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This course explores how cognitive, social & clinical psychology are used in law. Law makes many assumptions about human psychology, and lawyers and judges regularly rely on psychological research in their cases. The course examines the psychology underlying criminal confessions; children's testimony; the insanity defense; risk assessment; judge and jury decision making; criminal punishment; constitutional law; and common law (tort, contract, and property) disputes. The course assesses the use and misuse of psychology in these subjects.

This course investigates the United States Supreme Court and its role in politics and government. It traces the development of constitutional doctrine, the growth of the Court's institutional power, and the Court's interaction with Congress, the president, and society. Discussed are major constitutional law decisions, their political contexts, and the social and behavioral factors that affect judges, justices, and federal court jurisprudence.

Examines, through the lens of economic analysis, legal principles drawn from various branches of law, including contracts, torts, and property.

This course will introduce students to the law, theory, and practice of international human rights. Students will think critically about the effectiveness of the international human rights system by examining its successes, failures, and dilemmas in preventing and responding to human rights abuse. Topics covered will include the origins and foundations of international human rights; the role of international, regional, and domestic institutions and actors in enforcing human rights; critiques of the human rights movement; and the relationship of the United States to the international system for the protection of human rights. The course will also explore issues such as the death penalty, women's human rights, migration, climate change, global poverty, racism and xenophobia, and responses to mass atrocities. During in-class activities, students will have the opportunity to step into the shoes of a human rights advocate and work with their classmates to address simulated human rights problems.

Antisemitism, a deep-seated prejudice against Jews, is seeing a global revival. The most brutal U.S. instance was the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue massacre, where Robert G. Bowers, an active anti-Semitic online poster, took 11 lives. Tried in 2023, he was condemned to death for his crimes. As emphasized by Assistant U.S. Attorney Soo C. Song, Bowers was driven by his belief that Jews are a cancer upon the planet. Bowers' trial was only the most recent in a series of trials and judicial proceedings, both in the U.S. and internationally, that had antisemitism at their core in a myriad of ways. This course examines various manifestations of antisemitism in law and jurisprudence, from 19th century Europe to early 20th century America to Nazi Germany and the Stalinist U.S.S.R. to the present. Among the topics covered are blood libel trials, the Dreyfus affair in France, the Leo Frank trial in Georgia, the defamation case against Henry Ford, the Nazi Nuremberg laws, the annihilation of European Jews as the core of the crimes against humanity charge at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, and contemporary proceedings charging a hostile anti-Semitic environment at certain U.S. colleges and universities under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This course will examine issues that arise when a country attempts to implement and maintain a competition policy as a way of promoting economic growth and efficiency. The basic reading material will start with actual cases (most of them arising under U.S. antitrust law), and use those cases to probe the legal, economic and broad policy issues that the cases raise.

This three-part course is designed to introduce advanced prelaw students to key topics in the study and practice of law, within a global context. Its units are organized around three sets of issues. First, how do U.S. law and legal institutions relate to legal cultures from around the world; and how does one analyze different national and international legal systems from a comparative and cross-cultural perspective? Second, what is the role of constitutional law and principles both within the U.S. and globally? Third, what are the main challenges confronting international human rights, including their ability to protect traditionally disadvantaged groups such as women? Taught entirely by faculty of Cornell Law School, this course will prepare prelaw students for success in law school.

The death penalty has gotten increased media attention due to high profile death row exonerations, and has long been under siege for other reasons, such as racial disparities in its imposition and the prevalence of very poor representation by defense counsel. This course surveys the legal and social issues that arise in the administration of the death penalty. The reading will be largely comprised of reported death penalty cases, but will be augmented by a variety of other sources, including empirical studies of the death penalty and the litigation experience of the professors. Although the focus will be on capital punishment as practiced in the United States, we will also consider international and comparative perspectives. Guest speakers will provide a range of views, and law students with experience working on capital cases will lead discussion sections.

Fashion Law provides primarily Human Ecology students and students with a fashion major or minor with an insight into the law surrounding the fashion industry. Topics will include starting and running a label and will introduce students to the common legal questions faced in the fashion industry, including how to choose and form a business entity, structure the ownership of the business, how to draft contracts with employees and work with independent contractors, protecting intellectual property and avoiding infringing others' intellectual property, and what the laws of antitrust and competition allow and punish. Assessment will be through a multiple choice and short answer exam.

This course will introduce students to the law and practice of international human rights. Students will think critically about the effectiveness of the international human rights system by examining its successes, failures, and dilemmas in preventing and responding to human rights abuse. Topics covered include the origins of international human rights; the role of international, regional, and domestic institutions and actors in enforcing human rights; critiques of the human rights movement; challenges encountered in human rights advocacy; and the relationship of the United States to the international system for the protection of human rights. The course will also explore issues such as the immigration, the death penalty, gender justice, climate change, global poverty, racism and xenophobia, and responses to mass atrocities. Throughout this interactive course, students will have frequent opportunities to step into the shoes of a human rights advocate and work individually and with their classmates to address simulated human rights problems.

