Arbitration Law (3133) This foundation course covers the salient points of U.S. arbitration law as it relates to domestic and international matters. The coursse curriculum begins with an introduction to the basic legal concepts that make up arbitration law and to the institutions that are central to arbitration practice. Consideration of the Federal Arbitration Act follows, along with a systematic treatment of the role of contract in arbitration and the function of subject matter inarbitrability. Problems relating to the enforcement of arbitral awards, the role of the arbitrator (focusing on the arbitrator's functions, duties, and responsibilities), and other practice issues are examined. The basic facets of international commercial arbitration also are introduced. Through lectures, demonstrations, discussions, and simulations, this interactive curriculum is designed to foster effective use of contemporary arbitral processes. Students cannot earn credit in both Arbitration Law and Introduction to U.S. Arbitration Law: Domestic and International Aspects. Grading: Letter graded Credits: Variable Offered: Summer and Fall or Spring Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Dispute Resolution Feminist Jurisprudence (4070) Feminist jurisprudence has been called one of the most important movements in legal scholarship today. Feminist scholars argue that the traditional body of law reflects the male emphasis on rights and abstractions while ignoring the distinctive perspectives of women. Scholarship spans every area of law, from sexual harassment to battered wives who kill their husbands; from the "no duty to rescue" rule to redefining fundamental legal concepts like what constitutes an injury. This course involves a review of selected issues in an effort to reconcile the law with the female experience. Limited enrollment. Grading: Letter graded. Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Jurisprudence and Legal History General Practice: Skills Practicum (8905) Engages students in simulated learning experiences and exercises. Students practice law in two-person law firms under the supervision of faculty and tutors. Simulated cases, problems and clients are presented to each law firm during the semester, requiring the student attorneys to handle a significant variety of integrated substantive and procedural law involving the following areas: personal injury, professional responsibility, employment law, criminal law, employment/labor law, administrative law and real estate law. Each two-person law firm is involved in proceedings including a jury trial, oral arguments, motion arguments, arbitration, negotiation, and in-chambers settlement conference. Students interview clients, investigate facts, prepare pleadings and motions, draft documents, compose memos, and prepare research memos and briefs. Students can take the course for either 3 or 5 credits. Only the 5 credit course satisfies the Advanced Research and Writing requirement. Grading: Letter graded. Credits: 3 or 5 Offered: Fall/Spring Categories: Long Paper International Indigenous Law (4316) This course will examine the major international organizations and instruments setting forth guidance on Indigenous rights. The course addresses international Indigenous legal principles and the significant conventions, declarations, and conferences that have led to the development of these principles. International Indigenous legal principles will be discussed in the context of US Indian law, Canadian Aboriginal law, Australian Aborigine law and New Zealand Maori law. This course is for students interested in international Indigenous issues, rights frameworks, and law. The final grade will be based on class participation, a presentation and preparation of a paper on a topic selected by the student and approved by the professor. With the professor’s prior approval, students may prepare a “long paper” to satisfy the Advanced Research and Writing requirement. Grading: Letter Credits: Variable Offered: J-Term Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Native American Law Introduction to Tribal Law (3010) This course provides a broad overview of the most important issues involved in tribal legal studies, including an overview of tribal governments, the history of tribal court systems, the modern day structure and operations of tribal courts, and tribal criminal and civil jurisdiction. The course addresses the development of tribal common law, the incorporation of tribal custom and tradition into tribal laws and institutions, separation of powers within tribal governments, inter-tribal appellate courts, and implementation of traditional dispute resolution mechanisms such as peacemaking courts. Grades are based on a paper and class participation. Grading: Letter-graded Credits: 3 Offered: Fall Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Native American Law Online Dispute Resolution (ODR): Dispute Resolution in the Digital Age (3198) Dispute resolution providers and disputing parties are turning to technology to help them resolve disputes. In this course, students will analyze how technology-facilitated communication differs from face to face communication and will identify both the benefits and drawbacks of relying on audio, video, and text-based technology. Students will resolve disputes using one or more online dispute resolution platforms such as Smartsettle, Cybersettle, and iCourthouse; and will compare and contrast those services with the services provided by traditional neutrals. Students also will learn how the European Union is expanding online dispute resolution systems; discuss how that decision will affect the United States; explore how avatars, robots, and artificial intelligence devices can be integrated into dispute resolution processes; and negotiate internationally with students at the University of Hong Kong using e-mail, instant messaging, and live video. Grading: Letter graded Credits: 2 Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Seminar: Business Ethics (3300) Corporate governance today seems virtually synonymous