Administrative governance addresses issues central to the daily lives of Americans, including, but not limited to, immigration reform, education, civil rights, financial regulation, environmental protection, and auto safety. Indeed, in an age of polarized government, the administrative state has taken on an increased importance in American governance. Administrative law encompasses several different substantive areas, and is fundamentally about the creation, legitimation and control of bureaucratic decision making in a democracy. Though the course focuses primarily on national administrative agencies and the federal courts, familiarity with administrative law and process is essential for the practice of law at both the federal and state level. Administrative law deals with three issues: (1) what powers may be delegated to administrative agencies; (2) the manner in which agencies use their delegated power, e.g., through rulemaking or adjudication; and (3) the ways in which administrative agencies are disciplined by the political branches, the courts and private parties. The first issue raises questions largely related to the status of administrative agencies in the constitutional framework—i.e., whether and to what extent Congress may delegate to substantive decision-making authority to administrative agencies. The second issue deals almost exclusively with the procedural requirements imposed on administrative agencies when engaged in their “law creation” function. Finally, the third issue addresses questions of the availability and scope of judicial review, and the formal and informal ways that the political branches attempt to constrain agency discretion. The primary focus of this class, as an introductory class, will be to develop a working knowledge of the key doctrinal components of this area of the law. However, we will also think broadly about the justifications for the administrative state, which has been with us since the very first days of the Republic, and test those against our substantive ideals about democracy, deliberation, accountability, and effective governance. In addition to a Final Examination, students grades will be based on a book review essay due mid-semester. Students are free to choose one of several books selected by the professor.
 
Course Concentrations:
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Area of Focus) More information
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Concentration) More information
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information
Environmental Law (Area of Focus) More information
Environmental Law (Concentration) More information
Health Law (Area of Focus) More information
Immigration, Asylum, and Citizenship Law Area of Focus (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

A study of legal issues arising in the maritime and recreational boating industry, including admiralty jurisdiction, maritime liens, salvage, cargo, carriage of goods by sea, charter parties, general average, the rights of seamen and maritime workers, collision and limitation of liability.
 
Course Concentrations:
Environmental Law (Area of Focus) More information
Environmental Law (Concentration) More information

Whether you are arguing to an appellate judge, a trial judge, or the senior partner in a law firm, you need to know how to make a strong legal argument. Rarely does this come naturally to people. This class helps students develop the skills to write effectively and argue under fire. The ability to anticipate questions, prepare and deliver answers to difficult questions, and weave back into your argument is so important. Through a series of mini-problems, lectures, and guest speakers, students will receive individualized, personal training that will be helpful in preparing them for the Gaubatz Competition (precursor to invitation to the Charles C. Papy Moot Court Board). Note: Only students participating in the Gaubatz Competition are eligible to take this course.
 
Course Concentrations:
Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Concentration) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

This course covers the theories and strategies for persuasively advocating one’s case and examining witnesses before the tribunal. Class time will be spent discussing, preparing for, and having students perform in the roles of counsel and witnesses for cross examination, as well as opening and closing statements with review provided on an ongoing basis. It is important to master the facts of the sample case and to put together initial ideas for how one would present and prove the case before a tribunal in advance of the first class. If you are an International Arbitration Joint J.D./LL.M. or International Arbitration LL.M. student, you may enroll in this course through Canelink. Enrollment is still possible if you are not an International Arbitration Joint J.D./LL.M. or International Arbitration LL.M. student but by permission only. For permission, please contact Arlene Buchanan at abuchanan@law.miami.edu . Short Course Attendance Policy Due to the small number of meetings, attendance to all meetings/classes for short courses is mandatory. Students who miss more than one class session (80 minute) of a 1-credit short course are subject to administrative withdrawal and will have a W for the course on their transcripts.
 