A general-education course to acquaint students with how our legal system pursues the goals of society. The course introduces students to various perspectives on the nature of law, what functions it ought to serve in society, and what it can and cannot accomplish. The course proceeds in the belief that such matters constitute a valuable and necessary part of a general education, not only for pre-law students but especially for students in other fields. Assigned readings comprise legal materials and also secondary sources on the legal process and the role of law in society. The classes include discussion and debate about current legal and social issues, including equality, safety, the environment, punishment, and autonomy.

Environmental law deals with some of today's most pressing challenges. In the fifty years since 1972, when the first World Conference on the Environment was held in Stockholm, and the US Clean Water Act was amended, the field of environmental law and policy has become increasingly sophisticated and complex. Regulation of environmental harms has long been a focus of governmental effort. Over the past half century, however, societies have come to recognize that they must adopt controls on pollution to protect the air, ground, water, atmosphere, and the natural world. Environmental law also increasingly touches on energy, agriculture, and land use law, and has expanded to include a focus on corporate law, international trade, environmental governance, environmental justice, sustainable growth and development, and climate change. In this course, we will look at the major statutes and policies used, at both the federal and state levels, to protect humans and the environment against exposure to harmful substances, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, CERLCA (Superfund), Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and approaches to protecting endangered species and ecosystems. We will also examine the challenges of global atmospheric pollution, including ozone depletion and climate change. The class will look not only at the substance of these laws and policies, but also review common-law litigation, enforcement challenges, and the role of market mechanisms in addressing environmental issues. Students will become familiar with the history of environmental law and will analyze important landmark cases, as well as the hierarchy of laws, and jurisdictions that shape environmental law and policy. Students will apply their knowledge to real examples, with the goal of developing innovative legal solutions for the critical environmental challenges facing our world today.

This course examines the legal and institutional frameworks developed to address some of the most wicked challenges facing humanity. The field of international environmental law, which regulates the behavior of nation-states, non-state actors, and international organizations with respect to the environment, is still young in many respects and is still developing the legal mechanisms to address the complexities of transboundary environmental issues. is a lot to cover, and we cannot cover it all in one semester, but we will learn about sustainable development, management of freshwater resources, oceans, and seas; protection of the atmosphere; species, ecosystems, and biodiversity; and management of chemicals, wastes and plastics. We will focus on the core domains of international environmental law and policy, and the dynamic nature of the international legal process, including environmental diplomacy and the critical role of non-state actors and institutions, politics, norms, and science in shaping international environmental law. What are the key environmental treaties that have been adopted, and what are the fundamental decisions by international courts or arbitrators that shape international environmental law? Finally, we will examine how international laws and policies have developed, their status, challenges and obstacles to effective implementation and enforcement, and how international legal regimes must evolve to be effective.

An introduction to civil litigation, from commencement of an action through disposition on appeal, studied in the context of the federal procedural system. Also, a detailed consideration of federalism and ascertainment of applicable law; jurisdiction, process, and venue; and former adjudication.

Introduces microeconomic theory and applies it to problems faced by managers. Topics include supply and demand, consumer behavior, pricing when a firm has market power, and the role of contracts. The course employs a lecture format and emphasizes problem solving. Grading is based on quizzes, a midterm and a final exam.

A study of basic American constitutional law, including structural aspects of the Constitution and certain of its rights provisions.

An introduction to the nature, functions, and processes of exchange, contract, and contract law. The course focuses on the predominant rules and principles governing contract and related obligation, including the substantive reasons underlying the rules and principles.

An introductory study of the criminal law, including theories of punishment, analysis of the elements of criminal liability and available defenses, and consideration of specific crimes as defined by statute and the common law.

Lawyering is a full-year course designed to introduce first-year students to lawyering skills, with primary emphasis on legal writing, analysis, research, and oral presentations. Assignments are usually set in the context of a simulated law office (or judge's chambers). In the fall semester, students write predictive memoranda that point out the strengths and weaknesses of their client's case. To prepare the memoranda, students may need to determine the facts of the case by conducting interviews or depositions. Acting as junior attorneys, students will also make an oral presentation to a supervising attorney. The spring semester focuses on persuasive advocacy. Students prepare a memorandum, motion, or brief for submission to a court and, later, orally argue for their positions in a simulated court session. Throughout the year, students also learn the fundamentals of legal research. Instruction occurs not only in full-class sessions but also in individual conferences. Students receive extensive feedback on each major assignment.