with scandal and corruption. This course will examine the nature and development of business ethics in America. Using real-life corporate disasters as case studies, the class will evaluate corporate responsibility from business, financial, legal, and ethical perspectives. Prerequisite: Business Organizations Grading: Letter graded Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Fall Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Business and Commercial Seminar: Disability Law (3834) This course will examine the rights and protections that currently exist for persons with disabilities. We will focus primarily on federal disability law, including the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act (as amended in 2008), IDEA, and other federal protections against disability-based discrimination. Grading: Letter-graded Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Seminar: Domestic Violence Law and Policy (4004) This seminar focuses on the issue of family violence between partners and spouses. Current law and practice will be analyzed in light of recent social science research. Grading: Letter-graded. Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: e/o Fall Categories: Long Paper Seminar: Education Law (5303) This course will provide a general overview to key legal issues in public and private education. The course will focus on understanding Minnesota and federal constitutions, statutes, case law, and policies. Key legal concepts include: history of public schools and the legal systems; governance and finance of public schools; church and state; free speech; desegregation; search and seizure; students with disabilities; compulsory attendance and student rights in statutes, common law and the constitutions; teacher rights in statutes, common law and constitutions; and school liability. Particular emphasis will be placed on core legal concepts and practice skills. Grading: Letter graded Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Seminar: Election Law (3031) This course will examine constitutional and statutory regulation of the electoral process. We will explore topics including the right to vote and the right to an equally-weighted vote; representation, districting, and partisan gerrymandering; minority vote dilution, the Voting Rights Act, and racial gerrymandering; election administration, vote-counting, voting technology, and voter identification; and campaign finance laws and reform. The final grade will be based on class participation, an exam, and preparation of a paper on a topic selected by the student and approved by the professor. With the professor's prior approval, students may prepare a "long paper" to satisfy the Advanced Research and Writing requirement. You will get three credits if you write a long paper (which you may do even if you’ve already satisfied the long paper requirement) and two credits if you write a shorter paper. This is a seminar course with limited enrollment. Grading: Letter graded. Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Spring Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Government Practice, Public Interest Law, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar: Evolution and Constitutional Law (4631) This seminar is intended to introduce students to key concepts in evolutionary biology (pre-adaptive and vestigial uses, punctuated equilibrium, path dependence, speciation, etc.) and to explore the extent to which these concepts are useful in thinking about constitutional law and how it evolves. The seminar is also intended to give students an opportunity to pull together on a macro-level multiple concepts that have already been encountered in constitutional law classes as well as in other required courses. Students will be given an opportunity to think "outside-the-box" in considering different philosophical and interpretive approaches to constitutional law as well as to the role of law in society. Grading: Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Jurisprudence and Legal History, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar: First Amendment (4102) An intensive course in First Amendment jurisprudence and theory, focusing on the Freedom of Speech and Press Clauses. Grading: Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Spring Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar: High Profile Trials (4630) In this seminar, our primary focus will be on the relation between legal decisions about and non-legal perceptions of events at the center of major trials. High-profile trials are a distinct phenomenon at the nexus of the legal system and public life. Momentous legal events are not only influenced by the society in which they take place, but they, in turn, influence and alter that society. To help us get oriented the possibilities, we will read a number of accounts of high-profile trials. These accounts will include both legal and non-legal elements. We will also, however, consider the cumulative impacts of everyday trials, focusing on a study of the busiest criminal courthouse in the country. Through these narratives, we will expand our thinking about the functions of courts, judges, and lawyers in civil society. While this seminar isn’t particularly aimed at helping you think about advocacy or litigation strategy, such issues will, nonetheless, be front and center in many of our discussions. Similarly, thinking about the impact of media and news on the trajectory of a legal event will occupy our attentions. Good litigators have to think not only about the law but also about the narratives taking place in the courtroom and out of the courtroom. This is a final paper course. It offers you an opportunity to complete your long-paper writing requirement. In addition to writing a final paper, you will present about your paper topic to your colleagues. There will also be several shorter writing assignments due throughout the semester. Grading: Letter Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Seminar: Information Policy, Protection & Cybersecurity (5118) From a legal point of