Course Concentrations:
Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Concentration) More information

‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) includes a variety of technologies, notably ‘machine learning’ systems such as IBM’s Watson, which won a ‘Jeopardy’ match, Google’s Ultra Go, which trounced a Go Master, and a plethora of systems designed to predict tumors, shopping habits, and even criminality. ‘Robots’ increasingly feature varying degrees of autonomy, including systems like self-driving cars, military drones, and robo-surgeons. Behind many robots lies an embodied or even remotely connected AI, making the two new technologies intertwined. Both technologies present a number of ethical, social, and legal challenges that are inciting a wide variety of responses. Representative examples of problems include: Should we permit robots to carry lethal weapons? Who is responsible for invidious discrimination by an AI? What should the liability (and ethical) rules be for accidents involving autonomous vehicles? Is existing malpractice law ready for AI doctors? Should AIs and/or Robots have ‘rights’, whether human rights, animal rights, or some sui generis set of rights? The course will thus treat AI/Robot Law as distinct subjects, or a distinct subject, of their own, and also attempt to put them into the context of the law’s ongoing encounter with new technology. Most law courses seek to give you mastery of a relatively well-defined body of law. This course is different: it will seek to give you a taste of what it is like to work in areas with little or no clearly defined law (as such–the task then is to borrow or invent it), or new law, or where the law is in the process of being created and assembled – and where you could have a hand in making it, or interpreting it. Much like acrobatics without a net, this can be thrilling but it can also be scary. Crashes are always a possibility.
 
Course Concentrations:
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information

Survey of beverage alcohol and governance of all 3 tiers of the beverage alcohol industry in conjunction with various state and federal alcoholic beverage statutory schemes, promulgated rules and decisional case law.
 

This course will examine the field of designing disputes resolution systems and give students the opportunity to analyze, deconstruct and reconstruct systems to function in accordance with their explicit and implicit goals. Students will be provided with a practical framework in dispute resolution concepts and have the opportunity to incorporate strategies/structures in systems of their choice. Through this process, past students have explored a variety of systems including: direct filing in juvenile justice, access to healthcare benefits, the ways in which tickets to the Olympics are distributed, FIFA salaries, the school of choice lottery system, grievance procedures within corporations, several pro se advocacy projects, rural legal assistance projects, the bid process for municipal contracts, and more. Students are supported in design work through readings, guest speakers, peer critique of drafts and individualized feedback. Knowledge of, or interest in, mediation/negotiation is recommended.
 
Course Concentrations:
Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Concentration) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

Antitrust law refers to a handful of statutes that collectively regulate business competition. As a general matter, these laws prohibit restraints of trade, acts of monopolization, and mergers or acquisitions that threaten to reduce competition. These concepts are unfamiliar to most law students, but every business lawyer must be at least generally conversant with them. Antitrust awareness has become increasingly important in the last ten to fifteen years. One reason is that criminal penalties, including incarceration, have escalated dramatically. Another is that multi-national companies must now reckon with a more aggressive view of competition law enforcement in Europe. A third reason is that a hi-tech world must increasingly rely on Intellectual Property protections that seem, at least facially, in conflict with antitrust law. Finally, it is now recognized that antitrust poses a significant threat to professional sports leagues. This course will explore the core concepts of antitrust in depth, and will at least introduce some of the more advanced concepts.
 
Course Concentrations:
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Area of Focus) More information
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Concentration) More information
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information

This course examines the intersection of law, ethics, and the visual arts. Topics include such issues as artists' rights; the art market, with an emphasis on authenticity and good title; the international movement of art and antiquities; the fate of art in times of armed conflict; and legal issues applicable to art museums. The course readings comprise chapters from the manuscript of Merryman, Urice, & Frankel, Law, Ethics, & The Visual Arts (6th ed., Cambridge University Press, 2022) and include cases, articles, international treaties, statutes, and other materials. The readings will be posted on-line and available for purchase in hard copy from the Law School’s Copy Center. Students enrolled in the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law (“EASL”) LL.M. or J.D./LL.M. may fulfill a writing requirement in lieu of the examination if they are taking or have taken the law school’s Legal Research Techniques course.
 

