This course examines the history of capital punishment in the United States and the substantive and procedural rules that have over time guided and limited its application. Students will become familiar with, inter alia, matters pertaining to the capital sentencing process (such as jury selection and consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances), the role of defense counsel, execution methods, and Florida's current and historic use of the death penalty.

This course explores the most common issues faced by small and medium-sized businesses and the lawyers representing them.

This online, asynchronous course will help students develop the sophisticated research skills necessary for the effective practice of business law, including the ability to efficiently research issues concerning business formation and regulation. Students will explore business topics using secondary and primary sources, including databases, treatises, practice materials, and materials produced by law firms. 

This clinic will give students opportunities to develop skills in key business law topics by providing service to clients starting or operating entrepreneurial businesses. Initially, the target client base will be limited to FSU faculty, staff, and student led enterprises and preference will be given to clients seeking to commercialize “University IP.” Students will work on a variety of legal issues typically of importance to entrepreneurs including:

The goal of this course is to develop the ability of prospective lawyers to recognize and handle professional responsibility issues that arise in the practice of business law. For purposes of this course, “business law” includes general business associations law and related specializations such as tax, securities, antitrust, litigation, and “white collar” criminal law.

This interdisciplinary seminar critically examines the “rational actor” model of legal decision making (proposed by classical economic theorists) in light of the work of social and cognitive psychology.  This course will examine cutting-edge empirical and experimental research and will challenge the descriptive assumptions that underlie legal doctrine in a variety of areas, including criminal law, contracts, torts, corporate law, administrative law, and the rules of evidence and procedure. 

A comprehensive study of the legal principles governing the relationship of debtors and creditors, with primary emphasis on federal bankruptcy law and focus on the rights of unsecured creditors. Traditional state remedies such as attachment, garnishment, execution, fraudulent conveyance and debtors' exemptions also are covered.

Florida’s Solicitor General serves within the office of the Florida Attorney General and handles appeals of statewide importance in state and federal courts. In this two-hour, skills-based course, Florida’s current Solicitor General will offer a hands-on perspective on appellate practice. The material will be taught through lecture and example, including practice problems. The course will explore in detail appellate cases the office has handled. It will use these cases to cover the organization and operation of Florida’s appellate courts and appellate jurisdiction and court authority.

Prerequisites: Legal Writing and Research I & II

This course is designed for students to hone and refine their written and oral advocacy skills, with an emphasis on doing so in an appellate setting. Students will refine their research, writing, and oral argument skills through a series of experiential assignments and exercises that focus principally on brief-writing and oral arguments—and will receive extensive feedback and coaching both inside and outside of class for all such assignments. 

A study of judicial decisions construing and applying the federal antitrust laws ( i.e., Sherman, Clayton, Robinson-Patman, and Federal Trade Commission Acts) to the control of the competitive process in the American economy.