view, there is a lot more to cybersecurity than the mechanics of how to secure computers and mobile devices. This course begins with the identification of the various types of information that are commonly used and stored by businesses. It then examines the legal theories and strategies by which such information can be protected, including contract law and trade secret law. Next it considers the legal obligations that information holders have to maintain the privacy, confidentiality and security of information and the potential liability that flows from a failure to do so. Technological strategies and standards for securing information that is held in digital form are also discussed. Grading: Letter graded Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Seminar: International and Comparative IP Law (5005) The primary focus of the course will be on international and comparative patent law, but the course will also address some facets of international trademark and copyright law. The course will present a comparative study of certain features of foreign patent laws. It will also overview the major multilateral treaties that govern the transnational assertion of patent protection of United States laws that are specifically directed to the protection of U.S. patent rights against foreign activities Grading: Letter graded Credits: 3 Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Intellectual Property, International and Comparative Law Seminar: Law & Economics (4644) What does economics have to say about law? Unlike most other legal doctrines, economic analysis purports to apply the same fundamental method and precepts to explain and evaluate policies and rules in a wide variety of legal fields, including civil procedure, contracts, constitutional theory, criminal punishment, evidence, property, and torts. This seminar critically examines the methodology and reach of economic analysis of law, including a basic survey of game theory and psychological theories of behavior. No prior acquaintance with economics, calculus, or psychology is necessary. Grading: Paper Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Jurisprudence and Legal History, Business and Commercial Seminar: Law and Bioethics (3039) This course covers constitutional and statutory rights of patients, as well as ethical and policy concerns in the area of medical treatment, including confidentiality, informed consent, right to treatment, and bioethical concerns involving matters such as emerging reproductive, transplant and life support technologies. Grading: Letter graded Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Seminar: Law and Religion (2440) This seminar will focus on contemporary issues at the intersection of law, religion, politics, and society. Topics will vary each semester, but may include U.S. court decisions on establishment of religion and religious liberty of individuals and religious bodies, comparative approaches to religious liberty issues, theological, and religious law approaches to legal issues, and jurisprudential issues such as the proper role of religion in politics, lawmaking, and the practice of law. Grading: Letter graded. Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar: Media Law (3530) This class is about the First Amendment and the Free Press. We will discuss a selection of the legal issues generated by the activities of the mass media. We will consider regulations of print, broadcast, and electronic media, including laws that govern obscenity and pornography, laws aimed at balancing free press and fair trial rights, and laws meant to preserve multiple voices in a market. We will explore publication-related issues such as libel and invasion of privacy, and newsgathering-related issues such as the extent of the reporter's privilege and restrictions on access to information. We will examine common law, regulatory law including Federal Communications Commission regulations, and statutory law including the Freedom of Information Act, but the primary focus of the course will be on how the First Amendment limits governmental control over the media. The final grade will be based on class participation, an exam, and preparation of a paper on a topic selected by the student and approved by the professor. With the professor's prior approval, students may prepare a "long paper" to satisfy the Advanced Research and Writing requirement. You will get three credits if you write a long paper (which you may do even if you’ve already satisfied the long paper requirement) and two credits if you write a shorter paper. This is a seminar course with limited enrollment. Grading: Letter-graded Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Fall Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Government Practice, Intellectual Property, Public Interest Law, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar: National Security Law (9910) This course analyses the Supreme Court cases, the federal statutes, and the regulations and policies necessary for addressing terrorism, and other major threats to American safety and well-being. Grading: Letter graded Credits: Variable Offered: Fall Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Government Practice, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar: Psychology and Dispute Resolution (3099) This seminar is based on a very simple assumption: Human beings are "hard wired" to distort information in the process of assimilating it. Thus, for example, it is "natural" for negotiators to act “irrationally,” for clients to make decisions "against interest", and for lawyers to fail to accurately assess benefits and risks of litigation. Learning a bit about the cognitive science of decision-making will help make you a better interviewer and counselor, allow you to be more successful in negotiation and other ADR processes, and increase your ability to persuade judges and other decision-makers about the "right" course of action. Moreover, an exploration of cognitive science may assist you in making sense of our "post-truth" world. Outright denial of objective