Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s extensive array of electives allows students to design a course of legal studies tailored to their own interests.
Elective Courses
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This course introduces basic accounting principles, concepts and terminology. It is intended for the law student who does not have an accounting background. Permission of the instructor to enroll is required for students who have had any accounting courses. The course begins with an introduction to the basic accounting principles and how firms record transactions and summarize their economic activities on their financial statements. The course will consider the accounting for, and presentation of, specific financial statement elements including receivables, inventories, fixed assets, intangible assets, liabilities and contingencies, and revenue and expenses. Further the course will discuss the role and responsibilities of the independent auditor and the concept of full and fair disclosure of financial information as required by generally accepted accounting principles. Additionally, certain basic tax issues will also be introduced.
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Modern government is administrative government. Administrative agencies impact virtually every aspect of our social lives, from the air we breathe and the water we drink, to our means of transportation and communication, to the health and safety of our food, drugs, workplaces and hospitals, to our very membership as a national society, and beyond. Administrative Law is the body of constitutional and procedural law that a practitioner needs to understand in order to work within a governmental agency or represent a client in dealings with a governmental agency.
Topically, the course considers: the role and place of administrative agencies in American constitutional government; the powers and procedures of administrative agencies, including in particular rulemaking and adjudication; structural and procedural legal constraints on exercises of agency authority; and the availability and scope of judicial review of administrative action.
Administrative Law is a foundational course for virtually any type of regulatory practice, including immigration, environmental, health, telecommunications, energy, labor and employment, food and drug, and governmental benefits law. The course material consists almost entirely of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, it is often highly abstract and theoretical and unavoidably challenging. Administrative Law is also a bar-tested subject in a number of states, including Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming. Recommended: Constitutional Law I.
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This course is a comparative and practical study of procedures, problems, rights, and defenses facing the modern waterfront and ocean industries and workers for tort and compensation benefits in the state and federal systems. This course also includes a survey of the traditional admiralty issues of liens, salvage, and limitations of liability.
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This course surveys various dispute resolution techniques, including negotiation, arbitration and mediation.
Students requesting ADR units, please email Registrar, Kim Grennan at kimg@tjsl.edu and state the number of units you are requesting. Upon approval, students will be enrolled in ADR units by the Registrar's Office.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass or No Credit.
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An examination of effective techniques in writing apellate briefs and oral argument. After 4.5 hours of online instruction on brief writing including bluebooking, clear writing and the structure of arguments, and organizing to persuade, students write a brief in a closed universe, receive feedback from returning Moot Court members, have another online session on revision and the statement of case and statement of facts. They then redraft the brief which is graded with extensive comments by the Professor. Based on their grades, students are seeded in an oral argument competition of 14 students in two preliminary rounds, leading to quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. Post competition, the students have classes on brief writing focusing on common problems in their briefs including roadmaps and transitions, analogizing and distinguishing, making policy arguments, and appellate procedure. This is followed by workshops on oral advocacy.
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Students will learn the various discovery methods available in California state and federal civil proceedings. Students will learn to formulate demands, responses, and objections, understand and develop strategies in discovery practice, and participate in discovery motion practice. The course will also provide the student with an understanding of the California 2009 E-Discovery Act, and provide an opportunity to participate in a mock deposition. The course is designed to provide the student with practical skills necessary to practice discovery in California, and to develop and advance the student's lawyering skills.
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This course explores the past and present law and policy pertaining to crimes of vice. We will focus primarily on six areas - drugs, alcohol, gambling, socially condemned sexual behavior, pornography, and prostitution. Prosecution of crime in these areas is of tremendous importance today, not only because it constitutes a significant portion of the criminal docket, but also because it raises hard questions about the proper scope of the criminal law. We will start by looking at the law itself, reviewing past and present vice codes to determine what the law allows and what the law prohibits. With that foundation in place, we will ask whether the law we have is the law we want: are the legal regulations governing drugs, gambling, prostitution, etc., well-fashioned? Do they go far enough? Do they go too far? More fundamentally, why does the criminal law concern itself with these "morals offenses" at all? Along the way, we will also look at how social and political attitudes toward vice have shaped vice law, consider whether law enforcement practices are and have been consistent with the vice law on the books, and try to find lessons in the law of vice that can help us understand or reform other areas of the criminal law.
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Advanced criminal procedure covers the criminal process starting with the initial decision to file charges and ending with post-appeal habeas corpus. Topics include limitations on the prosecutor's power to file charges, grand jury, preliminary hearing, discovery, guilty pleas, plea bargaining, the right to trial by jury, jury composition, standards of proof at trial, sentencing, cruel and unusual punishment, double jeopardy, appeals, and habeas corpus.
The advanced criminal procedure class starts where the basic criminal procedure course ends. The basic class primarily covers constitutional procedures that govern law enforcement in gathering evidence and making an arrest. Advanced criminal procedure starts at the point where law enforcement takes a case to a prosecutor's office asking to have charges filed. It covers constitutional rules that govern a prosecution as it proceeds through the court system. This course covers material that appears on the California Bar examination.
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This class provides an overview of the antitrust laws which generally govern competitive practices in the United States. It then provides a series of self-contained discussion sessions on various issues arising as a result of conflicts, or perceived conflicts, between intellectual property law and competition law. Students will draft a substantial paper satisfying the Upper Level Writing Requirement and will present that paper during a class session.
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This course builds upon basic legal research skills with a focus on effective and efficient legal research strategies. In this practical, hands-on course, students will learn how to appropriately use both print and electronic information sources for Federal and California administrative, case and statutory law, court rules, legislative history, and secondary sources such as legal encyclopedias, treatises and form books. Cost efficient research and the integration of print and electronic resources are stressed throughout the course. This course is graded.
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Advanced Mediation offers students the opportunity to apply and improve the skills they have learned in the Introduction to Mediation course, and to consider legal and practice issues that can arise in mediation. Students will earn valuable experience by mediating disputes in small claims court. Class sessions will cover enhanced skills training, legal issues, practice issues, and theoretical inquiry. Some areas to be covered include: managing disputant emotion, confidentiality, identifying interests, enforceability of mediation agreements, mediating personal injury claims, and strategically using mediation to meet your client's interests. Students will be expected to explore and give an oral presentation on a research topic.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This course will seek to provide students with (a) further work in an internship with a technology-oriented company, technology transfer office or law firm and (b) with an opportunity to work with a mentor on creating an article for publication in a practicing lawyer related journal, newspaper, newsletter, news paper or other such publication.
Students can take the course for 1, 2 or 3 credits and for such credit they must work 5, 10 or 15 hours per week during the term in a placement and keep a daily journal. They must also present a PowerPoint presentation on their article to the Technology Law Externship 1 Class at the end of the term.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This course provides students with hands-on experience in a variety of areas of intellectual property (IP) practice, with a particular focus on the practice of patent law. The course examines in detail the law, policy, and procedures surrounding each of a series of topics including patent prosecution, ownership, licensing, and enforcement. Each topic is followed by a practical writing assignment in which students apply these teachings to a real-world legal task, starting from an appeal brief at the USPTO to an opinion of counsel concerning infringement and/or validity of a patent.
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This course examines civil and criminal trial practice for the student whose plans for the future include courtroom litigation. The course will provide advanced training in each phase of trial, preparation of trial exhibits, written motions in limine, voir dire, opening statements and closing arguments, direct and cross examination, witness impeachment, and rehabilitation. Students will be evaluated on classroom exercises and participation, preparation, and performance. There will be two complete jury trials where each student performs as trial counsel.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit. Honors designation will convert to a 4.0.
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This course surveys federal statutory, treaty, and case law relating to American Indians, including such issues as Native American sovereignty and self-determination, criminal and civil jurisdictional conflicts, treaty rights, Native economic development and gambling, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and Native religious rights. The course uses a historical perspective to illuminate current issues and controversies. Students may choose to write a paper to satisfy the upper level writing requirement, or take the full 3-hour final exam. All students, including paper writers, take the multiple-choice section (one hour or less) of the final exam; non-paper-writers take the remaining essay sections of the exam.
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This course surveys how political, economic, social, cultural, religious, scientific and philosophical ideas and events have influenced the development of American legal thought and doctrine from colonial times to the recent past. Examples drawn from the law of contracts, torts, property, civil procedure, crimes and the U.S. Constitution will be considered.
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An overview of the application of regulatory enactments and general principals of Tort, Constitutional, Criminal, Contract, Property and Trust Law to domestic animals and owners, and to wildlife and sportsmen/women and conservationists.
The course approach will be to analyze and apply federal, state and municipal statutes as well as reported case law using a traditionally styled casebook (specific to animal law), supplemental material as determined by the professor, and practical discussion of both transactional and litigation aspects of animal law.
This course is intended to introduce students to the practice area of animal law, to foster legal and social thinking, to enhance analytical writing, and to review basic legal principals.
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This course combines the study of antitrust law - public law controlling of the exercise of private economic power by dominant firms or groups of conspiring firms - with practical instruction in litigation skills. Students will study the substantive law embodied in the Sherman, Clayton, and Federal Trade Commission Acts, including the Per se Rule and the Rule of Reason, the types of antitrust analysis applied to the conduct of cartels and dominant firms. The law applicable to mergers and acquisitions will also be covered. In addition, students will work in teams to learn and practice litigation skills, including client interviewing, drafting (pleadings, discovery requests and responses), and deposition-taking skills. Prerequisite: Civil Procedure II, Legal Writing II.
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This course is designed to advance students' skills in appellate brief writing, oral advocacy, and appellate practice and procedure. Students will structure, research, and write an appellant's opening brief based on a hypothetical case. Students will then argue the case (in the roles of both appellant's counsel and respondent's counsel) at a mock hearing, demonstrating the ability to make the best arguments on both sides of every issue argued. Lectures, one-on-one writing conferences, and a tour of the local District Court of Appeal (at which we will hear live oral arguments) are included.
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Topics covered in this course include: authority of arbitrators; the arbitration agreement's effect on third parties; selection of the arbitrator and conduct of the proceedings; judicial review of arbitration awards; arbitrators' remedies; the award and the courts; collateral estoppel, res judicata and waiver; mandatory arbitration; and a discussion of the kinds of arbitration, including labor, commercial, medical malpractice and others.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This course explores legal concepts relating to fine art and cultural property, and the practical impact of applying such concepts in the "art world", comprised of artists, collectors, critics, historians, restorers, dealers, galleries, auction houses, museums, art schools, guilds, government departments and agencies, and the like. Students will examine relevant domestic and foreign law, together with multilateral treaties and conventions, and analyze issues involving the creation, ownership, sale, purchase, lending, licensing, movement, display, reproduction, adaptation, destruction, theft, and recovery of fine art and cultural property. Some of these issues manifest in high-profile cases of censorship, smuggling, forgery, grave plundering, and wartime looting, a few of which will be addressed. In addition, seminar participants will review agreements and other documents used in fine art and cultural property transactions.
Seminar sessions will require student participation in guided discussions. In addition to such discussions, students will be required to outline, draft, and complete a research paper on a related topic of their choosing (subject to approval by the professor), which will qualify for Upper Level Writing Requirement credit. Finally, each student will conduct an oral presentation on their paper topic. The final grade will be based upon preparedness, class participation, the final research paper, and the oral presentation.
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Bankruptcy law is one of the hottest areas of practice today. This survey course will introduce students to consumer and business liquidations under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, consumer debt adjustments under Chapter 13, and business reorganization under Chapter 11. Students also will learn basic concepts of debtor-creditor law outside bankruptcy.
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The first half of this course will review general international trade subjects. These subjects will include, for example, trade economics, the history of the World Trade Organization (WTO) system, the WTO accession and dispute rules, the major WTO Agreements and dispute cases, and the representative features of the approximately 200 regional trade agreements that are in effect today. This part of the course will highlight the many trade issues between the U.S. and China, including the U.S.' enormous trade deficit with China, the thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs that have been outsourced to China, the U.S.' refusal to sell military items to China, U.S. safety concerns regarding products manufactured in China, the U.S.' imposition of special tariffs on numerous Chinese imports, China's pre-importation review of U.S. media products and services, and the pervasive infringement in China of U.S. intellectual property holders' rights.
The second half of the course will focus on the subject of Doha Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations and the most pressing issue in the international trade arena today:
How can the WTO rules be revised so that they both accurately reflect
International trade patterns in the 21st century and are fair for the developing countries so that these countries' economies can develop?China's huge market renders it an important member of the WTO in any case. However, China necessarily will play a crucial role in answering the above question, as it serves as the unofficial leader of the developing countries in the WTO. In China today, there is much debate and excitement among government officials, business people, and academics regarding how China can utilize its leadership role in the WTO to benefit both China as well as all of the many developing countries in the WTO. This course will build on this enthusiasm and contribute to this debate.
A Chinese trade expert and former employee in China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (now incorporated in China's new Ministry of Commerce) will be a guest speaker in the class. In addition, the class will spend an afternoon visiting the Hangzhou factory of a San Diego company founded by two Chinese nationals from Zhejiang Province. This plant visit will enable the students to witness international trade in action within a context to which they can relate.
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Bioethics explores the ethical problems raised by developments in the life sciences (medicine, genetics, biology.) This seminar will examine a sampling of these ethical issues as they have made their way through the legal system. Course topics will include the evolution and current contours of "the right to die," the living will movement, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, artificial reproductive techniques and their regulation, genetic screening, and the allocation of medical resources in the managed care era.
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This course examines the legal issues raised by the revolution in biotechnology. Among the issues considered are patenting, licensing, regulatory approvals, and tort liability.
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This course covers and highlights crimes that occur along and outside the United States border. Crimes such as Illegal Entry, Smuggling Offenses (Immigration, Narcotics, Gun, and Cash), Trafficking in Child Pornography, and Terrorism Offenses will be reviewed in-depth with an emphasis on Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, Immigration law, the United States Sentencing Guidelines, and Sentencing Advocacy for each crime. The instructor is a senior Trial Attorney at the Federal Defenders of San Diego who has represented hundreds of defendants charged with crimes covered in the course and will bring that experience to the class.