This course builds on the material of NBA 5060 and focuses on more advanced financial statement topics and specialized industries. Topics may include investment research, accounting analysis, accounting quality, credit analysis, and advanced valuation issues. Instruction focuses on a combination of lecture and case-based discussion. Students are expected to have taken NBA 5060 or possess a good understanding of basic financial statement analysis. The material is designed to broaden student's understanding of financial statement analysis and complement the tools developed in NBA 5060. The course deliverables include case write-ups, an equity research project, and a final exam.

Among the critical tasks facing any senior manager are the creation, implementation, and evaluation of a business unit's strategy. This course seeks to provide the management student with the tools and frameworks essential to carrying out these tasks. Many of these tools and frameworks are based on recent advances in game theory, industrial organization, and organization theory, although the course also draws from the older business policy tradition. Students who successfully complete this course are able to analyze industries, identify areas of strategy advantage and disadvantage, and devise strategies that exploit advantages and remedy disadvantages.

In this required 1L course, students acquire a basic understanding of the legal profession and the numerous career paths available to lawyers. Students will explore basic concepts of legal professionalism while they learn and practice the “soft skills” necessary for effective lawyering including the importance of networking and mentoring. Students will learn the importance of wellness including available resources and practices to ensure their wellness throughout an effective and lengthy legal career. Students will also work on effective communication strategies. Finally, students will develop an individual career development strategy to guide them during the exploration of their professional interests throughout the next three years.

This is a course in basic property law. It covers acquisitions of rights in property, estates in land, concurrent ownership, landlord/tenant relations, and regulation of land use.

An introduction to the principles of civil liability in the tort field: intentional wrongs, negligence, and strict liability. Attention is also given to the processes by which tort disputes are handled in our legal system.

This course is designed to introduce students to the challenges and pitfalls of financing new enterprises. The class sessions will combine lectures and cases. The course covers three broad topics: identifying and valuing opportunities, contract design and financing alternatives, and exit/harvesting strategies.

In this course, we will look at the major statutes and policies used to protect humans and the environment from exposure to harmful substances, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, CERLCA (Superfund), Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, and approaches to protecting endangered species and ecosystems. We will also examine the challenges of protecting the global commons, including from ozone depletion, plastics pollution, and climate change. The class will look not only at the substance of these laws and policies, but also review common-law litigation, and issues with implementation and enforcement. Students will become familiar with the history of environmental law and will analyze important landmark cases, as well as the hierarchy of laws, and jurisdictions that shape environmental law and policy. Students will apply their knowledge to real examples, with the goal of understanding the possibilities and limits of legal and policy solutions to address the critical environmental challenges facing our world today.

This course examines the legal and institutional frameworks developed to address some of the most wicked challenges facing humanity. The field of international environmental law, which regulates the behavior of nation-states, non-state actors, and international organizations with respect to the environment, is still young in many respects and is still developing the legal mechanisms to address the complexities of transboundary environmental issues. is a lot to cover, and we cannot cover it all in one semester, but we will learn about sustainable development, management of freshwater resources, oceans, and seas; protection of the atmosphere; species, ecosystems, and biodiversity; and management of chemicals, wastes and plastics. We will focus on the core domains of international environmental law and policy, and the dynamic nature of the international legal process, including environmental diplomacy and the critical role of non-state actors and institutions, politics, norms, and science in shaping international environmental law. What are the key environmental treaties that have been adopted, and what are the fundamental decisions by international courts or arbitrators that shape international environmental law? Finally, we will examine how international laws and policies have developed, their status, challenges and obstacles to effective implementation and enforcement, and how international legal regimes must evolve to be effective.

This course is for Law students who have been approved for one semester of in-absentia study at an ABA accredited law school.

This course is designed to introduce students to the basic concepts and fundamentals of financial accounting. It will focus on (1) accrual accounting concepts, principles and conventions, (2) the presentation of financial statements (balance sheets, income statements, statements of cash flow), (3) the interpretation and analysis of financial statements, and (4) the use and misuse of accounting information. The goal of the course is to enable students to critically review a company's financial statements. The course is intended for students with no prior background in accounting and is limited to students who have had no college accounting courses (or equivalent). Students with one or two college level accounting courses or other modest accounting background may take this course for a JD letter grade only with permission of the instructor.

This seminar explores the increasingly influential field of bioethics. Students will examine (1) the historical, sociological, public health, and legal contexts from which modern bioethics emerged as a coherent field in the mid 20th century, (2) the biomedical developments, legal engagements, and political controversies that reshaped the enterprise towards the latter part of the century, and (3) contemporary issues in bioethics - from human subject protections to reproductive and genetic technologies - and the role of law and public policy in mediating the relationship between medicine, science, public health, and society.

