Academics

First-Year Courses

Civil Procedure

This course focuses on practice and procedure in federal court as set forth in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Among the topics covered are pleadings, discovery, pre-trial motions, and motions made during and after trial. Questions of applicable law in a federal court are also considered.

This course examines judicial and legislative concepts regarding criminal law and procedure. Substantive offenses and criminal law enforcement will be considered to clarify the meaning of criminal responsibility. Concepts and concerns underlying constitutional procedure are also introduced.

(This is a second-year course for Evening and Part-Time Day students.)

Contracts

This course explores the nature and role of contracts. The concepts of mutual assent, performance and remedies at common law and in a modern post-industrial economy are examined at length, with special emphasis on sales contracts. Throughout the course, special effort is made to develop philosophical and economic theories of contract.

Criminal Law and Procedure

This course examines judicial and legislative concepts regarding criminal law and procedure. Substantive offenses and criminal law enforcement will be considered to clarify the meaning of criminal responsibility. Concepts and concerns underlying constitutional procedure are also introduced.

(This is a second-year course for Evening and Part-Time Day students.)

Legal Research and Writing

This is a year-long course taught in small sections of approximately ten to thirty students, relying heavily on detailed critiques of student work, individual conferences, and guided revisions. The fall semester introduces the tools and techniques that are essential to law practice and legal scholarship: legal analysis, research using print sources and computers, and predictive writing in the context of office memoranda. The spring semester addresses additional research skills and the techniques of persuasive writing and oral advocacy via an appellate advocacy assignment.

See also Legal Research and Writing Program

Property

This course analyzes the nature of property and the relationships between property law and other aspects of the law, such as civil procedure, contracts and torts. Issues are considered through both historical analysis and examination of contemporary problems, including the transfer and recording of property interests, the financing of property transactions, and methods of public and private control over the use of land.

(This is a second-year course for Evening and Part-Time Day students.)

Torts

Tort law determines liability for civil injuries and the allocation of losses suffered by individuals in situations where no private agreement provides an answer to the problem. Liability in tort is divided into three broad areas: liability for intentional acts, liability for negligent conduct and strict liability. The course examines each of these areas, exploring various aspects of actions for assault, battery, false imprisonment, trespass, conversion, infliction of emotional distress, negligence, misrepresentation, nuisance, defamation, invasion of privacy, strict liability for damage done by animals and abnormally dangerous activities, and strict product liability. The course considers the rules governing these tort actions, along with their historical background and social and philosophical rationales.

Legal Process and Procedure

This course provides an introduction to the basic institutions and concepts of the American legal system. Attention is focused upon courts, their law-making capacity and their relationship to other branches of government, particularly the legislature. Procedural concepts such as jurisdiction and joinder are considered, as well as basic constitutional standards such as due process and equal protection. The course also examines the role of equity in our legal order.