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This course will explore business and compliance issues in sport. Every major sports entity has business and compliance issues. This course will focus on issues related to representing athletes and coaches, negotiating and enforcing contracts, league and associational structure (professional and the NCAA), and competitive balance and revenue distribution. The course will also exam the sanctioning of student-athletes, coaches and institutions at the NCAA and conference levels (infractions and compliance) and the sanctioning of professional players, coaches and teams at the professional level (through the Commissioner's Office). Racial and gender issues will also be raised, particularly with regard to revenue distribution issues at the collegiate level. There will be some examination of international issues, as well. Students will be expected to prepare a project or paper regarding (solving) a business or compliance issue in sport, at the amateur, professional or international level. For students interested in obtaining the certificate in sports law, this course may satisfy the core professional, amateur or international course requirement, depending on the paper/project chosen by a student. Prerequisite: none.
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This course will explore the law of sports and its key business issues. Topics of discussion will include the representation of athletes, the negotiation and enforcement of contracts, league structure and decision making, competitive balance and revenue sharing, teams, stadiums and arenas, media and broadcast issues, marketing opportunities, intellectual property commercialization and security, endorsement relationships, franchise valuation, Olympic Sports, college sports, gender and racial issues, doping, and gambling in sports.
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This course develops students' practical skills in contract drafting while they study substantive international sales law. International business lawyers not only need to know the law, they also need to develop contract drafting and negotiation skills. Through a series of simulations and team-based projects, students will negotiate and draft hypothetical transactions using international sales law. We will study the theory, doctrine and practice of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and compare key aspects of the CISG to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) Article 2. Students will learn to balance risk reduction and flexibility with the constraints of international sales law.
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This course provides students with practical experience in drafting the documents required for business transactions. The course will focus on documents prepared by lawyers representing a variety of business entities including corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, limited partnerships and sole proprietorships. It will also focus on documents drafted by in-house counsel. The documents will relate to issues that arise during the formation, operation and dissolution of a business entity.
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This course is an overview of the lawyer's role in litigation before trial in California civil court. Classes will focus on the Code of Civil Procedure applicable to pleading, discovery, case management conferences, discovery motions, summary judgment, with review of pretrial strategy and planning, including ADR and ethics. Classes will expose students to client interviewing, developing a theory of the case, developing a discovery plan, and preparation of the case for trial. The course also includes several writing assignments, including the complaint, discovery demands, case management statement, and motion for summary judgment. The course is designed to prepare the student to take the case from the time a client walks in the door through the trial readiness conference.
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TJSL students enrolled in one approved course at California Western School of Law. Only courses with grades of at least a 2.0 transfer with a grade of credit.
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This course examines practical aspects of civil litigation in California, including tactical considerations influencing an attorney's decision to choose state or federal court. Students taking this course will no longer graduate with the unwarranted assumption that state civil procedure operates in lockstep with the federal model presented in their introductory civil procedure course. That is an especially precarious assumption, because both state and federal civil procedure are tested on the California Bar Examination. This course presents a number of fresh concepts not covered in the prior course, that are unique to California practice. It thus reinforces the perspective of the student who wants to review some FRCP basics, and also enter practice with a background for choosing knowledgeably between California's state and federal courts. Its doctrinal component is rooted in the casebook method. Its skills component includes the following: (1) a moot court format-providing each student with the opportunity to argue at least a half-dozen assigned cases during the semester, which augments the overall course grade with oral argument points (5 points); (2) a practical midterm-such as drafting a pleading or a motion, so that students will have a job application writing sample, based on the example provided in the course supplement available in the TJSL bookstore (five points); and (3) a bar-oriented Performance Test final examination (about 50 points)-providing students with a third opportunity to practice like it's real, so that when it's real, it will be like they practiced.
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A survey of California evidence with particular emphasis on the important differences between state and federal evidentiary rules. The materials will focus on all aspects of evidence and will, in addition, be a review of important evidentiary principles.
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In an era where celebrities are "brands," advertising is entertainment, and entertainment is thinly-veiled product placement, the entertainment law foundation is shifting. This course reviews traditional copyright law, right of publicity and licensing wit
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This course gives you a glimpse of China's legal concepts and legal evolution. China is a vast country with a long history. China today is still deeply influenced by its traditions, culture, and customs. In this course I will introduce some very important scholars, and then sweep through 2000 years of Chinese history to modern times. During the late Qing dynasty, China started to interact with Western countries more frequently. Those periods are a crucial point in the development of China. There were many tremendous historic events that happened in China. We will study these. And we will learn to sense the Chinese rules of law by exploring many interesting historic events. The Chinese started to reform many legal codes in the late Qing dynasty, and they did enact some very high standards in the 1930s. Those codes are still working in Taiwan. When the communists and communism took over China in 1949, they dramatically changed the people's life's style. The Chinese people soon also changed their way of thinking after a few decades.
It wasn't until the 1980s, that Mainland China began to resume its process of legal modernization. Nevertheless, various political orders and directives, rather than the rule of law, have dominated different levels of Chinese government, entities, and private parties in the past years. In the meantime, despite an increasing emphasis on market economy, socialist ideologies remain prominent. This political context, and other traditional concepts, have posed more challenges than ever to China's ongoing efforts toward legal modernization.
Through studying the history and development of China and its legal system, you will learn to understand your own country, Western culture, and Western values. -
This is an introduction to the Chinese legal system taught within the framework of the twenty-eight year economic reform that has brought dramatic change to the Chinese economy and to the lives of the Chinese people. Students will learn about recent legal reforms in intellectual property legislation and in several other areas of the law. This course is team-taught in English by three distinguished Chinese professors of law from Zhejiang University Guanghua School of Law.
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An introduction to pre-trial civil motions practice emphasizing the practical application of law and fact within a creative, persuasive format, in both prosecution and defense. The course will underscore both written and oral presentation, as the participants will be required to draft and argue three motions over the semester. Classroom instruction will encompass applicable state and federal procedures, rules, calendaring, compliance and client economy; as well as demeanor, tactics and strategy.
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Civil Rights Law examines statutory provisions for enforcing constitutional rights and anti-discrimination principles. The course primarily will focus on Section 1983 of the nineteenth century Civil Rights Acts. This statute authorizes civil remedies, where a state has violated an individual's constitutional rights. The course also includes a brief discussion of other anti-discrimination statutes. In addition, Civil Rights Law examines the shifting of attorney's fees in successful civil rights cases.
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This is a skill-building practicum covering the issues of effective client interviewing and counseling. This class will include simulation exercises to enhance students' abilities to interview and counsel clients. This course is graded non-anonymously credit/no credit/Honors/Low Pass.
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Students must have prior approval from the Director of Externship & Public Interest Programs, Professor Judybeth Tropp, before registering for Clinical Education units. Students requesting enrollment in the Clinical Education units need to email Angie Valdiconza at avaldiconza@tjsl.edu stating the number of units they are requesting. Upon approval, students will be enrolled in the units by the Registrar's Office. This is graded Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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Students must have prior approval from the Director of Externship & Public Interest Programs, Professor Judybeth Tropp, before registering for Judicial Internship units or Clinical Education units. Students requesting enrollment in the Judicial/Clnicial Education Program need to email Angie Valdiconza at avaldiconza@tjsl.edu stating the number of units they are requesting. Upon approval, students will be enrolled in the units by the Registrar's Office. This is graded Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This course will examine the history of labor relations in professional sports including its intersection with antitrust law. The course will also discuss the roles of the players' unions, owners and leagues as well as the history and current status of the various collective bargaining agreements in the four major professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB). Finally, the course will cover professional athletes' labor arbitrations and the various drug testing policies in the leagues.
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Commercial Law: Commercial Paper to Cybermoney (Payment Systems)
Subject Description: This 3 unit elective covers the regulation and the legal issues raised by contemporary payment systems.
The use of paper based methods is decreasing, heralding the future dominance of non-paper methods. Developing technology has lead to new ways of paying for goods and services. This technology has extended existing payment products and services beyond cash and checks, to encompass cyber-money forms such as stored value, mobile payments, digital cash and virtual money - topics covered by this subject. Rather than focusing primary on negotiable instruments and deposits, this revised course covers cash through cyber-money payments, looking also at the practical working of such payment systems.
Why You Should Take This Subject: Payments expertise is evolving and the demand for such expertise continues to grow. Examples include the growing demand for mobile payments that the widespread use of cell phones such as the iPhone have fueled. Growing numbers of virtual reality 'residents conduct virtual commercial transactions using virtual money. On a more prosaic level, new and urgent attention has been focused on the functioning and regulation of payment systems by the recent economic crisis. Initiatives such as U.S. Treasury's New Framework for Financial System Regulatory Reform, and the Uniform Law Commission's Inquiry into the Regulation of Financial Institutions and Payment Systems, highlight the need that exists for payment systems legal expertise.
Topics covered by this subject are tested on the Bar Examination as Payment Systems, Commercial Paper, U.C.C. or Negotiable Instruments in the following states: Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming (41 states). -
This course covers the "sale of goods," as addressed by the Uniform Commercial Code, Article 2, and closely related subjects. The "Uniform Commercial Code" is a statutory system of commercial law which has been adopted, in substance, in virtually all American jurisdictions. The topics covered include the formation and modification of sales contracts, buyers' and sellers' remedies, express and implied warranty issues, general "risk of loss" issues, and established principles of common law which may apply, even in the context of a code based system. The general practice of civil law, even for one who is not a commercial "specialist," often requires counsel to have a basic knowledge of the law of "sales" in order to properly advise one's clients.
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Introduction to commercial transactions under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, including the creation, attachment and perfection of security interests in personal property and fixtures, enforcement of security interests through repossession, foreclosure and disposition of collateral, and consumer rights in auto repossessions and foreclosures. Attention will also be given to the creation, perfection and enforcement of real property mortgages, to motor vehicle transactions under the Uniform Certificate of Title Act, and to the enforceability of security interests and mortgages in bankruptcy. This subject is tested on the Bar examination in a majority of states, including, among others, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, D.C., Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands. Provisions of Article 9 concerning fixtures also are tested on the California Bar Examination.
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This course will cover payment systems, eCommerce, and secured transactions. The payment systems and eCommerce portion of the course will concern checks, notes and electronic funds transfers under Articles 3, 4 and 4A of the Uniform Commercial Code and federal consumer protection laws governing credit and debit cards, online transactions, and funds availability. Letters of credit under Article 5 of the UCC and UCP 500 will be briefly discussed. The secured transactions portion of the course will concern the creation, perfection, priority and enforcement of liens in personal property under Revised Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Secured real estate transactions will not be covered, though some issues raised by mixed personal and real property collateral will be addressed. The course is intended as a survey course and will assume a basic knowledge of Article 2 of the UCC regarding sales of goods, which ordinarily is covered in the first-year Contracts course.
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This course explores the classification of separate and community property, management and control of the community, liability for debts and problems arising from the dissolution of the community or death of a spouse.
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With the globalization of the economy, an ever growing number of competitive issues have an impact in both the United States and Europe. Efforts to manage competition in one region will necessarily affect the other, and thus an understanding of comparative antitrust law is critical for a contemporary business lawyer.
This class will introduce the basic antitrust legal and economic theory applicable in both the United States and the European Union. It assumes no prior knowledge of antitrust law. The core of antitrust law grows from the basic legal reasoning taught in the private, common law courses and basic economic analysis. As a result, this course will be accessible to students completing their first year of law school. Advanced business law courses are not necessary to take this class.
After explaining the basic principles of antitrust law, the course will compare U.S. and E.U. enforcement policy with respect to monopolization, mergers, and other agreements in restraint of trade. Although the principles applied in the U.S. and E.U. are quite similar, their application in practice has proven to be more divergent. The U.S. aggressively prosecutes small scale price fixing and bid rigging cases, imposing criminal fines and imprisonment on the offenders. The E.U. places less emphasis on this type of case and has no criminal sanctions. Significant merger cases, including Boeing/Lockheed-Martin and GE/Honeywell have engendered conflict between the enforcement agencies in the two regions, sometimes requiring State Department intervention. With respect to monopolization, U.S. and E.U. enforcers have also taken different approaches in their prosecution large companies, such as Microsoft, that have allegedly engaged in anti-competitive unilateral practices. In short, the EU retains a greater aversion to the abuse of a large market share than the US.
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This course examines the legal, business, regulatory, scientific and ethical issues raised by the fairly recent revolution in the United States and Chinese biotechnology research community and industry and its relevance to the pharmaceutical sector and each nation's health and welfare. The course is designed to provide Chinese and US law students with an overview of the essential tools that are necessary to become a biotechnology law and life sciences law practioner. Such areas consist of an overview of the science of biotechnology; intellectual property law including patents; patent litigation; university technology transfer policies and relations; government funding; private and public financing of biotechnology companies; licensing; research and development, collaborations and mergers and acquisitions activity with pharmaceutical companies; food and drug law and the regulations promulgated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA); biodefense and infectious disease response issues; and bioethical concerns. Speakers will include officials from the Chinese office of the FDA and from the SFDA.
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Comparative Constitutional Law
Recent decisions from the United States Supreme Court have discussed legal precedent in other countries, sparking a debate about the relevance of foreign judicial decisions to the interpretation of the United States constitution. This seminar will focus on what we can learn about constitutional values and choices by comparing the United States with western European civil law countries such as France and Germany and other common law countries, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. Using the United States constitution as a touchstone for comparing the other constitutional models, the course will examine elements of universality and difference and discuss the relative merits of the approaches. No previous study of constitutional law is necessary. Subjects covered may include the concept of constitutionalism, issues of comparative constitutional structure (including variations in the institutions and practices of judicial review), limits on constitutional rights (including political limits), judicial appointment, and various substantive constitutional rights, including freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, privacy rights, and differing conceptions of equality. The class will also examine how judges handle issues differently, based on the political context and their contrasting worldviews.