Professional success is often defined in terms of milestones and numbers: high GPA, moot court, journals, clerkship, prestigious job, large bonus, but thriving is far more complex than this narrative suggests. This course will challenge your understanding of what it means and what it takes to thrive in law practice and invite you to create your own roadmap to success after graduation. We will cover intrinsic motivation and professional identity, the profile of good lawyers, the many roles that lawyers play - technicians, counselors, and leaders - and the wide range of soft skills that you need to master in order to become effective lawyers (including self-leadership, ethical decision-making and teamwork).

An introduction to the nature, functions, and processes of exchange, contract, and contract law. The course focuses on the predominant rules and principles governing contract and related obligation, including the substantive reasons underlying the rules and principles.

This course introduces American constitutional law for students who are trained in other legal traditions. It covers structural aspects of the Constitution including the roles of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and the relationship between federal, state, and tribal governments. It also covers some of the Constitution's rights provisions.

An introduction to U.S. civil litigation for students pursuing an LL.M. degree. The course will survey the phases of a lawsuit and consider other procedural matters, including multiparty litigation, former adjudication, jurisdiction, and federalism.

An introduction to the constitutional and other legal issues posed by the modern administrative state. Topics include: procedural due process, separation of powers, procedural modes of administrative policymaking; judicial review of agency action; and the oversight and control relationships between agencies and Congress or the President. The course provides a working familiarity with the fundamentals of administrative procedure, as well as a larger inquiry into the role of agencies in our constitutional system - and the effect of legal doctrine on shaping that role.

This course will focus on learning to use the legal sources used and produced by the U.S. federal executive branch agencies, with the opportunity to improve research skills. Students will regularly perform legal research and other lawyering skills using regulations, statutes, administrative decisions, and guidance materials.

Many of our most important and most difficult lawsuits are business-to-business cases. Many involve high-stakes litigation; some are enterprise threatening. All present challenges to the trial lawyers, often novel challenges. This course will cover the prosecution and defense of business lawsuits, from pre-filing though trial, identifying what these lawsuits have in common with other civil suits and exploring the important and often outcome-determining differences. These cases are won or lost in discovery; many on motions to dismiss and summary judgment. Some are tried to the court; some are tried to juries. They are found on the dockets of every state and federal court. Students will be evaluated on their preparation and participation (as associate lawyers working on a case) during the course. They will be asked to select a segment of a case and present a paper for the handling and presentation of that segment of the case (e.g., Motions to Dismiss; Motions for Summary Judgment; Discovery; Trial), which will be reviewed and evaluated.

This course is designed to provide students a working familiarity with the key principles and precedents that guide practitioners in their handling of class actions and similar forms of complex litigation, as well as a practical understanding of the life of a class action, from before a case is filed until all appeals have been exhausted. It will be presented in two parts. The first part will examine the evolving law of class actions, including an analysis of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Class Action Fairness Act, key Supreme Court decisions, and trends and developments in lower federal and selected state appellate courts. The second part will examine the life of a class action.

This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to extraordinary situations in business driven by unplanned events such as cyber incidents, security breaches and other technology-related events. Emphasis will be placed on thinking thoroughly through the issues involved, relating business, legal and technical issues and finding solutions that are (creatively) tailored to the circumstances. Through a combination of lecture and hands-on practical exercises we will gain insight into the rewards and challenges (and pitfalls) facing businesses in crisis scenarios. Topics will include relations with the CEO, board of directors and significant stakeholders, developing high quality security, compliance and risk management policies and procedures, and overall crisis management. These topics cover many substantive areas as well as ethical, business, policy and reputational concerns. This course will address the skills necessary to navigate these issues.

Private equity funds, hedge funds and other alternative investments are a significant segment of investment activity worldwide. They are often the subjects of rigorous debate as to the potential benefits and costs they deliver to the global economy and the appropriate levels of regulations and controls. This course introduces private equity and hedge funds, their respective historical background, structure and business and regulatory considerations. Students will learn the basic framework applicable to the structuring and ongoing matters relating to funds and fund managers. Through reading materials, interactive class discussions and guest lectures students will explore the perspectives of fund managers, investors, regulators and other industry participants.

This course is offered to students interested in acquiring the knowledge, skills and techniques necessary to mediate community and campus disputes. In the first segment of the course, students will be introduced to the guiding principles of mediation and restorative conferencing. A review of the theories of conflict, models of mediation, and the benefits and challenges of each. The role of identity, culture, ethics and impasse in mediation will all be examined and incorporated into simulations and case studies. In the second segment, students will be assigned to observe, mediate, and facilitate cases referred to the Scheinman Institute from Cornell’s Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (OSCCS), the Tompkins Country Community Dispute Resolution Center, the Ithaca City Small Claims Court, and the Montana Mediation program.