An intensive study of the problems of the debtor and creditor under federal bankruptcy law. The course will focus particularly on issues concerning the insolvency system, bankruptcy estate, the automatic stay, discharge in Chapter 7, the avoiding powers of the trustee, and reorganization in Chapter 11 and various strategies to achieve objectives. The text will be supplemented with lectures on rules, procedures and recent cases as well as practical methods of dealing with the subject matter.
 
Course Concentrations:
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Area of Focus) More information
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Concentration) More information
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information

The Eleanor R. Cristol and Judge A. Jay Cristol Bankruptcy Pro Bono Assistance Clinic at Miami Law offers pro bono legal services to low-income individuals and entities that are dealing with financial problems. The Bankruptcy Bar Association of the Southern District of Florida together with Put Something Bank (the pro bono arm of the Miami Dade County Bar) established the clinic. Miami Law offers it as a one semester or a two-semester, six-credit elective that pairs students with various mentor attorneys to represent clients.

How Students Benefit from Participating in this Clinic:
• Students practice in Federal Court as advocates for their clients and network with members of the South Florida Bench and Bar.
• These cases can be chapter 7s, chapter 13s, contested matters, adversary proceedings which can include cases such as fighting to help the debtor discharge student loans. Also, students counsel clients with respect to financial distress and solutions to problems.
• Expert Mentorship – Students are placed with mentor bankruptcy attorneys in the community who really are at the top of their game.
• Unparalleled Networking Opportunities – During the clinic students meet prospective future employers and attend numerous of bankruptcy events in the community such as View From the Bench, and numerous other Bankruptcy Bar Association events. • Fantastic Support – Clinic Director Patricia Redmond , Clinic Coordinator and mentor attorneys provide ongoing support, help and advice. Clients are referred to the clinic by the Dade County Bar Association, and sitting judges of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida.
http://www.law.miami.edu/clinics/index.php 
Course Concentrations:
Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Concentration) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

This is an intensive course intended for two types of students: those who are generally interested in international business transactions and want an overview of the most frequent method for resolving contractual disputes, and those who are intending to go on to take more intensive courses in the field. This course is recommended for the following courses: Fall Semester: Advanced Oral Advocacy in International Arbitration; Advanced Topics in Arbitration: Theory; Drafting Complex Arbitration Clauses; Federal Arbitration Act; Forensics of Advocacy in International Arbitration I; International Arbitration in Latin America & the Caribbean; International Arbitration LL.M. Practicum I & II; International Commercial Arbitration Seminar: A United States Perspective; The Law of International Treaties. Spring Semester: Advanced Topics in Arbitration: Publication; Forensics of Advocacy in International Arbitration II; International Arbitration and the New York Convention; International Arbitration LL.M. Practicum I & II; International Investment Agreements; International Law of State Responsibility; Investment Arbitration; Transnational Litigation and International Arbitration with a European Nexus. Short Course Attendance Policy Due to the small number of meetings, attendance to all meetings/classes for short courses is mandatory. Students who miss more than one class session (80 minute) of a 1-credit short course are subject to administrative withdrawal and will have a W for the course on their transcripts.
 
Course Concentrations:
Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Concentration) More information

This course examines the legal foundations, structuring, and governance of condominiums, homeowners associations, residential communities and mixed use projects. Examination of the Florida Condominium Act and the Homeowners Association Act will be undertaken with the goal of gaining familiarity operating within the framework created by such statutes, examining Developer rights and liabilities, sales and disclosure requirements, management issues, warranties, and related management and operational matters with a focus on hands-on problem-solving related to such projects. Participants will also analyze and draft project-specific community structuring documents. Although the course will focus on Florida law, the concepts covered in the course have broader application to similar condominium and planned land development laws in many state statutes.
 