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The ultimate goal of studying foreign legal systems is to gain greater insight into one's own legal system. Films enable you to see foreign legal systems in action. The goal of this course is therefore to enable you to "read" a foreign law film and gain greater insight into U.S. criminal procedure by (1) recognizing the distinguishing features of the world's legal traditions, with a focus on criminal procedure (2) describing the legal narrative of a film and the legal tradition that is reflected in the film, and (3) evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the country's criminal procedure, from the filmmaker's point of view and from your point of view. The final grade is based on a 15-page paper (60%); mid-term exam (20%); and participation (20%)."
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Love, Marriage and the Regulation of Intimate Relationships- The modern family structure is in the process of undergoing dramatic change. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that "demographic changes . . . make it difficult to speak of an average American family." This statement applies with even greater force to family arrangements in Europe, where many countries recognize a greater variety of family structures. Dramatic changes in the legal definition of "family" have been fueled primarily by three factors: demographic developments involving marriage, cohabitation and parenting; the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement that has effectively challenged laws limiting the right to marry and parent on human rights and constitutional grounds; and the development of assisted reproductive technologies that have expanded the ability of individuals and couples to become parents. The legal responses to these developments vary. This course compares different jurisdictional approaches to the regulation of intimate relationships and family formation. In addition to studying constitutional principles, the course explores how religious rules and cultural practices influence legal marriage requirements, including polygamy and incest restrictions. It also examines the choice of law and conflicts of law issues that arise when couples seek to form and dissolve legal relationships that are not universally recognized.
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Comparative Health Law and Bioethics covers the right to health as well as access to health care in international law. We will review issues of comparative genetic privacy, disclosure of genetic data, issues in death and dying (including self-determination, aid-in-dying, and euthanasia,) assisted reproduction, in-vitro fertilization, surrogacy, medical decision-making for minors and humans as research subjects. These topics will be examined according to the laws in the U.S. as well as in various European, Asian and South American countries.
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This course explores how literature can enrich our understanding of the complicated and powerful role law and lawyers play in our society and those of other countries. The course initially covers a brief survey of several of the principal schools of jurisprudential thought that have influenced the development of the law in both common law countries and civil law jurisdictions, including natural law, positivism, legal realism, and feminist legal theory. The course then examines how the various legal theories are reflected in several short works of literature, including plays and short stories. The philosophical readings will come from law review articles and treatises. The literary selections will include both Anglo-American and continental works. The approach will compare and contrast the jurisprudential influences on the legal systems of countries with a common law tradition and countries with other systems of law, as manifested through imaginative literature.
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This course will investigate other systems of law, comparing and contrasting those systems with the common law system. Each system will be discussed with regard to issues that frequently arise in legal practice.
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This course is designed to develop negotiation skills in the international business context. It will apply theory to practice through the use of a variety of case simulations and problems. Students will learn to develop pre-negotiation, negotiation, and post-negotiation skills. Students will examine how to evaluate and negotiate opposing interests, and develop options for agreement. Critical thinking and communication skills will be emphasized throughout the course, and the course will take an active and hands-on approach to learning negotiation skills. Although we will explore several different cultures in the class (and their impact on business negotiations), the class will focus on understanding the cultural differences between the United States and China, and in particular, how these cultural differences can impact business negotiations. The goal of the course is provide students with concrete strategies to use in an international business context that will foster mutual understanding and success in business negotiations.
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The course will explore the theory, doctrine and practice of both the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) Article 2. Students will compare the two legal regimes through statutory analysis and case law. Over 70 countries have adopted CISG and there is now a critical mass of cases and arbitral decisions available to study. Students will also consider whether CISG is being applied in a uniform manner in different jurisdictions and discuss how economic, political, and cultural factors are reflected in court decisions.
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Since the principal method for resolving civil disputes continues to be litigation, it is important for American and Chinese law students to be aware of the differences and similarities in what constitutes admissible evidence in trial proceedings in China and in the United States. The course will begin with a comparison of the civil trial processes under Chinese and American law, with an emphasis on the Civil Law roots of the Chinese system and the Common Law roots of the American system and then analyze the impact of those systems on issues of the admissibility of evidence. Materials will be self-contained and made available to students prior to their travel to China.
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This course considers legal problems with multi-state aspects: jurisdiction, conflict of laws and choice of law, recognition and enforcement of judgments.
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This active, hands-on, student-led, student-focus seminar will be a venue to develop and enhance consumer advocacy skills through a series of weekly exercises and practicums that address pervasive and unique policies by government and private actors that infringe upon the rights of consumers. Students will be required to work through real and hypothetical consumer problems to develop strategic plans for effective intervention and remedy for aggrieved customers that are victims of deceptive business practices, abusive collection practices, consumer harassment, zealous overreach in consumer contracts and in customer service. Students will become familiar with consumer protection laws and are invited to look at past models and case studies where effective consumer intervention resulted in positive outcomes with a view to developing their own solutions in a variety of context including commercial credit and banking, housing, health care, education, social security, employment, recreational activities, and in services from local, state and federal entities.
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This course will examine how federal and state consumer protection laws apply to common consumer transactions. Subjects include the Federal Trade Commission Act, the regulation of advertising, "Little FTC" ("UDAP") statutes such as California's Unfair Business Practices Act and Unruh Act, predatory lending and the Dodd-Frank Act, usury and regulation of the cost of credit, the Truth in Lending Act and consumer credit disclosure, credit reporting and the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumer privacy, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and credit discrimination, regulation of credit, debit and gift cards and online banking, consumer protection in checking and other deposit accounts, product warranties and the Magnuson-Moss Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and consumer remedies including attorney's fees, consumer class actions, arbitration, exemptions, the Federal Wage Garnishment Act, and regulation of student loans. Attention also will be given to how some of the same problems are dealt with under European Union directives.
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Controlled Substances: Crime, Regulation and Policy - This course explores the law of substance abuse and addiction. The course begins by examining the arguments for and against drug prohibition, along with possible alternatives to prohibition. With a basic understanding of the relevant policy arguments in place, attention is turned to drug crimes examining drug trafficking, manufacture, and possession offenses, as well as related sentencing laws. From there, the regulatory provisions of the federal Controlled Substances Act, which govern the classification of both legal and illegal drugs, is examined. Constitutional challenges that have been made against various drug laws are reviewed along with how drug laws have impacted the Constitution. Finally the course compares the model for dealing with drugs and drug addiction with some of the different approaches that other countries have taken. Policy questions that open the course will be discussed throughout the semester. While the course will focus primarily on illegal recreational drugs, the regulation of alcohol, tobacco and of prescription drugs will be addressed. Prerequisite: Criminal Law. Recommended: One or more of the following courses: Criminal Procedure, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law I and Constitutional Law II.
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This course focuses on the legal issues arising from the creation, ownership, production, marketing, and distribution of literary, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, musical, digital, and related works. This will include examination of copyrightable subject matter, the idea/expression dichotomy, compilations and derivative works, duration and renewal, fair use and remedies. The course examines the current federal Copyright Act in depth and considers the impact of past laws, related state laws, and international copyright law.
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This course provides a theoretical and policy framework for considering the respective roles of institutional and individual responsibility. Also examined are the major federal statutes that are commonly invoked in corporate and white collar prosecutions. The areas covered include: corporate criminal liability, personal liability in an organizational setting, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, bribery of public officials, and work place death and injury.
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In this course students will learn advanced persuasive legal writing skills in the context of criminal motion practice. This section of the class will focus on Federal Habeas Corpus and the Fourth Amendment. Assignments will consist of a research log, a defendant's opening brief, a prosecution response brief, a defendant's reply brief, and oral argument plan.
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This course examines the interconnections between race and law, and particularly the ways in which race and law can be mutually reinforcing. Critical Race Theory (CRT), suggest that racial subordination is not a deviation from a liberal legal ideal, but rather has been central to and complicit in upholding racial hierarchy (as well hierarchies of gender, class, and sexual orientation, among others). The course examines origins of this critique, as well as contrasts between the CRT approach and liberal and conservative analytical frameworks on race and American law and society. It also examines some of the questions and criticisms raised about CRT, from both inside and outside of the genre, as well as the impact of the work on legal and political discourse. Students will explore various approaches to questions about race as well as the role that law plays in constructing racial identities.
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Internet and global networking are changing the way we think about law. Users from all over the world are communicating in real time using emails, Twitter, Facebook. People use Internet to access their bank accounts, to plan their holidays, to buy goods and to check their medical conditions. All of this creates challenges for practitioners and scholars, who are forced to consider Internet as a lens through which existing legal concepts should be considered.? This course will expose students to cases involving trespass to chattel in cyberspace, consumer protection and privacy issues online, problems connected to jurisdiction and judgment recognition, regulation of free speech and many other extremely interesting topics. A technical background is not required. This course may satisfy the law school's upper level writing requirement.
D
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Directed Study is a method by which Thomas Jefferson students may obtain credit toward their law degrees by performing legal research and writing in areas of their own choosing. Eligibility for Directed Study is limited to students who have earned at least 30 units and are in good academic standing. A student wishing to obtain credit for Directed Study must first procure the written agreement of a faculty member to supervise that student's project during the school session in which such credits are to be earned. Adjunct faculty members may serve in this role only with the approval of the Associate Dean on a case by case basis. Before registering, the student, with the guidance of his/her intended faculty supervisor, shall select a topic for the student's project, adopt a written plan for its completion, and determine the number of units of credit to be earned through the project. Students may not earn more than 3 Directed Study units per semester. For each Directed Study unit for which a student registers, the student shall perform a minimum of 50 hours of research and writing. a 10-15 page paper is usually required for each unit of Directed Study credit. Honors/Credit/Low Pass/No Credit is the only grading option available. Students requesting enrollment in Directed Study units must submit the Professor signed approved petition to the Registrar's Office. Upon approval, the Registrar's Office will enroll the student in the Directed Study units.
E
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This course serves as an introduction to the legal framework for doing business on the Internet. Specific topics include legal aspects of website formation, digital contracts, jurisdictional issues, software licensing, and aspects of intellectual property in Cyberspace.
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This course explores the laws and regulations governing educational institutions in the United States. The course will critically evaluate whether education laws advance or hinder the educational mission. As the country's future depends on its academic achievement, this course will be useful for those seeking a career path in education law or for anyone concerned about the future of the country.
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This course introduces students to a broad range of doctrinal and policy issues in areas of the law that impact particularly strongly on older Americans. Subjects covered will include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, long term care, guardianship, elder abuse, end of life decision making, and age discrimination in employment. Of particular concern will the be the impact of an aging American population on existing legal regimes and public programs. Additionally, the course will look at the particular ethical and professional issues raised by the provision of legal services to older clients.
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This course provides an introduction to employment discrimination law, one of the most important areas of legal regulation of the workplace. Course coverage includes consideration of discrimination based upon race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, and disability. Statutes bearing upon these issues include: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Civil Rights Act of 1866; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act; and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Integral to the discussion of the rights and responsibilities under these statutes are the broader societal debates about how the workplace should be structured. What behavior should constitute racial or sexual harassment? How are primary caretakers of children to reconcile the demands of work and family responsibility? What sort of accommodations should employers be compelled to make for the disabled? These are some of the timely and important questions the course will address.
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This class provides an introduction to federal and state law protections for individual workers. This course surveys basic topics of the law of work, including common law and statutory regulation of employment termination, employee free speech and privacy, and wages and working conditions. The overarching theme in the course concerns how the law should mediate the conflict between employer and employee rights.
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This course examines both substantive law governing the employer/employee relationship and litigation approaches to lawsuits filed by employees and governmental agencies. The course will prepare the student for dealing with the investigation of employee claims, the role of enforcement agencies, preparing the case for trial, evidentiary issues particular to employment litigation, and trial tactics. There will be an emphasis on Title VII and other laws dealing with discrimination in the workplace.
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From Pamela Lee's alleged breach of a film contract to music copyright infringement by New Kids on the Block, this multimedia-powered course provides a basic introduction to the legal, business and policy issues applicable to the entertainment industry. The course focuses on the motion picture, music, book publishing and television industries, and the emerging field of "infotainment", i.e., the convergence of the Internet and new technologies in the entertainment world. Legal regimes explored will include copyright, trademark, idea submission, and right of publicity, as well as contract and First Amendment issues.
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This course deals with the role of the entertainment lawyer. Emphasis will be placed on the representation of and dealings with various parties involved in the entertainment world including, representation of actors, movie studios and other production entities. The goal of this course is to prepare the student to understand the fundamental principles of law in dealing with "real world" transactional practice issues as well as entertainment law litigation.
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This course provides an overview of federal environmental law and regulation. The various legal tools used for environmental protection will be considered, including common law, statutory, judicial and administrative mechanisms. Students will examine the major federal statutes regulating air, water and hazardous waste. In addition, students will be asked to consider current legal and policy questions implicated by these laws, their implementation, and their enforcement.
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Estate and Gift Tax explores the basics of federal wealth transfer taxation: the tax consequences of property transfers during life and at death. Topics include the definition of taxable gifts and computation of the gift tax; determining the components of the gross and taxable estate and computation of the estate tax; valuation; powers of appointment; a brief overview of the generation-skipping transfer tax; and basic estate planning techniques. Recommended: Wills and Trusts.
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This course aims to give students a comprehensive introduction to the legal, constitutional and political structure of the EU. We will consider the past, present and future direction of the EU and the role which law has played in the process of European integration. We will study the composition and work of the main EU institutions with reference to legislative processes, sources of law and the enforcement of EU law. Finally, the course will examine some of the fundamental economic and social freedoms protected by the EU including a review of the European antitrust laws and human rights protection.
F
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This course conducts an examination of legal theory and practice in the area of family law, including prenuptial agreements, marriage, annulment, divorce, custody and visitation, child support, spousal support, attorney's fees, ethics, special problems in family law, and practical tips on operating a family law practice.