This course is offered to students interested in furthering their knowledge of mediation, restorative practices, and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes and systems, and has a required prerequisite of The Campus Mediation Practicum I. Students will build on the Campus Mediation Practicum I, which sets the stage for the role mediation and restorative justice can effectively play in facilitating ADR processes in multiple settings. Students will be assigned to mentor CMP I student mediators as well as mediate complex cases referred to the Scheinman Institute from the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (OSCCS), the Tompkins County Community Dispute Resolution Center, the Ithaca City Small Claims Court, and the Montana Mediation program. Students will also have the opportunity to engage with experienced mediators.

This course addresses central debates in the philosophy of legal punishment. We will analyze the leading theories of punishment, including the familiar retributivist and deterrent alternatives, as well as lesser-known hybrid, self-defense, and rehabilitative accounts. We will ask whether each theory offers a general justification for establishing institutions of punishment, and whether each theory justifies specific acts of punishment. Other topics may include criminal responsibility, the legitimacy of collateral consequences (e.g., the denial of felons' voting rights), alternatives to punishment, etc.

This course presents the tax skills necessary to make business, and personal, decisions as it pertains to real estate ventures. Emphasis is placed on such areas as acquiring ownership of real property, the various entity structures that a real estate venture can create, and the operational rules surrounding a real estate venture, including the sale and/or exchange of real estate. In addition, securitized real estate investments, such as limited/master limited partnerships and real estate investment trusts (REITS), will be introduced in the later part of the course. Practical application of the tax law will be emphasized with proper consideration placed on the historical, economic, and political perspectives of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC).

Business issues, particularly those relating to corporations, are a given in most areas of practice. This course will introduce students to online resources providing company information and will enable them to evaluate the information in order to determine whether the resource is the most appropriate for their research. Students will learn how to find what the company says about itself (required filings, annual statements, web pages, press releases), what third parties have to say (analysts, ratings services, directories, news and journal articles), insider information, and the regulatory background of company information. Classes are lectures in concert with outside assignments. There are assigned readings in lieu of a required textbook. Students complete three assignments, and a due diligence report on a company of the student's choice. There is no final exam.

This course will cover the day-to-day function of in-house counsel as well as the role played by in-house counsel in extraordinary situations such as financings, significant litigation, government investigations and transformative transactions. Topics will include relations with the CEO, board of directors and significant shareholders, intellectual property strategy and defense, transformative transactions and financings, developing high quality compliance and risk management policies and procedures, significant litigation and government investigations, business conduct and crisis management. These topics cover many substantive areas as well as ethical, business, policy and reputational concerns. This course will address the skills necessary to navigate these issues.

The purpose of this course is to give students a broad understanding of financial statement analysis and valuation issues. The emphasis is on helping students understand the basic equity research process for use in investment and business decision applications. The course format is a combination of examples, case studies, and lectures. Potential topics include information sources, strategic ratio analysis, accounting quality, non-GAAP metrics, cash flow analysis, forecasting financial statements, and firm valuation using discounted cash flow and residual income techniques. The course deliverables include an equity research project and a final exam.

This course is designed to introduce students to the basic concepts and fundamentals of the compliance function within a company or organization. It will focus on (1) the drivers behind the development of rules (2) practical issues involved in rule creation (3) the process of training, or selling, rule systems to the appropriate people (4) policing compliance, including investigations and enforcement of rules, and (5) the consequences of failing to operate a compliance program or doing it wrong. The course relies upon case studies from businesses and organizations, with an emphasis on real life situations and problem solving techniques. A primary argument of the course is that appropriate and efficient internal compliance will support the central mission of the business and control costs.

The purpose of this one-credit course is to provide a behind-the-scenes examination of the U.S. federal policy making process with examples primarily relating to labor policy. We will begin with a discussion of the statutory framework that shapes this process and defines the roles of the many entities involved. Understanding how policy is developed in law and regulation will be a major emphasis of the course. Policy implementation, administration, and oversight will also be addressed. We will focus on a variety of related topics, including the President's Budget, congressional appropriations, inter-agency collaboration, and the effect of good government initiatives on substantive policy making. Efforts to respond to the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis will also be discussed.

This course will examine a cutting-edge and constantly evolving field of law, exploring the statutory and case law in which the legal, social, or biological nature of nonhuman animals is an important factor. The course encompasses companion animals, wildlife, and animals raised for food, entertainment, and research, and will survey traditional law topics like torts, contracts, criminal law, constitutional law and federal laws as they intersect with animals. It will also explore the normative and legal ramifications of new food technologies including plant-based and cell-based meat. Grade will be based on participation in open-minded discussions, submission of short (1-2 page) weekly reflection papers that account for 15% of the final grade, and a take-home examination.