This course covers the federal income tax consequences of various real property related transactions. Topics include the tax ramifications of the purchase, and retention and disposition of commercial and residential development projects. The course provides coverage of the differing tax treatment to individuals and the various investment entities of corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies. Business and financial planning are integrated into course lectures, including review of financial projections and real estate contract documents. Certain state tax and foreign (non-U.S.) tax issues are also discussed, where appropriate.
 

This course covers the federal income tax consequences of various real property related transactions. Topics include the tax ramifications of the purchase, and retention and disposition of commercial and residential development projects. The course provides coverage of the differing tax treatment to individuals and the various investment entities of corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies. Business and financial planning are integrated into course lectures, including review of financial projections and real estate contract documents. Certain state tax and foreign (non-U.S.) tax issues are also discussed, where appropriate.
 

The aim of the course is to approach pretrial litigation as a process and not a series of unconnected events. Strategic thinking is as important as mechanical skills. While the course rehearses the range of discreet pretrial skills through in class and drafting exercises (client and third party interviews, depositions, pleading drafting, negotiations, motion argument), the focus is on the strategic aspect of the pretrial process.

Short Course Attendance Policy Due to the small number of meetings, attendance to all meetings/classes for short courses is mandatory. Students who miss more than one class session (80 minute) of a 1-credit short course are subject to administrative withdrawal and will have a W for the course on their transcripts.
 

Blockchain Technology and Business Strategies This course is an introduction to the application of Blockchain technology in different business environments and industries. Blockchain technology is a growing emerging technology that has attracted much attention and capital invested in cryptocurrencies and other applications. Today, almost all industries are building blockchain applications to adopt new ways of addressing business and technology problems and streamline business processes and enhance security and integrity of transactions. These new business models span both financial and non-financial business blockchain applications. The course will explore multiple use cases in different industries: Banking, Healthcare, Government, Real Estate, Retail, etc. The goal of this course is to introduce the student to blockchain and its ecosystem. The student will learn how to analyze the underlying business foundation of blockchain in multiple business cases and will acquire the basic technical foundation of blockchain. By the end of the course the student will have developed a clear understanding of Blockchain business models, technologies, use cases across multiple domains. Learning Outcomes • Understanding of Blockchain technology and high level understanding of the underlying technical framework underlying many of the blockchain applications such as cryptocurrencies. • Learn key use cases across various industries (Financial Services/Healthcare/Legal/Government). • Understanding the broader strategic and regulatory framework for applying blockchain in business settings. • Develop broad understanding of blockchain and blockchain ecosystem and applications. Course overview and schedule Day 1 • Overview of current technology trends and their disruptive force on today's business environments (Cloud/IoT/AI/Blockchain) Day 2 • Overview of Blockchain and how it works. The technical framework. Day 3 • How Blockchain capabilities are being applied in different business domains (healthcare, finance, legal, banking, government). ). You will develop key understanding of how blockchain applies in those business domains and in particular in the financial services and healthcare industries today. Day 4 • Discussion of key technical, legal and regulatory aspects of applying blockchain in business settings. Day 5 • Discuss strategic and technical frameworks for developing blockchain business/technology applications and strategies. Day 6 • Final Paper/Presentation - The student will develop and submit a blockchain business/technology strategy. The paper/presentation should identify a potential solution in a particular industry based on your understanding of blockchain and its potential application. The paper should explore potential opportunities and challenges within an industry of your choice. You can also propose an idea within your own organization and how this could be implemented and the potential outcome of such idea.

Short Course Attendance Policy Due to the small number of meetings, attendance to all meetings/classes for short courses is mandatory. Students who miss more than one class session (80 minute) of a 1-credit short course are subject to administrative withdrawal and will have a W for the course on their transcripts.
 

An introductory business associations class that provides a basis for advanced business classes. The class will analyze the legal aspects of business organizations (agency, partnership, limited liability companies and corporations). In Fall 2021 the class will be taught online, with a mixture of synchronous and asynchronous components.
 
