing. Students analyze models in complex legal documents to develop effective writing techniques. This course provides students the critical opportunity to practice these techniques in a variety of legal documents, including pleadings, motions, and legal correspondence. Students learn to write courteous and professional emails, e-memos, client letters, and demand letters. Students also prepare a motion for summary judgment that is ideal for use as a polished and complete writing sample.

This class is a writing course for students who desire additional exposure to fundamental analysis and writing skills after the first-year legal writing and research course. For those students, the course provides a crucial opportunity to return to basic organization, analysis, and writing mechanics. Students learn to accurately and efficiently read multiple legal sources, assess their importance and relevance, and organize those authorities into a comprehensive summary of the law relevant to the question presented.

This course guides students to recognize and develop their leadership potential, first for self-leadership in their own lives and then as models to inspire others and improve the legal profession. Students learn science-based transformational principles and practices that upgrade academic performance, work competence, personal health, energy, and well-being, and that build beneficial habits for continuing progress in their careers and professional life.

This course explores the jurisdiction and role of the Supreme Court in comparative perspective. It examines the case law of the Supreme Court and compares it to that of other supreme or constitutional courts in the following areas: federalism, the separation of powers, constitutional rights, judicial review, remedies, and methods of interpretation. The course gives students the opportunity to understand the constitutional underpinnings of selected legal systems and the role of supreme courts in shaping them.

More often than not, being a “real” lawyer is associated with directly representing clients through litigation. While litigation is certainly a means to achieve exciting and significant outcomes, policy advocacy is another critical lever pulled to impact the public good. This course will provide students the opportunity to examine and model successful policy campaigns from start to finish. We will take an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating perspectives from history, social psychology, political science, sociology, and law.

This course examines aspects of international financial regulation, securities law, and banking law. It focuses on U.S. law, transnational regulation, and European Union law. It combines elements of international financial law and comparative securities regulation. The laws of selected other jurisdictions (England, Wales, and Australia) may also be examined in specific areas.

In this seminar, students will explore several of the most newsworthy developments in corporate governance as of late, spanning across boardroom dramas, legislative developments, and the impact of the ever-evolving imperatives of financial investors and strategic investors alike.

The course will focus on the effects of media in the era of the internet, social media, and traditional media sources, etc. on litigation both criminal and civil. Case studies will focus on the advent of mass media coverage of cases/trials, including O.J. Simpson, through present, such as the Depp v. Heard trial. It will also touch upon the representation of high-profile cases, and public figures, when these individuals are reported on, if not lambasted and scorned in the court of public opinion.