Rapidly evolving technologies are undoubtedly transforming the traditional law practice. The purpose of this course is to explore and investigate the use and impact of current technologies in the practice of law. The focus will be on large practice groups with discussions on smaller to mid-sized law firms. Tools for client management, electronic discovery, competitive intelligence, document and knowledge management will be analyzed. Ethical issues relating to proper use of technology and data management will be discussed. Electronic communications, social networking tools and emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, wearable technologies and autonomous vehicles, will also be explored.

The course is required for the General LLM degree, except for LLM students who hold a JD degree from a US Law School. It is open only to General LLM students who do not hold a JD degree from a US Law School. Regular attendance of classes is required and will be monitored. The primary purpose of the course is to provide a survey and an analysis of the laws of the United States. It does this by exploring the basic foundations of American Law, its nature and theoretical underpinnings. Special emphasis is placed on principles in the American legal system that are distinctive and require particular attention from students who have been trained abroad. Among the topics to be covered by the course are the structure of the US court system; judicial review; the legislative system; federalism; separation of powers; consideration in contract; civil procedure; constitutional law; tort law, the common law; and criminal law. Students will also be instructed in some of the basics of American legal research. Class sessions consist of lectures and in-class discussions. Students are expected to participate in class discussions based on assigned readings. During the course students will be assigned at least two, short written exercises. The final requirement of the course will be a final examination.

The antitrust laws of the U.S. protect competitive markets and limit the exercise of monopoly power. Topics include: price fixing, boycotts, and market allocation agreements among competitors; agreements between suppliers and customers; joint ventures; monopolization; and mergers.

This course surveys some of the wide range of topics loosely grouped under the heading Art Law, including cultural heritage. We will begin with problems in defining art and cultural heritage for legal purposes. Among the subsequent topics covered are artists' rights (free expression, copyright, moral rights, etc.), institutional matters ranging from museums (their structures and missions) to art merchants (e.g., auction houses), problems concerning authenticity and quality, cultural heritage and war, cultural heritage in the international context (including the problem of theft in the international movement of cultural objects; the role of museums). Required materials will be a casebook and readings to be handed out. The materials range from cases and statutes to non-legal essays.

In this course, students will learn how to draft effective pleadings, motions, affidavits, legal memoranda, and briefs. They will do so by studying real-world examples of both effective and ineffective legal writing and applying what they learn in drafting their own materials. The deliverables will consist of short versions of, or short excerpts from, each type of filing, and will be based on facts drawn from the instructor's commercial litigation practice. General principles of effective writing taken from secondary sources will also be brought to bear.

The field of alternative dispute resolution has virtually transformed the practice of law. Today, every lawyer has a professional responsibility to his or her clients to consider the most appropriate process available to resolve the issues. This course will explore the law and practice of arbitration as a process for the private adjudication of disputes. It is a hands-on participatory course which will examine arbitration as an alternative to litigation. Taught by professional arbitrators, the course is designed to comply with the experiential learning requirements of the American Bar Association's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The course will not only enhance the student's understanding of the arbitration process but will also improve his or her advocacy skills. Throughout the course, ethical issues, which are particularly significant in the dispute resolution field, will be considered.

Big Red Ventures is Cornell's student-run venture fund. Founded in 2000 as a student project, BRV fund managers source new investment opportunities, conduct opportunity assessments and due diligence, make investment recommendations, assess and vote on recommendations of other fund managers, and make investments in early-stage, high-growth startup companies. Fund managers also manage existing portfolio investments, conduct annual portfolio valuations, and prepare investor materials such as an annual report and annual meeting. Fund managers operate under the guidance and oversight of experienced practitioner faculty. BRV is a selective program, with an application and interview process open to MBAs, JDs, and PhD candidates; the course is only open to students who apply to become and are selected as fund managers (see brventurefund.com for application details and timing). Full participation at either the Ithaca or Cornell Tech campuses, both fall and spring semester, is required.

Health law survey courses commonly focus on the delivery of health care to improve well-being. But the institutions that finance and deliver medical care are only a few of many drivers that determine the health outcomes of a population. This course looks beyond medical care to consider other institutions, and other bodies of law, that affect health outcomes. Using examples of both infectious and chronic disease, we will examine how laws mitigate or exacerbate poor health, including federal and state statutes, administrative regulations, criminal statutes, and reliance on industry or professional self-regulation. We will also use a set of case studies in public health problems to consider how law could contribute to solutions.

This course will introduce students to the challenges posed by transnational disputes litigated in domestic courts, specifically U.S. federal courts. Topics will include personal jurisdiction, choice of law, regulatory conflict and extraterritoriality, grounds for declining jurisdiction, sovereign immunity, judgment enforcement, and judicial assistance treaties.