Course Concentrations:
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Area of Focus) More information
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Concentration) More information
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information

An introductory business associations class that provides a basis for advanced business classes. The class will analyze the legal aspects of business organizations (agency, partnership, limited liability companies and corporations).The course will be scheduled to meet twice a week. The scheduled time will be split into 4 discussion groups (approximately 50 minutes in length). You will be assigned one of those four discussion groups as a required synchronous meeting. The rest of the course will be delivered asynchronously.
 
Course Concentrations:
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Area of Focus) More information
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Concentration) More information
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information

This course investigates the law pertaining to businesses, starting with the law of agency and partnership (with a bit of the law of limited partnerships, limited liability companies and other organizational forms thrown in), and concluding with corporate law, the goals of the course. Students are assumed to know nothing of business law, or indeed, of business itself. The course operates on the premise that all lawyers need to understand the underlying notions taught herein. There is practically no area of human interaction that does not involve notions of agency. Partnerships can be complicated endeavors, but may also include small family entities. Likewise, corporations may be very large, or very small (again, things like family corporations). One need not be a "business lawyer" to encounter the fundamentals of business law, in areas as diverse as family law, commercial law and intellectual property. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any legal practice that is divorced from concepts of business association law. Other operative principles for the course: (a) that the law in all domains is united by a core of fundamental principles, based on basic concepts of business and economics; (b) that an understanding of those principles is best achieved by starting with relatively simple business relationships (agency, partnership) and progressing to more complex ones (corporations) and (c) that having achieved such an understanding, students will be able to analyze business problems that arise, and even new organizational forms, whether or not such problems and organizations have been studied before. Thus, although the course includes considerable analysis of individual cases and particular statutes, these are only means to a greater end: a comprehension of how the law of business associations operates overall, and why. Issues concerning regulation of business (e.g., by the Securities and Exchange Commission) and taxation of businesses are considered only in passing.
 
Course Concentrations:
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Area of Focus) More information
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Concentration) More information
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information

This course provides an introduction to the fundamentals of business immigration laws and procedure in the United States. The course will cover statutory and regulatory requirements, along with agency policies and procedures relating to professionals, artists, athletes, investors, entrepreneurs, and workers seeking to do business, and/or work in the United States. Students will learn to analyze statutes, regulations, legal decisions, policy memoranda, government manuals, and liaison minutes. This course will also present guest speakers in several visa categories, and may include mock consultations, government agency, and/or consulate interviews. Particular attention will be paid to the practical aspects of business immigration law with the goal of preparing students to effectively navigate through the government’s procedural labyrinth.
 
Course Concentrations:
Immigration, Asylum, and Citizenship Law Area of Focus (Area of Focus) More information

Please visit:
https://www.law.miami.edu/academics/clinics 
Course Concentrations:
Health Law (Area of Focus) More information
Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Concentration) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

An analysis of the state and federal class action rule and recent case law and trends. .
 
Course Concentrations:
Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Concentration) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

Three-quarters of the United States population is concentrated on the coastal margin where people meet the sea. Along the shorelines of thirty coastal and Great Lakes states is a preponderance of this Nation´s industrial investment: manufacturing, refining, hydropower generation, ship-building, offshore oil and gas development, offshore wind, and fisheries. These same shorelines which house the population and its industry, also provide sources of beauty, recreation, and food and safety for their inhabitants. Estuaries serve as the nursery grounds for coastal fisheries. Shellfish flourish throughout their full life cycle in tidal waters. Shorebirds stop to feed on tidal flats. Development competes with the preservation of the natural beauty of the shoreline. The human and industrial pressures, as well as climate change, threaten and/or destroy ecological balances. This course examines the competing interests in the coastal zone, the problems of public and private ownership rights, State and Federal issues, and the conflicts of legal jurisdiction. Shifts in federal policy, as well as varying policy considerations, are explored in depth. Specific state and federal statutes along with environmental concerns are integrated with the policy questions.
 
