The Program of Instruction

To assure a shared basic knowledge, Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law are compulsory courses for all participants.  In addition, each participant is required to enroll in at least three elective courses.

[This table is under construction.]

[Course listing and instructors are subject to change.]

Compulsory Courses  

   Civil Procedure- Dean Ellen Chapnick

This course provides and overview introduction of the private-law litigation system in the United States.  Primary topics are: the structure and interrelation of U.S. state and federal courts, procedural mechanisms of litigation control, and the unique civil procedure associated with the distinctively American institution of the civil jury trial.  Intensive attention will be paid to the analytical process of reading American case decisions.

   Constitutional Law- Professor Kendall Thomas

This is the basic course in constitutional law, a foundation for more specialized courses on the Constitution and for public law courses generally.  The course locates the Constitution in the life of the United States.  It explores:  the theory of the Constitution and its antecedents, judicial review, its justification and development, and its legal and political significance; the nature of our federeal system, the growth of national power and of limitations on state authority, and the abiding significance of the states; the separation of the powers and varieties of checks and balances in the U. S. government; and the theory and conttent of individual rights under the Constitution, the development of the principal rights during 200 years by Constitutional amendment and judicial interpretation, and the jurisprudence of the Judiciary in its role as the guardian of rights under the Constitutions and civil rights acts.

Elective Courses

   American Tort Law in Comparative Perspective- Professor Penelope Andrews

This course will analyze the major rules and issues in the law of torts and compare them to approaches in other jurisdictions.

Contracts- Professor Barbara Black

This is a basic introductory course in contract law. Topics include consideration and other bases for enforcing promises, the bargaining process including precontractual liability, the requirement of a writing (statute of frauds), policing the bargain for unfairness, remedies for breach of contract, performance and breach, and failure of basic assumptions (mistake, impracticability, frustration). These topics are explored in the context of construction contracts, contracts for the sale of goods, contracts for the sale of land, employment agreements, family agreements, and other significant types of agreemen

   Equal Protection- Professor Kimberle Crenshaw

This course will consider the role of the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, in responding to demands for social and constitutional equality by racial and sexual minorities and women in recent decades.  Our goal is to understand both the various conceptions of equality that are used to support and oppose these demands, and the competence of courts to resolve politically polarized social conflicts.  We will discuss affirmative action, the death penalty, pregnancy discrimination, gay marriage, among other topics, from a variety of theoretical perspectives, both traditional and non-traditional.

  Current Issues in Family and Children's Law- Professor Jane Spinak

This course will focus on at least four examples of current, pressing family and children's law issues.  The course will incorporate legal, social work and public policy questions in an interactive, practice oriented approach.  The course will include some of the following topics:  the Supreme Court's most recent reaffirmance of the primacy of parental decision-making within the family unit; young people's freedom of expression rights in the context of attempts to limit children's internet access to materials considered "harmful to minors";  the impact, if any, of pornography and violence on the healthy development of children; substance abuse and the reproductive rights of women; the interaction between domestic violence and child maltreatment; historical and current efforts to reform courts that address family and children's cases; and the legal and social science understanding of "the best interest of the child."

   International Business Transactions- Professor Alejandro Garro   

This course will focus on transactions and deal with the regulation of international trade topics as background for the modern international transactions lawyer. Reflecting an approach focused on private transactions, the course will also focus on international trade in goods,  which will comprise the bulk of the classroom sessions, and will treat the international trade topics in the second portion of the course. The emphasis of the book to be used is on the relationship between the public and private law topics.

   Legal Research- Simon Canick

One of the first challenges that students at United States law schools face is to become familiar with, and critical toward, an enormous range of resources that make up the complex universe of U.S. legal information.  This course will introduce students-- and require them to use-- the most important of these resources, both primary materials like case law and statutes, and also secondary sources like digest and legal periodicals.  We will also explore broad issues such as the relationship between common law systems like that of the U.S. and the information sources they generate.  Using a blend of electronically published commercial, non-commercial and government resources, we will consider at some length questions of authority and currency raised by the adoption of digital legal information in the study and practice of law in the U.S. and elsewhere.

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