An introduction to the legal rules, principles, and economic factors that influence the governance of business enterprises in the United States. While the principal focus of the course will be the governance of large, publicly-traded corporations, we will also devote some attention to agency relationships, partnerships, and closely-held corporations. Legal topics will include business formation and capitalization, fiduciary obligations, shareholder voting, derivative suits, corporate control transactions, and the purpose of the firm.

The course will introduce students to the key ethical and legal principles that underlay this unique and important form of mediation. It will also provide a foundational understanding of bioethics and its interplay with law and medicine in clinical medicine. Topics to be discussed will include informed consent, health-care decision making, advance directives (health care proxies and living wills), surrogate decision-making for incapacitated adults and children, and end-of-life treatment issues, including medical futility.

DeFi and Evolving Regulatory Issues will meet on an accelerated timeline (8 weeks). This course provides students with foundational knowledge of the blockchain technology, its applications in decentralized finance (DeFi) and the evolution of the U.S. regulatory landscape in this space. By the end of the course, students should have a solid grasp of how proof-of-work and proof-of-stake blockchains work, along with the inner workings of the numerous well-known DeFi protocols built on the Ethereum blockchain. The course will discuss numerous case studies involving crypto payment, lending, investment and crypto exchanges. Students should also be able to independently analyze what potential regulatory issues a future blockchain product or service might face and how to address them. The course will place a heavy emphasis on crypto securities analysis and investment management-related regulatory issues. It will also introduce students to basic broker-dealer and securities exchange concepts under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

This course will examine the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in several domains, and how regulators, legislators, and courts are addressing it. We will also focus on normative dimensions of the field of law and technology, and how they inform debates about automated decisionmaking and generative AI. We will begin with an overview of the methods and technologies encompassed by the generic term AI (including expert systems, big data, predictive analytics, machine learning, and generative AI), and will compare computational and legal thinking. To develop the concept of computational thinking, distinctions between algorithmic and non-algorithmic thought will be explored. Since AI is based on data, we will examine data protection laws. To address public sector concerns, we will explore the virtues and limits of government use of AI, in areas ranging from benefits adjudication to criminal sentencing. The following topics may also be included: a) liability and reimbursement for health care AI, ranging from advanced clinical decision support to mental health apps to robotic caregivers; b) regulation of AI in finance; c) intellectual property and AI; d) military applications of AI, e) AI in employment, f) current controversies, including AI in the news. While the course will focus on US law, other jurisdictions' approaches will also be explored. Evaluation will be based on a final exam and class participation.

Clients come to lawyers seeking problem-solving advice. This course follows a client-centered approach to counseling that will examine techniques lawyers can use to help clients make good decisions. Class sessions will incorporate role plays that cover different stages of the counseling process, including clarifying clients' objectives and identifying alternatives and consequences, in litigation and transactional contexts.

Provides students and faculty with an opportunity to explore the interrelationship between the law and structural and systemic racism. The course will provide an overview of, and a variety of perspectives, on constitutional law, criminal law, international law, economic law, and many other issue areas. Each session will feature a different faculty instructor and a different topical focus. This course is pass-fail and course grading will be on the basis of a series of short reaction papers submitted over the course of the semester (there is no final exam or final paper). The course design is intended to encourage a broad-based and far-reaching dialogue.

This course introduces students to the institutional and conceptual organization of civil law legal systems (which govern almost all of Western and Eastern Europe and Latin America, as well as significant portions of Africa and Asia). The course will therefore provide a broad overview of civilian private law and procedure, criminal procedure, administrative law, and constitutional law. The course is particularly interested in the differences between common law and civil law understandings of the relationship between law-making, legal interpretation, and the judiciary.

Artificial intelligence, climate change and antitrust present three of the most pressing regulatory challenges facing both the European Union and the United States. This course examines these three regulatory areas from a comparative perspective. We will study the policy challenges, compare the EU and US laws and institutions available to respond to the challenges, and assess the policy responses of those laws and institutions. This course will equip you with an understanding of today’s complex regulatory problems and the ability to analyze and critique EU and US regulatory approaches.

This course introduces students to the study of foreign legal systems. It will provide a broad overview of the institutional and conceptual organization of civil law legal systems, comparing them to their common law equivalents in the United States. Substantively, the course will focus on the different approaches to private law and procedure, criminal procedure, administrative law and constitutional law that characterize most contemporary European civil law jurisdictions. Methodologically, the course will teach the most important approaches for engaging in comparative legal analysis, so that students will be in a position to practice and critique them effectively.

This course explores an increasingly important set of questions in state, federal, and international litigation: What principles frame the choice of substantive legal rules when legal problems transcend jurisdictional boundaries? How do courts choose which law to apply when the transactions, relationships, or occurrences at issue in a lawsuit implicate more than one state or country? How do federal courts conceive of their adjudicatory jurisdiction in the international system, the recognition of foreign judgments, and the extraterritorial application of US law? And how does arbitration, considered both as a substitute for judicial dispute resolution and as a system that still requires courts to enforce arbitral awards, fit within this regime? In addition to these general questions, the course will consider doctrinal devices that federal courts use to handle multi-forum litigation, including abstention, anti-suit injunctions, and preclusion.