fact—from climate change to voter suppression to pandemic risk and vaccine safety—has become a new normal. Why do so many people appear to respond to complexity with the easy shrug and slide from "it’s hard to know" to "it’s unknowable?" The law you have studied, flawed as it is, provides unrivaled tools for dealing with complexity: burdens of production and shifting burdens of proof, rigorous testing of evidence, procedures to qualify experts to name a few. We need these tools more than ever. And lawyers wielding them are incredibly important participants in a civil society dedicated to justice. But those tools are even more powerful in the hands of advocates who understand how psychology influences decision-making. The seminar will be highly interactive. Students should expect to lead discussions, present topics, engage in simulations and role-plays, and write a substantive research paper. This course qualifies as a Long Paper offering. Grading: Letter Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Seminar: Race and the Law (4945) Explores the many ways in which race and the law have interacted historically and continue to interact. Students read and discuss a wide variety of materials, presenting a variety of viewpoints. Materials include historical, social-scientific, critical race theory, and feminist writers, as well as current legal materials. The goal in the seminar is to assist each participant to develop his or her own thinking on this important current issue. Grading: Letter-graded. Credits: Variable Offered: Spring Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Jurisprudence and Legal History, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar: Race, Health Equity & the Law (4028) The Institute of Medicine defines public health as "what we, as a society do collectively to assure the conditions for people to be healthy." Unlike health care, which focuses on medical interventions to improve the health of individual patients, public health takes a broader look at the wide-ranging determinants of population health. Although various interventions have been devised to protect health at the population level, disparities in health outcomes persist, with marginalized communities--racial and ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, low socioeconomic status people--bearing a disproportionate amount of negative health outcomes. These inequitable health outcomes are largely products of structural and institutional factors that are grounded in the law. This course will adopt a critical approach to law--along the axes of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity, and class--to examine how the law creates, sustains, and legitimizes inequitable health outcomes. This critical approach will be used to analyze the legal dimensions of current public health issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the obesity epidemic, tobacco control, healthcare access, natural disasters & climate change, and socio-political determinants of health to challenge students think beyond the traditional paradigms of legal reasoning. Grading: Letter Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Health Law, Public Interest Law, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights, Environmental Law Seminar: Second Amendment (4103) This seminar will explore a unique constitutional provision. Although the Second Amendment is hotly debated, the United States Supreme Court has only considered Second Amendment claims in a handful of cases. After 70 years, a new decision was rendered in D.C. v. Heller (2008). The seminar will explore the history of the Second Amendment beginning with its English antecedents and the constitutional debates over the militia and the armed population. Seminar members will explore the extensive law review and historical literature related to the Second Amendment; cases from state Supreme Courts ruling on analogous provisions in state constitutions, legislative determinations concerning the Second Amendment, the legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment as it relates to the Second Amendment and the five US Supreme Court decisions that have pronounced on the Second Amendment. Contemporary issues implicating the Second Amendment will also be explored. Active class participation is expected and students are expected to do a substantial paper and discuss their research in class. Grading: Letter graded Credits: Variable Offered: Spring Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Seminar: Wrongful Convictions (2107) This seminar will examine the causes that lead to wrongful convictions, including mistaken eyewitness identification, false confessions, faulty forensic science, tunnel vision, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, and compensation for exonerees. In each topic area, the course will examine the systemic failures that lead to convistions of persons who are factually innocent and reforms that have been proposed to address those systemic failures. The main deliverable in this course is an independent research and writing project based on a topic of the student's choosing. Grading: Letter graded Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Criminal Law Sexual Orientation and the Law (3350) Sexual behavior is an essential part of human existence. The species could not survive without it. Similarly, the law as an institution is central to modern ordered society. One might thus expect the interface between the law, as elemental definer of society, and sexuality, as essential part of human life, to be not only fascinating, but also much explored. Although indeed fascinating, the subject has only now, since the end of the 20th century, begun to attract serious academic inquiry. We will investigate a series of key issues in sexuality from various legal and jurisprudential perspectives, including contraception, abortion, homosexuality, prostitution, sexual violence and pornography. Limited Enrollment. Grading: Letter graded. Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Constitutional Law and Civil Rights