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This course offers advanced treatment of civil procedure and constitutional issues of great importance to any lawyer planning to practice in federal court, and of general interest to almost all lawyers. Many issues covered are strongly relevant to state-court practice as well. It is very strongly recommended for any student contemplating a judicial clerkship. Topics include: federal question and diversity jurisdiction; U.S. Supreme Court jurisdiction; habeas corpus; abstention and other limitations on federal-court jurisdiction; relationships between federal, state, and Indian tribal courts; and governmental immunities. Students may choose to write a paper to satisfy the upper level writing requirement, or take the full 3 hour final exam. Paper writers will be required to take a one hour portion of the final exam. The paper would be the length expected for a 2 unit course.
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This elective will focus on federal criminal practice with an emphasis on both substantive federal criminal law and procedure and the development of oral advocacy skills. The curriculum will revolve around taking the students through one criminal case in federal court from start to finish, with opportunities for hands-on training at numerous points during the semester. While the course will focus on federal law and practice, many of the concepts will apply equally to students who end up working on criminal cases in state court.
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This class will follow the progression of a federal criminal case from investigation through trial. The first half of the semester, students will learn how cases start at the United States Attorney's office, the procedure they follow in District Court from arraignment until trial with an emphasis on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and Federal Rules of Evidence.
The second half of the semester the students will be divided into two groups (prosecution and defense) and the students will learn trial practice skills related to the various stages of a case. The instructors are the most senior (non-supervisory) Trial Attorney at the Federal Defenders of San Diego and an Assistant United States Attorney. Each has tried numerous federal felony jury trials to verdict in district court.
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This course provides an overview of the fundamentals of federal income taxation, including income, exclusions, deductions, basis, depreciation, and capital gains.
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Federal sentencing law has undergone two, contrary sea-changes in philosophy and detail in the last 30 years. The shift from a system based on mandatory sentencing guidelines in United States v. Booker was a direct consequence of the Supreme Court's still-reverberating decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey applying the Sixth Amendment trial protections to issues of punishment. As a result, the study of federal sentencing law carries with it important lessons shaping state sentencing practices.
This course describes these major changes in the law, but its focus is strongly on a wholly practical approach to the subject. Students will be familiarized with the major components of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines in way allowing them to apply these concepts immediately to actual sentencing scenarios. The course covers the basic Guidelines protocol, criminal history calculations, determining basic offense levels, and the principal adjustments and departures to derive the recommended sentence. In keeping with post-Booker developments, the course will also cover the main controversies and strategies in current federal practice. Students will be taught the skills to advocate for an overall sentence in a hands-on fashion and gain particular guidance in the practical art of sentencing advocacy.
The instructors are a senior trial attorney and appellate attorney with Federal Defenders of San Diego. Between them, they have years of experience in the application of federal sentencing law at trial and on appeal, providing students with the most up-to-date and practical knowledge of the field.
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This course examines the regulation of food, drugs, cosmetics and medical devices by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including statutory provisions, regulations, and case law. Topics covered include food labeling, food quality, food sanitation and safety, drug requirements, drug licensing, over-the-counter drug regulation, biologics, medical devices, cosmetics and carcinogens. The course will also focus on how the FDA and the courts have enforced and interpreted the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act with respect to these topics.
G
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This seminar will explore how the ideals of equality, freedom, and self-determination survive a time when predatory global finance, militarism, and racism are ascendant. The seminar will create an opportunity to explore theories, histories, and futures of global justice; the relationship between universality and difference; comparative conceptions of equality and justice. Seminar participants will explore what global progressive alliances are possible to resist global cartels of reaction and repression and the legal mechanisms that both empower and imperil self determination with case study examination of social demands for justice throughout western, middle eastern and other non-western societies.
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Globalization has transformed the way we think about the workplace, creating opportunities that have helped millions while presenting worldwide challenges that require coordinated and creative solutions. Globalization also makes it increasingly likely that US labor and employment lawyers will encounter issues involving the laws of other countries. With the forces of globalization as a backdrop, and international human rights and trade law as possible correctives, this course examines international and comparative workplace law, the cutting edge of labor and employment law practice. The course highlights international labor standards promulgated by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and considers the effects on national regulation of supranational structures like the European Union (EU) and regional trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). A number of workplace trends are considered including increasing income inequality, the decline of labor unions, the problems of migrant workers, the dramatic rise in the number of women in the paid labor force, and efforts to eliminate forced and child labor. Using international standards as an analytical lens, the course also compares workplace law in several countries important to the global economy, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and China. The course concludes by assessing the potential for achieving global labor standards through corporate self-regulation, such as the Codes of Conduct adopted by many American transnational corporations (TNCs), and cutting edge legal efforts to enforce international labor rights in American courts.
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There is a general consensus among those who believe in anthropogenic climate change that substantial technological innovation is necessary to slow or stop the warming of our planet. Of the statutory and regulatory vehicles that promote technological innovation, intellectual property regimes, particularly patent laws and rules, are perhaps the most important. This two-credit seminar course is offered to students interested in issues at the intersection of intellectual property law and clean technologies / climate change. More particularly, this course will examine the role IP laws and IP rights play in green innovation, including development, protection and implementation of clean technologies.
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This course covers liability and quality issues in health care, including: the physician-patient relationship, the obligation to provide care, quality control and licensing of health care professionals and health care institutions, liability of health care professionals, liability of health care institutions, standard of care, informed consent, confidentiality, and disclosure issues.
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This is an overview course that examines the complex regulatory environment that governs the "health care system." This course will focus on the health care providers, the payors and organizers of health care, and the consumers. Students will apply their knowledge about the regulatory and legal environment to examine significant issues about the relationship between cost, quality, and access.
I
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This course explores the fundamental and practical aspects of current U.S. immigration law, policy and procedures relating to visas, asylum, employment authorization, adjustment of status, naturalization, citizenship, detention and removal.
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Much of how our world operates is driven by increased ability to gather information and to process it. Businesses and the government can collect vast amounts of data, store it on low-cost servers, and then develop software to sort the information. This cycle of data collection and processing is likely to increase. Yet this information is often tied to individuals and thus although there are benefits to this new capacity, its growth demands that we examine its impact on privacy. But there is no one privacy law. Rather various parts of constitutional, tort, contract, property, and statutory laws have evolved to address specific privacy threats. As such this course examines all of these laws as they relate to information privacy. Some of the many topics covered include: media disclosures of private facts, paparazzi, private lives of public figures, conflicts between privacy and free speech, medical records, HIPAA, confidentiality of physician-patient relationships, genetic data, wiretapping, police records, surveillance, USA-Patriot Act, monitoring of email, drug testing, searches, surveillance, email, telephone, Internet use, databases, record systems, Internet monitoring, identity theft. As this course focuses on information privacy, it will not include matters protected by the constitutional "right to privacy" such as abortion and contraception.
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In this course, we will study the infractions and compliance process in intercollegiate athletics, with an emphasis on the NCAA. We will discuss historical matters but will focus primarily on NCAA rules and enforcement, with a particular emphasis on cases decided by the Committee on Infractions and the Infractions Appeals Committee of the NCAA. Eighty percent (80%) of the final grade will be based on a paper or project. Each student will be expected to either prepare and present a brief in a pending infractions case or write an opinion in a pending case. Alternatively, students may write a substantive paper regarding a particular issue or a paper regarding a project that relates to the infractions and compliance process. Twenty percent (20%) of the class will be based on class preparation and participation.
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The course covers insurance related topics including: formation of the insurance contract; a brief treatment of regulatory guidelines which impact the insurance industry; evaluation of: first versus third party coverages; tortious breach of insurance contract problems; insurance contract provisions including without limitation insuring clauses, exclusions, conditions, declarations, and endorsements; select problems in the casualty, life and liability insurance contexts. Additionally, the course will examine policy goals of legislatures and courts in the enactment, and construction, of insurance statutes.
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This seminar will use close readings of law review articles to understand the theoretical underpinnings of patent, trademark, and copyright. In addition the readings will look to information and governance theory to see how those approaches may impact law and society's understanding and management of intellectual resources. The class readings will mainly consist of one law review article a week (in full). For example, one week's reading might offer one view of copyright. The next week's reading would offer the counter view. I may pick an emerging area such as robotics or big data as a core organizing theme. If so, we will look at underlying IP areas and how they may or may not apply to the new one(s). Additional types of reading may include news articles and materials outside legal literature on emerging technology. This is a writing class. We will either write a final paper or write 2-3 position papers based on the readings. In either case, in addition to understanding the contours of this area of the law, improved analytical and persuasive writing will be a goal of the class. Those with a deep love of all things geeky and technology-related (even if they may not have a science background) are encouraged to take the class provided they have taken either copyright, trademark, or patent before this term.
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This intensive three-week course provides a simulated intellectual property practice experience. Students will work in a setting modeled after law firm practice, report to partners and clients, and manage case files and a workload. The course will offer instruction in the form of an orientation session, frequent topical CLE and CLE-style classes, and daily meetings with a legal writing coach. Students will be required to submit several written assignments, which may include a legal memorandum, motion and/or response for summary judgment, cease and desist letter, trademark application, office action response, and a license agreement. In addition, students will be required to complete an average of 36 of independent work, which will be tracked through time sheets. The practice area will focus on trademark, but may include assignments from patent and copyright, depending on the students' interest.
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Intellectual Property Law Research Project provides a small group of students with an intensive research, writing, and networking experience with respect to a hot issue in intellectual property law. The 2013-2014 topic will be "Determining In Which Countries and Regions to File Life Science Patents" and the research team will conduct a national survey of life science patent law practitioners under the leadership of biotechnology legal and scientific experts. Students will conduct research and writing projects as part of a team, together planning, researching, and writing a law journal article and organizing a seminar with experts in the field. When this course was last offered, the resulting journal article was selected as one of the ten best IP articles of the year. This course is designed as a two-semester experience in which students will be encourage to continue with the project in the spring semester.
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Intellectual property (IP) has become an increasingly important part of the global marketplace and information economy. The legal issues involved with IP are exciting, complex and evolving. Although IP law was once considered a specialty, nearly every student who plans to have a general litigation or business practice should be acquainted with the fundamentals of IP law. The course provides a broad overview of U.S. intellectual property law, including patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets. The course serves to both acquaint generalists with the law surrounding the protection of ideas and to serve as a foundation for those pursuing a career in an intellectual property practice.
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This course will serve as an introduction to the legal aspects of doing business in the People's Republic of China. After a brief overview of the historical context and the basic structure of the Chinese legal System, we will explore the business, legal, and social/cultural issues U.S. companies typically encounter in conducting businesses in China. Specifically, we will examine the Chinese legal system including an exploration into sources of law and courts in China. We will also examine forms of foreign investment and intellectual property protection. Finally, we will look at business negotiations and business ethics specifically within the context of U.S./China business relationships. Most of the readings for this course will be primary sources of law combined with current business/legal articles discussing how China's legal system and laws impact American companies doing business in China.
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This course will address the law of transnational business and white collar crime. In today's global economy, and particularly in light of the recent worldwide financial crises, international white collar crime is an increasingly relevant and important facet of international business law. In this course, we will consider substantive crimes (e.g., international tax and money-laundering crimes); relevant procedural doctrines (e.g., extraterritorial jurisdiction); the role of international organizations in enforcing the law; and some of the important policy issues and challenges posed by international business crime.
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This course is an introduction to the laws of international trade and finance. Students consider the problems of conducting business in the global community. The approach is primarily transactional and combines the legal theory and practice of doing international business. Topics include the formation of agreements required for the international trading of goods, such as the documentary sale, the letter of credit, the contract of sale and the consequences of wars and other frustrations of contract, the bill of lading and a sale without a letter of credit. Students will study the regulation of international business by import and export controls, tariffs, and non-tariff barriers, and customs classification and valuation. The transfer of technology by means of franchising and licensing agreements leads to a discussion of the pirating of intellectual property. Students will study the legal framework for estabilishing a foreign direct investment abroad or a joint venture. Other topics include the resolution of international disputes by trial or international arbitration, the role of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the WTO, TRIPS, NAFTA and the European Union in regulating international business. Doing business in China will be discussed. This course focuses on the cultural differences that influence the establishment of international business ventures.
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This course is an introduction to the laws of international trade and finance. Students consider the problems of conducting business in the global community. The approach is primarily transactional and combines the legal theory and practice of doing international business. Topics include the formation of agreements required for the international trading of goods, such as the documentary sale, the letter of credit, the contract of sale and the consequences of wars and other frustrations of contract, the bill of lading and a sale without a letter of credit. Students will study the regulation of international business by import and export controls, tariffs, and non-tariff barriers, and customs classification and valuation. The transfer of technology by means of franchising and licensing agreements leads to a discussion of the pirating of intellectual property. Students will study the legal framework for estabilishing a foreign direct investment abroad or a joint venture. Other topics include the resolution of international disputes by trial or international arbitration, the role of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the WTO, TRIPS, NAFTA and the European Union in regulating international business. This course focuses on the cultural differences that influence the establishment of international business ventures.
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This course examines the legal framework of international business transactions. Topics include international sales of goods, bills of lading, letters of credit, import and export control, transfers of technology and protection of intellectual property, forms and regulation of foreign investments and issues of transnational litigation, including service of process abroad, choice of law and enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards. This course will prepare future attorney to deal with clients in a globalized world.
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This course examines the basic principles of international criminal law. Emphasizing a public international law perspective, this course explores the growing efforts to enforce international criminal justice and humanitarian norms through an international criminal law regime. This course traces the development of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the first permanent international criminal law tribunal. It will also examine the ICC's immediate precursors, the two ad hoc war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It will cover international crimes such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression as well as issues of individual and state responsibility. It will encompass current events such as the pending cases at the ICC and the possible ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
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As the forces of globalization progress, all practicing family lawyers need to become international lawyers. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the growing web of international law sources that they are likely to encounter in the practice of family law. Topics covered will include recognition of foreign marriages and divorces, mail-order marriages, international child-custody disputes and abductions, international child-support enforcement, and international adoptions. Focus will be placed upon problems from actual practice in addition to theoretical understanding.