Course Concentrations:
Environmental Law (Area of Focus) More information
Environmental Law (Concentration) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

Trade is essential for life; contracts must be concluded, goods shipped, and payments received. Much US trade law derives from the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) which you met in your Contracts course. This course includes selected topics in Article 2 (sales), Article 3 (negotiable instruments), Article 4A (payment orders), Article 5 (letters of credit), and Article 7 (bills of lading). More than half of the course will examine the largely independent life of Article 9 (secured transactions).

The course format is unique. While the course is online, non-synchronous, and mediated through UM's excellent blackboard learning management system, the approximately 100-minute course twice weekly videos and the corresponding pre- and post-video assignments for each are keyed to Mondays and Wednesdays, Miami time. For example, Monday’s pre-video assignment will be due the night before, the videos will open before dawn on Monday, and the post-video assignment will be due toward the end of that week to accommodate working students. Save for the final exam which will be proctored in-person at Miami Law, the course could be taken from anywhere on earth with an appropriate internet connection. This is a rigorous course requiring close statutory analysis and considerable student time.

Course Delivery: Online (all non-synchronous except the proctored in-person final exam at Miami Law)
 
Course Concentrations:
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Area of Focus) More information
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Concentration) More information
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information

All too often legal tools have proven themselves to be vastly inadequate when attempting to educate and shift broader consciousness about the historical and structural inequities faced by society's most marginalized communities. How then, can lawyers use the tools of their practice to better support those communities and directly address the nuances and institutional manifestations of social oppression that come with it? If you believe that a more just society can only truly come about through grassroots organizing and social movements, but have struggled to find a legal framework with which to practice - this class is for you. This seminar will invite students to develop new and critical approaches of their own to the relationship among legal practice & theory, race, power, and politics.
 

This course covers the history and scope of individual rights under the U.S. constitution. It begins by briefly exploring early models of constitutional decision-making using cases from the slavocratic regime as a context. We then trace the development of equal protection, due process and first amendment guarantees through to their contemporary formulations. In addition to our exploration of substantive law the courses is deeply concerned with how courts make decisions. We will also explore competing models of constitutional interpretation.
 
Course Concentrations:
Immigration, Asylum, and Citizenship Law Area of Focus (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

This course surveys the most litigated clauses of the most litigated provisions of the U.S. Constitution: Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment, as judicially interpreted since the Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873. That first-ever, 5-4 interpretation of the still-fresh post-Civil War text effectively nullified the amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause. Since then, 150-plus years of continual judicial interpretation has produced overlapping doctrines and multi-tiered tests under the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause that, today, define the “fundamental rights” of equality and liberty in everyday life. Using problems, worksheets, exercises, and other study aids that complement the casebook, the course examines the (frequently split) opinions behind the doctrines and tests, with an emphasis on doctrinal synthesis, critical thinking, and legal analysis. To do so, the course opens with a textual-structural-historical overview of the Constitution that builds on the Constitutional I course, equipping students to examine specific opinions within the larger constitutional system or context that allows for them in the first place. Reflecting how this subject is tested in bar examinations nationwide, the course exposes students to every mode of assessment that graduates are likely to encounter in those licensing settings (e.g., from traditional and short-answer essays to multiple-choice questions).
 
Course Concentrations:
Immigration, Asylum, and Citizenship Law Area of Focus (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

The Supreme Court -- now including three relatively new Justices -- will have the chance this term to revisit its abortion jurisprudence, the question of gun rights regulation, and much more. Big changes? Maybe. This course explores the Court's 2021-22 docket. Some decisions may already have issued by the time we begin. Others will surface as we proceed. Others -- may be most -- may hang over our heads like so many swords of Damocles. For about half the semester the course will meet in-class in the traditional way. The principal materials for the course will be found first in the case files compiled by SCOTUS blog and at points in the opinions the Supreme Court posts to its web site. We will explore the docket looking to see what's at stake, and discuss closely the briefs of counsel and amici. There's a new Solicitor General now, adding additional interest. The second half of the semester is entirely preoccupied with writing. Students will take as points of departure particular cases discussed in class and write intensive critical analyses, reaching out to other materials -- cases and commentary -- as needed. This is not a sports page exercise in picking who wins. "What does this mean?" is the likely starting question. Obviously, the closer students attend to the first part of the course, the easier picking and writing becomes. The papers ultimately need to run 35-40 pages double-spaced, fully footnoted. I will set a deadline for first drafts. Second and perhaps third drafts will likely need to be turned around quickly. Supreme Court decisions coming down before papers are finished will need to be accommodated. Graduating third year students must complete all written work by the last day of exams.
 

