Second-Third-Year

Poverty Law examines the role played by the law and lawyers in protecting the rights and interests of the poor. We will review general information about poverty, the history of anti-poverty advocacy in the United States, the institutional development of free legal services for the poor, and the effect of constitutional norms in providing such services. Students will gain insight into several substantive areas of poverty law practice, including housing, government benefits, consumer and child welfare law.

This class explores both state and federal postconviction mechanisms for challenging both unlawful detention and convictions and sentences after one has been convicted and completed their direct appeal. Some refer to postconviction as the “red-headed step-child” of the criminal justice system, mostly because it is cumbersome, it seems like it never ends, and practitioners, even the ones who practice it regularly, may not even fully understand it.

Prerequisite: Land Use Regulation

This course involves an in-depth study of the law applicable to patents. The patent is the form of intellectual property protecting "inventions.” It is the most important form of protection for enterprises competing on the basis of technological advantage. The course covers patentable subject matter, application for grant, the criteria of patentability, rights of patent holders, causes of action against alleged infringers, defenses, remedies, licensing, the relevant application of competition/antitrust law and patent policy.

This course will explore the law that applies to extracting and transporting oil and gas resources in the United States. The first several days of the course will describe the process of locating minerals underground and drilling and hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil, as these processes and technical terms for these processes will arise in many of the cases that we will explore.

This is a 2-credit class surveying the comprehensive law of nonprofit organizations. The course will begin with an overview of the nonprofit sector and provide an understanding of the various dimensions and rationales for nonprofit organizations. We’ll then dissect the legal framework of these organizations, including formation, dissolution, and restructuring; operation and governance; and state and federal requirements for existence.

This course introduces the theory and practice of negotiation in a workshop setting. We will examine the basic stages of a negotiation; the major tensions at play in negotiation; distributive bargaining, value-creating, and problem-solving techniques; the management of communication and emotional elements in negotiation; power dynamics and ethics; lawyer-client relationships, and other topics as time allows.

Prerequisites: Business Associations (or Corporations)

This course examines the broad array of legal and policy-related issues arising out of litigation seeking redress for harms in the context of the provision of medical services. 

This seminar will examine a series of legal issues raised by (1) the flow of personal information through social media, (2) the emergence of business models that make money from those information flows, and (3) the role of social media companies as information gatekeepers. Together we will explore the interplay of law (like the rights and freedoms the media enjoy under the First Amendment), and ethics (the professional responsibilities that historically have cabined the exercise of these rights).