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This course examines the global human rights movement that grew out of World War II and how international human rights laws, instruments and institutions respond to human rights violations. International human rights include civil and political rights, economic rights, social and cultural rights, women's rights and children's rights. These rights are reflected in legal norms, political contexts, moral ideas, international relations and foreign policy. This course uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the laws and policy of international human rights as applied to all individuals in general and to women in particular. The course reviews applicable international human rights laws, instruments, U.N. treaty organs, regional and international tribunals, and the role of NGOs in the human rights movement. The course analyzes state and international policies, practices, and attitudes in order to understand the causes and consequences of discrimination and abuse perpetrated on individuals. Gender justice and the empowerment of women to facilitate full enjoyment of their human rights, accountability and enforcement is a central theme of the course. Special attention is paid to the universal crime of sex slavery, human trafficking, and rape as a weapon of war in the development of massive human rights violations. Students analyze the rules and standards of contemporary human rights as expressed in states' constitutions, laws, practices, international treaties, customs, court decisions, investigative reports and recommendations of international institutions, and governmental and non-governmental actors in order to understand the ongoing development of international human rights laws.
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This course is designed to introduce students to the law that deals with the protection of individuals, peoples and cultures against violations of certain internationally-guaranteed human rights. The course will examine the foundations of 21st Century international human rights law, namely, the Nuremberg principles, the United Nations Charter and decisions of the International Court of Justice. The provisions of the UN Charter dealing with the protection and promotion of human rights will be studied, as well as other instruments adopted by UN organs, such as the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention Against Torture, and the Conventions on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and Discrimination Against Women. We will contrast the procedures developed by the UN to supervise the implementation of human rights treaties with procedures in the United States governmental system. The institutions that have been created to protect human rights in the European Union, the African Charter, and the Organization of American States will be examined. Finally, the interrelationship between international human rights law and relations between states, groups and individuals will be analyzed, including the recent events in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia.
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This course explores the relationship of women's rights to the international human rights movement that grew out of the Second World War. International human rights are reflected in legal norms, political contexts, moral ideals, international relations and foreign policy. This course uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the laws and policy of international human rights as applied generally and to women in particular. Special attention will be paid to the universal crime of sex slavery and human trafficking of women and children. Students will analyze the rules and standards of contemporary human rights as expressed in states' constitutions, laws, practices, international treaties, custom, court decisions, investigative reports, and recommendations of international institutions, governmental and non-governmental actors in order to understand the ongoing development of international human rights laws and their application to the protection of women's rights.
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This course focuses on the study of international intellectual property treaties, the intellectual property laws of other countries, and international licensing or transfers of intellectual property.
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This course will survey legal issues concerning government and private regulation of the Internet, including the regulation of obscenity and other offensive speech, defamation, anonymity, trademarks, copyrights, privacy, and jurisdiction.
The Internet is a medium for the transmission of information, and Internet law is the law of control of information. This control can take forms as varied as censorship and copyright. In the United States the First Amendment and the Patent & Copyright Clause of the constitution define the limits of these forms of control. The situation is further complicated by the international nature of the Internet; content forbidden by U.S. law may be legal elsewhere, and content legal in the U.S. may expose U.S. web content publishers to civil or criminal penalties in other countries. This course will provide an overview of some of the areas in which the domestic and international legal system has been placed under the greatest stress by changes in information technology.
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This course comprises three components. First, we will examine the phenomenon of the multinational enterprise, that is, a corporation that establishes subsidiaries and affiliates in foreign countries. In effect, we will discuss the causes and effects of economic globalization. Second, we will analyze the rules of international law that apply to this phenomenon, from the perspective of the multinational enterprise, the home state of that enterprise, and the host state where the enterprise establishes a subsidiary or affiliate. We will explore the relationship between these rules and the social, economic and political policies of the home and host states as well as the strategic business decisions of the enterprise. Finally, we will survey the process of international arbitration through which these rules are enforced. This course would be of special interest to those who wish to represent and advise businesses that have operations in more than one country, those who wish to work in an international litigation or arbitration practice, and those interested in concerns related to economic globalization, such as the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs, the growing U.S. trade deficit, the implications of U.S. budget deficits, maintaining U.S. economic competitiveness, and preserving environmental and labor standards.
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This course provides worldwide perspectives on International law. It contains many US resources as well, given the US leadership role in the War on Terror. Students will analyze numerous current events, while plugging the historical gaps associated with educating the well-rounded student. The first of three course segments introduces the general scope of International Law, coupled with casting the State, organizational, and individual/corporate actors in their respective roles on the international stage. The second course unit portrays much of the practical substance of International Law-jurisdiction, sovereignty, treaties, dispute resolution, and the use of force. The third course unit adds substance in a somewhat distinct medium-by its appraisal of human rights, environmental, and economic themes. The course also exposes the student to web-based materials which offer a rich smorgasbord of materials linked to today's dominant international developments. From the Course Web page, students may link to key cases, treaties, and academic developments occurring after publication of the course text. The book's electronic component also includes online dictionaries, graduate education opportunities, historical resources, maps, travel requirements, and a Career Opportunities in International Law Webpage, to assist with office-hour questions regarding how one navigates the shift from an academic environment to the international job market. The course employs a modified moot court format-providing each student with the opportunity to argue at least a half-dozen assigned debates during the semester. These role playing problems and case studies facilitate student comprehension of International Law. One component of the course grade will be the semester grade for all oral debates. Performance-styled testing, in a document-oriented environment, further promotes the skills-oriented objectives of the course. These evaluative components enable the student to do what international lawyers do in practice.
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Violations of international law, laws of war, and human rights laws are the plague of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Mass violence and the flagrant violation of human rights laws have a dramatic effect that inspires writers, film makers, artists, philosophers, historians and legal scholars to represent these horrors in their work. This course explores the human rights laws and international laws embedded in selected artistic representations. By adopting an interdisciplinary analytical approach based on semiotics or the science of signs, this course will unlock the coded language of literary and cinematographic works in order to unravel the complexities of many of the most controversial issues of our time such as terrorism, civil disobedience, women's human rights abuses, sex trafficking, the denial of the right to wear a headscarf to manifest the Islamic religion, child soldiering, the killing of girl babies due to traditional male child preference, the piracy of intellectual property, and the impact of culture on the interpretation of international laws.Students will discuss books, films and music that shed light on international law, international human rights laws, and international laws of war. Texts include Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, two well-known films Hotel Rwanda and The Pianist, Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran; two Iranian films about family law and women; Uzodinma Iweala's award winning book, Beasts of No Nation (about child soldiers and human trafficking of children); and Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan about women's rights in China), and many more. This course is designed to be an introduction into international law, international human rights laws, and international laws of war through the study of works in the humanities.
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This course covers the general process of international sports law - especially within the Olympic Movement - and provides a comparative perspective on sports law. Specific topics include the institutional framework; arbitration and litigation of disputes within and outside the sports arena, including consideration of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (via in-depth case studies of recent dispute resolution); the rights, duties and eligibility of athletes; problems of doping, violence, corruption, and commercialization; and the role of politics in international sports. Other topics include the human rights of athletes, the use of instant replay cameras and computers to resolve disputes during competition, corruption in the sports arena, the emerging lex sportiva derived from arbitral awards and ambush marketing.
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This course will focus the special trade issues of developing countries. The course will review (1) various trade agreements to which developing countries have been or are parties; (2) special provisions for developing countries typically contained in trade agreements; (3) economic theories underlying trade agreements; (4) products and services of special interest to developing countries (e.g., agricultural products, textiles and clothing, call centers in India); (5) specific trade issues as they affect developing countries (e.g., intellectual property rules, subsidies, trade in cultural and information technology products); (6) issues regarding adding minimum labor, environmental, and human rights rules to the World Trade Organization rules; and (7) distributist theories of justice (e.g., theories of John Rawls, Tim Scanlon, Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, Ronald Dworkin, Gerald Cohen).
The grade for the course will be based on class participation (15%), a mid-term examination (15%), and a paper. This course qualifies for upper level writing credit.
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This course examines cutting edge issues that arise at the intersection of social media technologies and the law. These technologies include social networks, wikis, blogs, podcasts, mashups, virtual worlds, and online video/image/audio sharing websites. Popular examples of these services include Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Youtube, which enable users to communicate, share and distribute content in unprecedented ways. With a particular focus on these social media services that rely heavily on user generated content (UGC), this course will provide a foundation for understanding the state of the law regarding these technologies. The areas of law that touch social media are vast, ranging from Intellectual Property, to free speech, to privacy, to contract, to many other areas of law. This course highlights the unique applications of law to social media that result from both the nature of the technologies involved, as well as from specific legal frameworks designed to treat social media and the Internet in unique ways. The course will emphasize recent and upcoming cases, unresolved questions, and scenarios students are likely to face as attorneys.
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This course provides an overview of the principal U.S. tax treaties and statutes that apply to U.S. firms doing business in foreign countries and to foreign firms doing business in the U.S.
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This 2-credit course will explore interpretations and representations of International Criminal Law issues using the lens of popular culture, particularly film. We will also analyze international criminal law issues arising from one memoir: Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Issues to be explored include historical and contemporary international criminal tribunals as well as the international crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and torture. Each student will be required to research a topic, provide materials to the class analyzing the issue, and lead the discussion of the issue in relation to the film. Each student will also write a reaction paper, discussing the accuracy and effectiveness of the representation of the international criminal law issue. Note: we will meet in a three-hour block of time given the material. You are expected to be available for the entire block of time. This course will be graded non-anonymously Honors/Credit/Low Pass/No Credit.
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Environmental problems are international, often global, in scope. Oceans, aquifers, watercourses, and, of course, the atmosphere are not restricted by political boundaries; pollution crosses easily from one state to another. Resource depletion may harm the interests of all states, as in the case of fisheries. Loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat, even when it occurs entirely within the boundaries of a single state, affects the interests of all of the world's peoples. This course serves as an introduction to international environmental law. The course will give an overview of several areas of conventional and customary law affecting the international environment, including international environmental agreements and "soft law" documents, the role of international organizations, the practice of states, and, where appropriate, U.S. law. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between domestic and international environmental laws, and to the ways in which the legal process has solved (or failed to solve) international environmental problems.
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Environmental problems are international, often global, in scope. Oceans, aquifers, watercourses, and, of course, the atmosphere are not restricted by political boundaries; pollution crosses easily from one state to another. Resource depletion may harm the interests of all states, as in the case of fisheries. Loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat, even when it occurs entirely within the boundaries of a single state, affects the interests of all of the world's peoples. This course serves as an introduction to international environmental law. The course will give an overview of several areas of conventional and customary law affecting the international environment, including international environmental agreements and "soft law" documents, the role of international organizations, the practice of states, and, where appropriate, U.S. law. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between domestic and international environmental laws, and to the ways in which the legal process has solved (or failed to solve) international environmental problems.
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Global intellectual property law is one of the core issues for international business attorneys. This course studies the international systems for establishing trademark, copyright and patent rights. Within that context, the course will consider the roles of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) as well as the various multilateral and bilateral agreements that exist, including but not limited to the TRIPS Agreement. The patchwork of intersecting treaties that relate to intellectual property rights has led to an increase in litigation in recent years over international patents, trademarks and copyrights. This course examines recent cases with an emphasis of preparing students for the practice of law.
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Global intellectual property law is one of the core issues for international business attorneys. This course studies the international systems for establishing trademark, copyright and patent rights. Within that context, the course will consider the roles of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) as well as the various multilateral and bilateral agreements that exist, including but not limited to the TRIPS Agreement. The patchwork of intersecting treaties that relate to intellectual property rights has led to an increase in litigation in recent years over international patents, trademarks and copyrights. This course examines recent cases with an emphasis of preparing students for the practice of law.
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International aspects of the sports law of the U.S., EU and other countries, including regulation of the Olympics, disputes between athletes and sports governing bodies, the jurisdiction and operation of the Court of Arbitration for Sport and its developing body of sports law, and current matters such as doping, labor, competition, and other issues.
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This course will introduce the student to the legal regime that applies to international letters of credit, the principal mechanism for financing imports and exports. The course has no prerequisites and assumes no prior knowledge of international trade or finance. Instead, the student will be introduced to the basic structure of an international transaction that employs a letter of credit to finance the sale of goods. The student will also study the various contractual relationships that arise out of the transaction and the connection that each relationship has to the financing arrangement. The overarching objective is to help the student understand the various facets of the financing arrangement, the role that each party plays in the arrangement, the legal exposure that each party might assume whenever a letter of credit is used to finance the transaction, and the potential ways for managing any inherent risks.
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This one-unit course is a component of the Criminal Law Fellowship Program, taught by the Coordinators of the Fellowship Program in conjunction with a team of experienced criminal law practitioners including judges, defense attorneys, and prosecutors. Working with a realistic mock case and case materials, students study several fundamental aspects of criminal trial practice, including client interviewing, fact investigation, jury selection, opening statement, direct examination, cross-examination, and closing argument. Participants observe demonstrations of important trial skills, practice these skills through role-playing exercises, and complete a substantial written exercise building on the material studied.
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This courses introduces the student to the practice of intellectual property law. Each class will introduce some basic substantive law that students will then use to complete an IP Lab project. Lab projects will include patent and trademark applications, copyright registrations, office actions, non-disclosure agreements, cease and desist letters, complaints, counter-claims, and IP sale agreements. The class will proceed on two tracks with students interested in patent law focusing more heavily on patent concepts, including claim drafting, and students interested in soft IP focusing more heavily on copyright issues. The course will consist of a 2 unit classroom component that will be graded with a performance final exam and 2 units of directed study graded on a credit/no credit basis. This course is required for IP Fellows matriculating in the fall 2012.
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The course is designed to foster professional development, build on the research fundamentals learned in Legal Writing I, and simultaneously preview aspects of persuasive writing that will be introduced in Legal Writing II. The course will be set up as a mock law firm where students will be newly hired associates. Students will be given tasks and assignments that they are likely to encounter during a typical legal internship.
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This one-credit pass-fail course will provide 1Ls with an introduction to patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws and their intersection with different relevant areas. The course will be taught by various faculty members and will include guest lecturers. Students may have reading assignments, and a short paper will be required to receive credit.