TBD.
 
Course Concentrations:
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information

This course presents an introduction to the U.S. federal income tax treatment of corporations under Subchapters C and S of the Internal Revenue Code. The course will first address certain common transactions under Subchapter C, including contributions of property to the corporation in exchange for stock, nonliquidating distributions of cash or other property by the corporation, redemptions of stock and corporate liquidations. Then the course will provide an introductory overview of the taxation of S Corporations and the planning issues commonly encountered with respect to S Corporations. Tax free reorganizations and tax free spinoffs will only be introduced briefly in this course.
 
Course Concentrations:
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Area of Focus) More information
Business Compliance and Sustainability (Concentration) More information
The Business of Innovation, Law and Technology: BILT (Concentration) More information

This course presents an introduction to the U.S. federal income tax treatment of corporations under Subchapters C and S of the Internal Revenue Code. The course will first address certain common transactions under Subchapter C, including contributions of property to the corporation in exchange for stock, nonliquidating distributions of cash or other property by the corporation, redemptions of stock and corporate liquidations. Then the course will provide an introductory overview of the taxation of S Corporations and the planning issues commonly encountered with respect to S Corporations. Tax free reorganizations and tax free spinoffs will only be introduced briefly in this course.
 

This course will provide a comprehensive overview of the investigation and prosecution of federal criminal civil rights violations in the United States, with a specific focus on hate crimes and police misconduct cases. Students will explore the dichotomy between state/local and federal law enforcement actions; the investigative process at the federal level by the FBI; United States Department of Justice and other agencies; the use of the federal grand jury in investigating and charging criminal civil rights offenses; the intricacies of trying federal criminal civil rights cases before juries in jurisdictions across the country; and the implications of the federal sentencing guidelines in the context of criminal civil rights violations. Students will explore the unique challenges faced by lawyers tasked with investigating and prosecuting civil rights offenses including, but not limited to, laws and policies designed to protect the rights of law enforcement officers accused of using excessive force and other misconduct; racial dynamics that impact investigating and prosecuting hate crimes and police misconduct cases; and the influence of media and grassroots social justice movements on prosecutorial decisions. Finally, students will be challenged to provide thoughtful analysis on the role of the federal government in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes and police misconduct cases in a post George Floyd, Pulse NightClub, and Capitol Building insurrection America, with a specific focus on the impact of race and sexual orientation on investigations and prosecutions. Guest speakers will include current/former FBI agents, U.S. Department of Justice trial attorneys, police officers, and victims/families of victims of hate crimes and police misconduct.
 

This workshop is not for everyone. It is designed for the student willing to undergo the rigors of mock trials in an effort to master the tactics and strategies of the courtroom and the rules of evidence. The only proven method of learning trial skills is by doing them. Each student will conduct a voir dire, a jury argument, and an examination of witnesses. The only test is your ability to stand on your feet and think through a problem. The teacher has been a trial lawyer for 50 years and an adjunct professor for 45. Some aspects of this course may overlap with Litigation Skills I.
 
Course Concentrations:
Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Concentration) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Area of Focus) More information
Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration) More information

Criminal Procedure Investigation is a constitutional law course focusing on the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. We will discuss searches and seizures, the warrant requirement, the exclusionary rule, involuntary statements, Miranda, and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. It is fabulous stuff! Please note that there will be one mandatory film shown outside of class, and there may be a required lunch with a guest speaker. You will also be required to visit the jail and write a short reflection piece about your experience.