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This courses introduces the student to the practice of intellectual property law. Each class will introduce some basic substantive law that students will then use to complete an IP Lab project. Lab projects will include patent and trademark applications, copyright registrations, office actions, non-disclosure agreements, cease and desist letters, complaints, counter-claims, and IP sale agreements. The class will proceed on two tracks with students interested in patent law focusing more heavily on patent concepts, including claim drafting, and students interested in soft IP focusing more heavily on copyright issues. The course will consist of a 2 unit classroom component that will be graded with a performance final exam and 2 units of directed study graded on a credit/no credit basis. This course is required for IP Fellows matriculating in the fall 2012.
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Mediation is currently in great demand as an adjunct to the court system, as a mechanism for managing in-house corporate fissures, in labor-management discussions and in international disputes. Although usage varies dramatically depending on context, mediation at its essence is a process in which a neutral third party works to help disputing parties craft a resolution that meets their needs. This course will introduce students to one model of mediation that has attained currency within the community mediation movement. Students will learn the various stages of the process and practice the techniques used in each stage. Class will be interactive, requiring participation in in-class mock mediations and communication exercises. This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This survey course provides an overview of the history, technology, and general legal considerations surrounding open source software and documentation.
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Much like Islam, but unlike Christianity, Judaism has (some would say) a legal system. Initially, the Israelites were a nation and the Bible is a selection of their national literature, some of which includes law. When the people were exiled from the Land of Israel by the Romans, close to two thousand years ago, it was the law that maintained Jewish identity when there was no longer a common land, language, currency, or military. This course explores the scope, development, and philosophy of Jewish law. There is no prior knowledge necessary for success in the course.
This seminar will require two papers, the first (8-12 pages) on Judaism and War, emphasizing different philosophies of Jewish law. The second paper (15-20 pages) will allow students to delve into the historical development of a law of their choosing from the Bible to today.
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Students must have prior approval from the Director of Externship & Public Interest Programs, Professor Judybeth Tropp, before registering for Judicial Internship units. Students requesting enrollment in the Judicial units need to email Angie Valdiconza at avaldiconza@tjsl.edu stating the number of units they are requesting. Upon approval, students will be enrolled in the units by the Registrar's Office. This is graded Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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Students must have prior approval from the Director of Externship & Public Interest Programs, Professor Judybeth Tropp, before registering for Judicial Internship units. Students requesting enrollment in the Judicial units need to email Angie Valdiconza at avaldiconza@tjsl.edu stating the number of units they are requesting. Upon approval, students will be enrolled in the units by the Registrar's Office. This is graded Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This course explores the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of the law. All of the schools of jurisprudential thought are discussed. This discussion includes: natural law, positivism, realism, historical jurisprudence, sociological jurisprudence, economic analysis and critical legal studies. The differing approaches are related to legal and literary analysis.
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This course will concentrate on the substantive law and procedural rules relating to juvenile court actions involving child abuse, neglect and related child custody issues.
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Students in this course will be exposed to cutting-edge issues in the field of juvenile justice, including recent Supreme Court cases that have forbidden capital punishment for juvenile offenders and have limited the sentence of life without parole for this population. The course will also familiarize students with practicing law in a juvenile court setting through an in-depth study of the various stages of a delinquency case. Both criminal law and criminal procedure issues will be discussed in relation to juvenile offenders, and students will learn about the historic origins of the juvenile court. Grading will be based on writing assignments rather than an exam; this course may satisfy the upper level writing requirement.
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This course examines federal regulation of private sector labor-management conflict, with particular focus on the National Labor Relations Act. Topics include: the organization and recognition of unions; the structure and process of collective bargaining; the scope of union and employer direct action; and the role of arbitration in the administration of collective bargaining agreements. The role of the law in allocating power between unions and employers is one theme of the course. Another course theme is the peculiar role of history in shaping modern labor law.
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This course focuses on issues in regulation of the use of real property. Students will examine zoning ordinances, their historic and constitutional basis, division of land by subdivision and other means, condemnation and regulatory taking, regional and master planning, building codes, federal state and local environmental laws, land use control related to race, poverty, and control of adult businesses and other unpopular activities.
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This course is designed to introduce students to the economic analysis of law. Students will learn how to apply economic reasoning to torts, contracts, property, criminal law, and other areas of the law. The course will examine and compare how different legal rules affect the behavior of individuals and entities. It will also consider how the economic approach fits in with other concerns of the legal system. An introductory microeconomics course at the undergraduate level is a prerequisite to taking this course.
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This seminar explores what lawyers can learn from literature. Primarily, we will address how literature can enrich our understanding of the complicated and powerful role law and lawyers play in our society. It will also examine how lawyers can benefit from literary critical techniques and understanding of narrative conventions, and whether thinking of lawyers, judges and clients as story tellers helps us to be better lawyers. The primary texts will be short stories, plays, and novels. Students may also read some judicial opinions and some theoretical writings on the connection between law and literature. Students will write a series of short papers on the assigned readings, give an oral presentation on one of the assigned readings, and prepare a final research paper. The final research paper will satisfy the Upper Level Writing Requirement. This course is graded non-anonymously.
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This distance learning course covers the free exercise of religion and the prohibition on establishment of religion, guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Reading and writing assignments focus on United States Supreme Court cases, which interpret these First Amendment provisions. Students will discuss law and religion topics on an internet message board and chat room established on the Westlaw TWEN service. Students will receive substantial research and writing experience. Course requirements. Each student will complete a memo and a brief. Also, attendance will be required for the weekly Law & Religion chat room. The chat room typically will meet on Sunday, from 6 pm. to 7:15 pm. A student cannot be absent from more than two meetings of the chat room. Grading and Upper Level Writing. This course is graded non-anonymously. The course will satisfy the upper level writing requirement if a student earns a grade of 2.0 or above.
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This course provides an overview of various intersections between sociology and law in the United States, from the origins of the country through current debates. Substantive topics include how race, gender, class, or sexual orientation may affect immigration and citizenship, education, housing and residence, or criminal justice. We will examine these issues through social science articles, case law, the U.S. Constitution and other laws, as well as media output (film and newsprint). In addition to these resources, student experiences and perspectives will inform class discussions.
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This course covers various amateur sports law issues, with a focus on legal regulations of interscholastic and intercollegiate sports. Topics to be covered will include gender and racial discrimination, the relationship between the university and its student-athletes, the role of the NCAA and other regulatory associations, contract law, tort law, and constitutional law issues. Students will be expected to prepare and present a paper regarding an amateur sports law issue.
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This course will explore legal and policy developments pertaining to climate change and the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. Approaches considered will range in jurisdictional scale (state and local, regional, national, international), temporal scope (incremental measures, near-term targets, multi-decade emissions goals), policy orientation (voluntary initiatives, disclosures rules, subsidization, tort litigation, command-and-control regulation, cap-and-trade
schemes, emissions taxes), regulatory target (industry and manufacturing, commercial and retail firms, financial and insurance companies, consumers and workers), and regulatory objective (stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations, reduction of emissions levels or intensity, energy
security, optimal balancing of costs and benefits, adaption to unavoidable impacts). Although course readings and discussion will focus on existing and actual proposed legal responses to climate change, the overarching aim of the course will be to anticipate how climate change will affect our laws and our lives in the long run. Students will be required to complete a research paper on a related topic of their choosing, which may satisfy the Upper Level Writing Requirement. -
The course examines issues currently posing challenges to the practice of democratic politics in the United States. Issues involving the individual right to vote, partisan and racial gerrymandering, the relationship of the state to political parties, campaign-finance reform, and the fair representation of minorities in democratic bodies are analyzed in terms of the constitutional framework for democratic politics and the approaches that have emerged through major legislative initiatives, such as the Voting Rights Act.
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Designed to give the student familiarity with the various types of law office structures and their functional differences. How to start a law office and the various issues to be considered in managing an office will be discussed. Employee management, client interaction, technology, marketing, finances and billings, and legal work product will be the focus of several written assignments. Course work will include small group analyses of real situations and practical applications. Selected guest speakers will provide additional practical insight into specific issues that are present in today's law firm environment. Emphasis throughout the course will be on issues encountered by the sole practitioner and management of the small to mid-size law office.
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Students requesting a Law Review unit, please email Registrar, Kim Grennan at kimg@tjsl.edu.
Upon approval, students will be enrolled in one unit of Law Review by the Registrar's Office. This is graded Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit. -
This seminar critically examines how education law and policy affect the allocation of equal educational opportunity primarily within the U.S. K-12 public education context as it relates to race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, disability and language minority status. Topics include desegregation and single-sex education; No Child Left Behind Act accountability and high-stakes testing (for tracking, promotion, and graduation); charter schools, vouchers and school choice initiatives, bilingual education and services for immigrant children; sex discrimination; harassment based on race, sex, and sexual orientation; school-finance reform; IDEA and special education; HIV/AIDS students; and affirmative action. Readings will include legal materials, social-science research, essays and other sources from an interdisciplinary perspective drawing on critical race theory, civil rights literature, sociology and other various disciplines. Seminar assessment is based upon class participation, class presentation project and a final paper submission.
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Course description currently unavailable.
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This discussion-based class explores how film affects lawyers and the practice of law. We will address how the movie have shaped public perception of the law and ultimately changed the legal profession. We will also examine movies' depictions of lawyers, courts, and other legal vehicles to determine their accuracies, inaccuracies, and the message they ultimately send to lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Primarily, we will be usingmovies as our texts; students also will read theoretical writings on the connections between law and film. Students write a series of short papers on various assigned films, give a presentation on one of the assigned films, and must analyze a film or other relevant topic for a final paper. These papers may satisfy the Upper Level Writing Requirement with professor approval.
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This course is designed to develop skills in logical thinking and the application of black letter law, with an emphasis on multiple choice testing. This course is required to be taken during a student's next to last semester of law school. It is required of all students in the bottom 33% of their class.
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A student required to follow the Intensive Curriculum must take and pass, with a
grade of at least 1.7, the Legal Principles course. Legal Principles is a four-unit
course, graded on the first-year curve, designed to develop skills in writing,
reasoning, and analysis, focusing on the fundamental skills and concepts essential
to legal analysis. Students must take Legal Principles in the spring or summer
semester, whichever immediately follows the semester in which the student first
attempted 25 units of law study on the first-year curve. Students taking Legal
Principles in the summer may take no more than one other summer semester
course. That other summer semester course must be either Professional
Responsibility or Criminal Procedure. In the event that there is insufficient space
in either of those courses, an alternative course can be selected with the approval
of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. A student required to follow the
Intensive Curriculum who does not take and pass the Legal Principles course will
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Students participating in this class will conduct legal research and learn how to code and assemble that research into a form that can be combined with other researchers into a major project. The substance of the research will be retired Justice David Souter's U.S. Supreme Court opinions. Each student will be assigned a specific time period and will be responsible for finding, coding, summarizing, and analyzing each opinion written by Souter during that time period. Class will meet once each week, and class sessions will be conducted as project team meetings with each student making a progress report on his or her section of the overall project. Students will also receive instruction and critique of their legal writing skills. Students may register for 1 or 2 additional units of credit, which will be earned by covering a larger time period of Justice Souter's judicial career.
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Course description currently unavailable.
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Course description currently unavailable.
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Legal Synthesis II - This credit/no credit 2-unit course includes lectures on non-MBE subjects tested on the CA bar exam. Legal Synthesis II concentrates on teaching the law in each of these subjects as it is actually tested on the CA bar. It provides essay exams using the grading standards employed by the California Bar examiners. Each lecture is presented with particular attention to the issues actually tested on the CA bar exam. Students learn strategies for organizing, writing and finishing CA bar essays questions under rigorous time conditions.
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Course description currently unavailable.
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Despite the emphasis in law school on case law and the judicial process, it is usually the situation that, for most lawyers most of the time, the "law" they work with is statutory. This course considers various aspects of legislation in theory and practice, including the legal principles governing the legislative process, the drafting of legislation, and the principles of statutory construction. The course provides a practical analysis of the legislative process from the perspective of the attorney who will be involved in drafting legislation and arguing about its statutory interpretation in the courts. The course will rely heavily on class discussion.
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Local Government Law is concerned with the overlapping and often competing levels of government that characterize our federal system. For example, is true democracy only possible when power exercised at the local level, or does local control allow for petty tyranny? This is a question central to the law of local government, and will underlie much of the discussion in this course. Topics covered include doctrines concerning the form, sources and limits of local government power, incorporation, boundaries, annexation of communities, redevelopment, preemption of local ordinances, the administration of cities and other local government entities, governmental liability and the financing of local services through user fees, assessments and taxes. All of these questions are important for anyone planning to practice in heavily-regulated areas such as environmental and real estate law, or in any legal field where local political interests drive legal decisions. Local Government law is also a useful review of certain constitutional law principles for graduating students preparing to take the Bar exam. Note: This is NOT the law of San Diego.
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This course focuses on the Mandarin Chinese language skills that are necessary to represent Chinese speakers in a variety of common legal settings. The course reviews client intake forms, initial client interviews, follow-up interviews, witness interviews for personal injury, workers' compensation, bankruptcy, family law, immigration law, estate planning and probate scenarios.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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MBE Product
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This course will study law affecting mass media from newspapers to broadcasters to Internet publishers. The course will focus on First Amendment law relating to government regulation of the media and on emerging state and federal issues arising from the news gathering and reporting process. The course may be used to satisfy either the professional skills course requirement or the upper level writing requirement through the research and writing of an appellate-level brief.
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California leads the nation in its embrace of mediation as an alternative to more formal adversary procedures. But, while mediation becomes an increasingly prominent part of the institutional landscape, foundational questions remain as to its goals and methods. This course examines the diverse array of models that go by the name of "mediation" and the ethical difficulties this heterogeneity creates. Students at the end of this course will: 1) have a strong grasp of mediation's multiple models; 2) a deep understanding of the ethical Codes guiding mediation practice at the national and state level; 3) a thorough understanding of the field's ethical "hot potatoes" and how to think about and respond to these "hot" topics. In our effort to understand what ethics entail, we will both read some of the traditional thinkers in the history of philosophy and watch clips from the T.V. show "House."
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This course is designed to provide an opportunity to help students develop or build on mediation skills through classroom instruction, roleplaying, and real world experience mediating small claims cases.
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Professor Ellen Waldman and Professor Harold Abramson, Touro Law Center, New York, NY
Lawyers are increasingly representing clients in mediation as alternative dispute resolution develops around the globe; yet, advocates as a group remain unsure how to best advance their clients' interests in this less familiar, non-judicial forum. This course examines how lawyers can maximize the opportunities offered by mediation, including those settings where the disputants hail from radically different cultural backgrounds. We will analyze the critical choices facing advocates including: selecting the mediator; crafting pre-mediation submissions; selecting an appropriate negotiation strategy; managing the "negotiator's dilemma"; crafting an opening statement; overcoming impasse; and bringing the dispute to closure. Additionally, this course will parse the ethical boundaries that advocates and neutrals must recognize and the tensions created by competing mandates. The course will give specific attention to mediation practices throughout Europe and Asia.
The course is based on the co-teachers books, Abramson, Mediation Representation-Advocating as a Problem-Solver in Any Country or Culture (NITA, 2010) and (Oxford University Press Edition for Outside of North America, 2011) and Waldman, Mediation Ethics -Cases and Commentaries (Jossey-BASS, 2011). -
This survey course gives students an overview of military culture, law, and procedure. Students will first learn the basics of military customs, standards, and traditions. Students will then learn about concepts of military justice, including an understanding of military courts, jurisdiction, due process, the Rules for Courts-Martial, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Military Rules of Evidence. Students will learn about typical non-punitive disciplinary measures such as Non-Judicial Punishment and administrative discharge proceedings. Students will then learn about the varying levels of courts-martial and how to navigate through the courts-martial process, from investigation, filing of charges, through trial and/or guilty pleas and sentencing. In addition, students will learn various mechanisms of alternative resolution to courts-martial. Students will also have the opportunity to attend military hearings/proceedings (situation permitting).
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Students requesting Mock Trial units, please email Registrar, Kim Grennan at kimg@tjsl.edu and state the number of units you are requesting. Upon approval, students will be enrolled in Mock Trial units by the Registrar's Office. This is graded Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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Students requesting Moot Court units, please email Registrar, Kim Grennan at kimg@tjsl.edu and state the number of units you are requesting. Upon approval, students will be enrolled in Moot Court units by the Registrar's Office. This is graded Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This course will cover the full lifespan of a mortgage. The course will be broken into three parts: creation and securitization, default and foreclosure, and post-foreclosure deficiency rights. Each week one day will be dedicated to the learning of the law in the applicable area, and the second day will be devoted to practical application in a "real world" lab setting. In the lab, students will practice reviewing, negotiating and drafting mortgages, processing and fighting foreclosures, and preparing complaints and motions regarding California deficiency rules. Grading will be based on three multiple choice examinations at the end of each part, work product generated in the lab, and classroom participation.
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This course covers basic copyright issues, clearance and permission problems and involve a practical negotiation. The goal of the course is to teach the students how to obtain optimum value for a music property.
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This course examines the separation of powers in national security matters; presidential war powers; congressional and presidential emergency powers; the use of military force in international relations; investigating terrorism and other national security threats; prosecuting terrorists; the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts; access to national security information in the federal courts; and restraints on disclosing and publishing national security information.
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This course involves a practical study of the theory and skills used by lawyers in negotiations. The course will use readings, practical hands-on exercises, written planning documents, and written self critiques as the basis for developing each student's understanding of the negotiation process and his or her individual negotiating style. We will explore both competitive and cooperative approaches to negotiation, as well as ethical, strategic and tactical issues.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This class involves 14 hours of class exercises designed to improve students voice quality, persuasiveness, consciousness of their sense of specific purposes of their argments, and the ability to both understand the purpose of their own arguments and the purpose of questions from the bench in order to allow them to emphasize the appropriate concepts in their presentations and their answers to questions. This course is graded credit/no credit/honors/low pass.
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This course is intended for students who have a basic understand- ing of patent law and a background in science or engineering. As the Supreme Court recognized more than 100 years ago, "The specification and claims of a patent...constitute one of the most
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This course provides an overview of United States patent laws and the institutions responsible for their administration, interpretation and enforcement. Topics covered include the statutory requirements for obtaining a patent, the process of applying for a patent, the rules for interpreting patent claims, and the nature of patent infringement. Students will critically examine the United States patent system from a variety of perspectives, including historical, economic, linguistic, and comparative law.
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The TJSL Patent Clinic provides patent-specific legal assistance and representation to those in the community without sufficient means to hire a patent attorney to advise them. While under the supervision of a California licensed, U.S. patent attorney, participating students have the opportunity to assist clients in all aspects of transactional patent law practice. In additional to legal prerequisites, Patent Clinic students must also have a qualifying scientific or technical undergraduate degree. The Patent Clinic has two components, a classroom seminar portion and a client fieldwork portion. The seminar is a weekly, two-hour class that teaches the lawyering skills necessary to effectively represent the patent clinic clients. In addition to discussing general client interviewing and counseling techniques, the weekly class will focus on substantive and administrative areas of patent law that are relevant to the students' cases, including issues of professional responsibility.
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The TJSL Patent Clinic provides patent-specific legal assistance and representation to those in the community without sufficient means to hire a patent attorney to advise them. While under the supervision of a California licensed, U.S. patent attorney, participating students have the opportunity to assist clients in all aspects of transactional patent law practice. In additional to legal prerequisites, Patent Clinic students must also have a qualifying scientific or technical undergraduate degree. The Patent Clinic has two components, a classroom seminar portion and a client fieldwork portion. The fieldwork provides students with the opportunity to perform the practical legal and administrative aspects of patent practice. Participating students are required to spend up to 20 hours per week with patent clinic clients, working on the patent matters. Each five hours per week of fieldwork completed equates to one school credit hour (for a total of up to four credits per semester for the fieldwork portion of the Patent Clinic).
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Pre-Bar Fundamentals is designed to re-introduce students to the doctrinal subjects tested on the multi-state bar exam (MBE) prior to students commencing bar review with their selected provider. The course reviews key topics within each MBE bar subject, introduces students to multiple-choice test-taking strategies and skills, highlights approaches needed to answer bar essay questions in each of the subjects, and provides students with opportunities to develop their multiple-choice and essay-writing skills in order to prepare effectively for the bar exam. This pre- bar review course is graded on a competency-based scale set forth by the instructor at the start of the course and is not subject to the upper level curve.
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An overview of the lawyer's role in litigation before trial in federal court. Classes will review the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure applicable to pleading, discovery, discovery motions, summary judgment and pretrial conferences and then discuss pretrial strategy and planning and the role of alternative dispute resolution. The class will examine interviewing and client counseling, developing a theory of the case, developing an integrated method of using discovery and factual investigation to prepare a case. Ethical and policy issues in the pretrial process will also be discussed. The course will include several writing assignments: an interoffice memo outlining your theory of the case; a complaint; discovery requests; and a motion for summary judgment. This will allow students to take a case (from the plaintiff's perspective) from the time a client walks in the door through the pretrial conference.
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This online course will examine major legal issues that arise in the world of professional sports, including contracts, intellectual property, collective bargaining, antitrust, and employment law. It will also examine the ramifications of decisions made by personnel working in the professional sports industry. This course is one of three core class requirements in the Certificate in Sports Law and Policy program offered at Thomas Jefferson. It is open to all students who have completed their first year of study at Thomas Jefferson or another ABA accredited law school. Preference in terms of enrollment will be given to students who are participating in the Certificate program.
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Today's professional sports law attorney practices in an atmosphere that joins legal principles with corporate analytics. The course provides a primer for the future practitioner and examines strategic planning by professonal sports teams, sports franchise valuation, use of economists as expert witnesses, establishment of market definitions in antitrust cases, and labor market effects of league rules. Initial digital texbook may be purchased on-line: Gennaro, DIAMOND DOLLARS: THE ECONOMICS OF WINNING IN BASEBALL (2007).
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In this course, we will study race and gender in sports law. We will examine race and gender separately and then will examine the intersection between the two. Civil and constitutional rights will be studied, in the sports context, with an emphasis on civil rights, equal protection, and other statutory protections including Title IX. A major written paper or project will be presented. The paper or project, which may with approval qualify for the writing requirement, will constitute 70% of the grade in the class. The oral presentation of the paper or project will constitute 15% and periodic quizzes to ensure that students are reading and reflecting on the materials for each class session will account for the final 15% of the grade in the course. The text will be the latest edition of Mitten, et al, Sports Law and Regulation.
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This seminar will provide students the opportunity to delve deeply into some issues they are unlikely to have touched upon in their first-year torts course. We will, in short, discuss the ways in which tort law intersect with race and gender issues in American society. This course will feature some case law reading, but more often, students enrolled in this course will read secondary source material. These materials will serve as a launching pad for a dialogue concerning ways in which to improve tort law to meet the needs of racial minorities and women and how lawyers can best serve clients within existing structures and legal regimes. Topics this course may discuss include environmental racism, racial epithets, slavery/reparations, tort reform, intentional sex torts, and more. This is a 21st century legal course that will make ample use of multimedia content (think YouTube videos, television programs, documentaries) as a pedagogical tool. For their grade, students will write one piece of scholarship. This class may satisfy the Upper Level Writing Requirement (ULWR).
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This course deals with the role of the attorney in real estate sales transactions. Emphasis is placed on representing and dealing with the various parties involved in real estate sales transactions, including buyers, sellers, brokers, escrow companies, title companies, and lenders. The goal of the course is to prepare the student to understand and create common real estate contracts and related documents, and to analyze and deal with "real world" transactional practice problems.
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This course will cover the history of trade in cultural goods and services (including, for example, media and entertainment items such as movies, television programs, music recordings, books, newspapers, and magazines), cultural economics, international censorship rules, the major World Trade Organization (WTO) free trade rules and dispute cases regarding cultural goods and services (with particular emphasis on the "public morals" exception to the WTO rules), and the pros and cons of adopting a comprehensive cultural exemption to the WTO rules pursuant to the new United Nations Convention on the Promotion and Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The U.S. and the EU possess diametrically opposed views on how cultural goods and services should be treated in the global economy, with the U.S. maintaining that, for the most part, they should be treated like any other commodity or service and the EU (led by France) insisting that they are "the cherished articulations of a nation's soul"[1] and accordingly they should receive special protection in the global economy. This "trade and culture debate" has a long history (with some commentators claiming it goes back to the early 1900s, when France lost the fledgling movie industry to Hollywood) and furthermore goes to the very essence of which subjects should be regulated by the international community and which subjects should be left to the discretion of each individual nation.
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This course examines law and policy issues in the determination of refugee status, with emphasis on U.S. law and practice. We also will address international origins of refugee law, the significance of international norms in its development, and comparative state practice.
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A study of the skills needed in representing clients in a mediation, with a particular emphasis on the skills evaluated in the ABA Representation in Mediation competition. Skills that will be covered include planning, the making of opening statements, building problem solving relationships, finding creative solutions and resolving distributive disputes, enlisting assistance from the mediator, employing caucues, and analyzing your own performance.
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This course will critically examine legal and bioethical issues related to reproductive rights and services, including the regulation of pregnancy termination, access to abortion by marginalized populations, access to contraception, minors' and prisoners' rights, workplace discrimination, discrimination based on race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, and the implications of assisted reproductive technologies.
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Scholarly Legal Writing introduces students to legal scholarship. Law review members who are in the first semester of writing their law review note are required to enroll in the course.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This course surveys the forms of security interests, the remedies available to lenders, and the defenses available to borrowers in the context of loans secured by California real property. The course emphasizes anti-deficiency legislation and the one-action rule, and the policies that animate them.
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This course focuses on the issues that arise in securities transactions. The class provides an overview of the 1933 Securities Act, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and other legislation relating to securities regulation issues. Selected topics may include: public offerings of securities; recapitalizations, reorganizations and acquisitions; Rules 10b-5 and 16(b); proxy contests; and tender offers and anti-takeover devices.
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The course will begin with a history and overview of domestic violence. It will continue with a review of causes and effects, cross-cultural Issues (women of color, religious issues, disabled victims, elder abuse), gay and lesbian battering, civil restraining orders, children and domestic violence, law enforcement response, prosecutorial response, victims as defendants, victim advocacy, victims as criminal defendants, the abuser- interventions and treatment, immigration issues, and representation of battered clients.
There will be a number of guest speakers and videos. In addition, students will observe criminal and family law domestic violence court hearings. Students will write a paper that meets the Upper Level Writing Requirement.
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This course examines the most commonly occurring sex crimes including child molestation and rape. We will cover the elements of each crime and possible sentencing outcomes. There is an emphasis on understanding what motivates the perpetrators of sex crimes, and what works to reduce recidivism.
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This course explores legal issues related to sex, gender and sexual orientation. The course focuses on the role that our laws play in creating and reinforcing sexuality and gender norms and examines a number of constitutional issues including: equal protection doctrine as it applies to issues of gender and sexual orientation; the role of the state in regulating sexual conduct under the due process clause; and the application of the first amendment to sex-related speech and conduct. Specific topics may include: sex and sexual orientation discrimination; sexual acts including incest, polygamy, rape, prostitution, sadomasochism and pedophelia; reproductive rights including contraception, abortion and surrogacy; sex related speech including sex education and pornography; and family issues including marriage, custody and adoption. Prerequisite: Constitutional Law I highly recommended.
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The Small Business Law Center (SBLC) at Thomas Jefferson School of Law provides legal assistance and representation to entrepreneurs, small businesses, and non-profits that do not have the means to hire an attorney to advise them. Students who participate in the SBLC will have the opportunity to assist clients by forming their entities, drafting, negotiating and reviewing contracts, and helping clients through the regulatory process. Students will be guided during representation by a licensed California attorney but students will have primary responsibility for their cases.
Students enrolled in the SBLC are required to participate in weekly class meetings that focus on the lawyering skills necessary to effectively represent clients. In addition to discussing client interviewing and counseling techniques, students will also focus on substantive areas of law that are relevant to students' cases, including issues of professional responsibility.
Participation in the SBLC satisfies the Professional Skills graduation requirement. Students who participate in the SBLC are eligible for 3 or 4 units of live client work. Each unit is equivalent to 5 hours per week. The required clinical seminar is an additional 2 units. A minimum commitment of 15 hours per week for client representation is required.
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The Small Business Law Center (SBLC) at Thomas Jefferson School of Law provides legal assistance and representation to entrepreneurs, small businesses, and non-profits that do not have the means to hire an attorney to advise them. Students who participate in the SBLC will have the opportunity to assist clients by forming their entities, drafting, negotiating and reviewing contracts, and helping clients through the regulatory process. Students will be guided during representation by a licensed California attorney but students will have primary responsibility for their cases.
Students enrolled in the SBLC are required to participate in weekly class meetings that focus on the lawyering skills necessary to effectively represent clients. In addition to discussing client interviewing and counseling techniques, students will also focus on substantive areas of law that are relevant to students' cases, including issues of professional responsibility.
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This course is designed to take your passion and your skills and unite them to prepare you to develop your law practice. Most students in this class will start their own law firm, or enter a small firm where they are responsible for developing their own practice areas and client base. We will explore what is needed to run a successful business and be a successful lawyer in these changing times. At the conclusion of this course, you will have an understanding of the networking and marketing skills needed to build your practice, have a working knowledge of the finances needed to start and run a firm, and have a business plan to carry forward. There is significant overlap with "Law Practice Management." A student should not take both courses. Prerequisite: 3rd year status.
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The US is the country most reliant on space and the heaviest user of space from a civilian government, military and commercial perspective. Government and private sector needs for space law expertise is growing and space law is an offering at very few American law schools. Additionally, aerospace is a very large industry in California. Space law can be considered a specialty within international law (allowing students to further their understanding of international law within this sub-specialty or learn international law through the study of space law). It can also be considered a "capstone" course (allowing students to synthesize their knowledge of various areas of the law including torts, property, foreign affairs, insurance, administrative law among others, as well as view legal norms along a horizontal spectrum (binding to voluntary, formal to informal) and vertical spectrum (international, federal, and state/local levels). This course provides an overview of space law, including a detailed examination of elements of military, civilian and commercial space law and policy with reference to current and future developments. Course coverage will include the five major international treaties dealing directly with space (the Outer Space Treaty, Liability Convention, Registration Convention, Rescue and Return Agreement, and Moon Treaty), the application of these Cold-War era treaties to modern space activities and issues (including space tourism, space debris, and space security), "soft law" instruments attempting to regulate space, U.S. national legislation and regulations addressing space issues, including commercial space law and regulations, the law of space insurance, and mechanisms for the creation and negotiation of international space law, including the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and international business law of great relevance to the aerospace industry. The course may include a guest lecturer from the private sector space law community.
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This course is designed to familiarize Spanish speaking persons with basic Spanish legal terminology so students can develop sufficient interviewing techniques in order to determine whether they can be of legal assistance to the prospective client. The primnary focus will be on case studies covering criminal law, personal injury, family law, estate planning, and business law. This course will be open to alumni as well as current students.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This course will explore the law of professional sports. The topics of discussion include the representation of professional athletes, player contract negotiation, enforcement of sports contracts, the office of the commissioner, league decision making, sports broadcasting, and selected issues in criminal and tort law.
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externship is acceptable for credit within the Center for Sports Law and Policy. The Director will specify the number of units (3-5) that may be earned for a given externship. Externships with non-lawyers may be approved, but the student will report directly to his or her externship supervisor and to Professor Smith. Each student is expected to report to Professor Smith and to prepare a comprehensive journal regarding work being done in the externship. That journal must include a thoughtful assessment of what the student is learning in the externship and must also include copies of projects performed. The journal and copies of the projects must be turned in to Professor Smith for his evaluaiton. During the term that the student is working as an extern, it is expected that the student will also regularly report to the Director. Students may also be expected to meet with the Director and other externs in a given term to discuss what is being learned and problems encountered in the externship.
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This course emphasizes the understanding and application of the law relevant to the lives of high-school aged children in the greater San Diego community. Upon completion, students should be able to distill some of the complex and interrelated laws in many different legal areas and knowledgeably discuss these laws with ninth- and tenth-grade students. In addition, participating law students will prepare their high school class to conduct a mock trial competition against other high schools in the area. To further these goals, participating students are expected to read all course materials and complete all assignments, including weekly journal entries detailing their work in the classroom.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This course will develop student oral argument skills through practice and critique. Students will argue both current and past United States Supreme Court cases. Students will prepare their arguments using briefs filed with the Supreme Court. For example, students will reargue Roe v. Wade, Bush v. Gore, as well as arguing a number of cases currently before the Supreme Court.
Each student should expect to present an oral argument roughly every two weeks. This course is highly recommended for students participating in moot court competitions, mock trial, or otherwise interested in developing oral advocacy skills.
Each student will write a research paper about one case currently filed with the United States Supreme Court. Students will receive substantial research and writing experience.
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This course provides an overview of civil tax litigation before the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Tax Court, and California tax agencies. The course will cover audits, pre-litigation strategies, litigation and trial. Emphasis will be placed on practical skill building, including case development, conducting discovery, preparing for trial, and ethics.
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This course introduces the student to the federal income taxation of corporations, S corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies. The material will examine the tax issues surrounding the formation, operation and dissolution of a business conducted through each business form, permitting the student to evaluate whether one business form offers more tax advantages than the others in any given situation.
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This course will seek to provide TJSL students with (a) practical experience working in-house with an entrepreneurial and technology-based company or entity working with technology based companies along with (b) applicable classroom training in the various corporate, intellectual property, finance, employment and other legal areas required for a technology-based lawyer to possess.
The course requires that each student work with a company (and with a mentor lawyer therein) selected by either the student or the professor for either 5, 10 or 15 hours per week. Each student is also required to attend a 2 hour weekly seminar and to keep a journal of their experiences with their companies. At the seminar, the professor will discuss certain matters relating to the externships and will also review assigned readings from The Entrepreneurs Guide to Business Law, by Constance Bagley and Craig Dauchy.
Prerequisites will be at least one technology-related course or permission of the instructor. The course is designed for students who would like to work in either the high tech, software, communications, life science, technology transfer, venture capital or other technology related areas as either in-house counsel, outside counsel, patent counsel, business development or in other capacities.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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This seminar introduces students to the role of small businesses in community economic development. Students will have the opportunity to tackle legal issues affecting for profit and non-profit organizations by interviewing micro-entrepreneurs about their legal problems and creating legal information seminars and manuals.
Students in this course will develop and strengthen interviewing, counseling, legal research and drafting skills required of transactional lawyers. In lieu of a final, you will produce form contracts and practice guides to help micro-entrepreneurs navigate their legal problems. The written assignments in this course satisfy the law school's writing requirement.
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This course focuses on current trademark and unfair competition law from different view points: theory, case law, and litigation strategy.
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The Trademark Clinic at Thomas Jefferson School of Law is part of the Small Business Law Center (SBLC) and provides trademark-specific legal assistance and representation to individuals and organizations that do not have sufficient means to hire a trademark attorney to advise them. Students will be actively supervised during each client representation by a California licensed, U.S. patent and trademark attorney. Students interested in the Patent Clinic must be eligible for certification under the State Bar of California's Practical Training for Law Students program. A student must have completed one full year at an accredited law school or passed the First Year Law Student's Exam (FYLSE). The Trademark Clinic has two components, classroom and clinical fieldwork. The classroom portion is a weekly class meeting that focuses on the lawyering skills necessary to effectively represent clients. In addition to discussing client interviewing and counseling techniques, the weekly class will also focus on substantive areas of law that are relevant to students' cases, including issues of professional responsibility.
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The Trademark Clinic at Thomas Jefferson School of Law is part of the Small Business Law Center (SBLC) and provides trademark-specific legal assistance and representation to individuals and organizations that do not have sufficient means to hire a trademark attorney to advise them. Students will be actively supervised during each client representation by a California licensed, U.S. patent and trademark attorney. Students interested in the Patent Clinic must be eligible for certification under the State Bar of California's Practical Training for Law Students program. A student must have completed one full year at an accredited law school or passed the First Year Law Student's Exam (FYLSE). The Trademark Clinic has two components, classroom and clinical fieldwork. The clinical fieldwork portion of the course gives students the opportunity learn and practice transactional trademark matters as well as general administrative practice skills. Participating students are eligible for 1 to 5 units of clinical fieldwork. Each unit is equivalent to 5 hours per week of client work. The minimum commitment of clinical work hours per week is determined on a semester-by-semester basis.
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Transportation is the most unique industry in the United States due to its profound relationship to employment, investment and impact on other industries. After having learned the history of transportation modes (rail, water, pipeline, trucking and air), students will discover that even though transportation was the first industry to be regulated, it was also the first industry to be significantly deregulated. The course examines how political, legal, and economic forces converge to make national policy. Specific topics of inquiry will include history, economic regulation, liability issues, government operations, labor law, and environmental issues. This course is driven by readings, discussion, and research papers. This class will be taught as a distance learning class during the Fall 2011 semester.
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This course provides training in trial techniques through lecture and participation in practice sessions. Students participate in all phases of civil and criminal cases under the supervision of an experienced attorney.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit. Honors designation will convert to a 4.0.
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TJSL students enrolled in approved program at Universite de Bourgogne, Faculte de Droit in Dijon France. Only courses with grades of at least a 2.0 transfer with a grade of credit.
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TJSL students enrolled in one approved course at USD. Only courses with grades of at least a 2.0 transfer with a grade of credit.
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This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
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Students provide actual legal representation to clients of Veterans Village of San Diego under the supervision of the professor. Veterans Village provides housing, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and job training to struggling veterans. The actual composition of students' caseloads will be determined by client need, however, it is anticipated that case work is likely to be concentrated in the areas of family, consumer, and administrative law. Students will be required to spend approximately 20 hours per week on their case work, and will receive four credits for this work. The fieldwork component of the course will be graded on an honors/credit/low pass/no credit basis. In addition to the clinic's fieldwork component, there will be a required two credit classroom component that will meet once per week for two hours. This will be similar to a traditional law school class, with required reading and other assignments, and classroom discussion of the assigned materials. Additionally, however, the classroom component will devote significant time to discussion of students' clinic cases, and the substantive areas of law that govern the cases. The classroom component will be graded according to the school's numerical grading scale, with the grade to be based on the classroom exercises and on a final take-home examination. Due to the nature of the course, grading for this course will be non-anonymous. Students registering for the clinic will be asked to complete a 1 page statement of interest and relevant experience. In the event that the clinic is oversubscribed, this statement will be considered in making admission decisions, in addition to students' academic standing and proximity to graduation.
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This course focuses on the law of both water rights and water quality. Students will first examine water rights doctrines including, public rights in water, waters of the United States, ground water, riparianism and appropriation law. Students will then consider the application of state and federal water quality laws to water rights doctrines including the Federal Clean Water Act and the California Porter Cologne Act. Emphasis will be placed on understanding and applying such concepts as Clean Water Act section 401 certifications, Clean Water Act section 402 NPDES permitting schemes and Clean Water Act Section 404 fill permits as well as their state analogues.
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This seminar explores wildlife preservation and conservation issues focusing on the common law, constitutional, and federal statutory underpinnings of U.S. wildlife law. In particular, the course will cover management authorities for, and existing conflicts associated with, protection of biodiversity, endangered species, fisheries, marine mammals, and essential wildlife habitat. The class format will be that of a seminar, focused heavily on class discussion of readings, case studies, guest lectures, and at least one field trip.
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This course examines the law of disposition of property through inter vivos and testamentary means: intestate succession; execution, alteration and revocation of wills; family protections and restrictions on testation; will substitutes; probate and will contests; creation, modification, and administration of various types of trusts and related trust issues.
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This course explores the relationship of law to the position of women in our society. The class will focus on the part that our laws play in reinforcing the inequality of women. We will also discuss the potential of legal reform and other strategies to resolve problems involving gender inequality. To help develop effective strategies, we will be discussing a number of different feminist theories and how various theoretical approaches could lead to alternate strategies for law reform. The topics that may be covered include: Women and Work (women in the legal profession and other workplaces, Title VII, equal protection litigation, pregnancy and the workplace, sexual harassment, and sex role stereotyping); Women and the Family (reproduction, divorce, adoption); and Women and Their Bodies (pornographpy, rape, prostitution, domestic violence).
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This course will review the 21 WTO Agreements and major WTO cases decided to date, using China as a case study and focus for the class. China has been accused by the U.S. and other countries of committing a number of WTO violations. Furthermore, the U.S. maintains an enormous trade deficit with China, thousands of U.S. companies have outsourced their production jobs to China, and intellectual property protection concerns continue to be a major point of contention between the U.S. and China. In addition, since joining the WTO in 2001, China has played a very significant role in the organization. Its huge market renders it an important player in the international economy in any case, but China at this point is also considered to be the unofficial leader of the developing country status in the WTO. As the majority of WTO members are developing countries, China is in a very powerful position to influence the future of the WTO. For all of these reasons, China makes an excellent case study for WTO issues. It is hoped that the class will be able to visit some manufacturing facilities in China as well as meet with U.S. consultants working in China and Chinese government officials involved in trade issues.
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This course uses the technique of having students revise the work of other students from the past in learning key appellate lessons: weaving procedure into substantive arguments; writing persuasive arguments using holdings which would support as the intial step in the argument; develop a coherent organization using classic outlining techniques and communicative headings; writing a persuasive statement of the case and statement of facts.
This course is graded non-anonymously Honors, Credit, Low Pass, No Credit.