This course will examine the foundations of international arbitration, both commercial and investor-state, and discuss strategies for practicing in this field, including identifying applicable law, drafting effective arbitration clauses, selecting arbitral institutions and appointing arbitrators, gathering evidence, handling parallel proceedings, mediating settlements, requesting interim measures, and enforcing arbitral awards. Several classes will also turn specifically to investor-state arbitration (or investment treaty arbitration), a relatively new and revolutionary area of international adjudication that is growing in prominence. Through lectures and classroom simulations, the course will introduce students to the practice of international commercial and investment arbitration.

The course begins with a study of statutes, regulations, and cases concerning licensure, informed consent (to treatment), and liability. We also examine law and policy governing health care affordability and accessibility, including insurance coverage, and bioethical dimensions of health care. Having set the stage with these foundations of health law, the course will focus on the role of technology in varied settings of health policy, law, and regulation. These topics change year to year and may include: reimbursement levels set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for new technology; quality analysis for Accountable Care Organizations and other Advanced Payment Models; calculation of medical loss ratios and other critical quantitative analysis for private insurers; quality measures for providers and hospitals; data analytics for public health measures; FDA assessments of drug safety and effectiveness; rankings and ratings of physicians and hospitals; statistical assessment of patterns of fraud and abuse; the role of data in Advanced Payment Models and other pay for performance alternatives to fee-for-service; the role of middlemen such as pharmacy benefit managers and group purchasing organizations in larger networks of health care finance; sampling cases for False Claims Act liability; proper information about outcomes for informed consent and reimbursement purposes; drug effectiveness and approvals; valuation of procedures via the resource-based relative value scale method; prior authorization for treatment; and COVID-19 data disputes. In many of these areas, we will consider the role of big data, AI, and machine learning in collecting, analyzing, and using health data.

This course will survey interpretations of the First Amendment, including both court doctrines and theoretical understandings. Treatment of the Speech Clause, the Free Exercise Clause, and the Establishment Clause will vary from year to year. Current developments will be emphasized.

This course will survey interpretations of the speech and press clauses, including both court doctrines and theoretical understandings. Treatment of topics will vary from year to year. Current developments will be emphasized.

Students in the Practicum will co-teach a law-related course at either Auburn or Cayuga correctional facilities, as part of the Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP), which offers college courses to inmates working toward their associates' degrees. Interested students should secure a full-time faculty advisor and submit a course proposal to the CPEP. Accepted students will design a detailed course syllabus, procure teaching materials, and teach a 2-hour class on a weekly basis. Students will also be expected to create, administer, and evaluate midterm and final examinations. Students must travel to and from a correctional facility on a weekly basis, at their own expense. Limited funds are available for teaching materials. Students who have secured a faculty advisor and who have received approval for their course from CPEP should direct inquiries about funding to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

This course will focus on analyzing government enforcement actions (both criminal and civil), regulations, and policies that seek to prevent cyber misconduct. The course will cover a variety of areas, such as cyber threats to national security, economic espionage, hacking, fraud, initial coin offerings, cryptocurrencies, cybersecurity, and data breaches. Students will hear directly from current and former enforcement officials, explore problems of public and private cyberspace regulation, and analyze how existing and emerging government cyber policies can impact technological innovation.

Whereas human rights find legal expression in visionary documents like the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the many principles tied to human rights have long been debated by philosophers, artists, theologians, and writers. This course studies the evolution of human rights as cultural artifacts, examining how ideas about rights and humanitarianism were fashioned within literature, philosophy, film, public debate, and various international legal forums over history. Through readings covering large topics like crimes against humanity, immigration, abolitionism, and universal suffrage, we will ask: how did the world assent to a global culture of human rights? What hopes and dreams have human rights embodied? Conversely, what recurring critiques have been raised about the norms informing human rights?

Law students will learn to teach and communicate complex legal principles and lawyering skills to individuals incarcerated in nearby prisons. Students in the Practicum will co-teach a law related course at Auburn, Cayuga, or Five Points correctional facilities, as part of the Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP), which offers college courses to students who are incarcerated and working toward their associates' degrees. Students will work with the professor to design a detailed law course syllabus, procure teaching materials, and teach a 2-hour class inside one of the prisons on a weekly basis. The classroom component will include reflection on prison legal issues, prison political economy, prison geography, and concepts such as prison reform and abolition, and will also include applying critical pedagogy to teaching rounds.

Copyright is the basis of entertainment and information industries like film and television, news, music, book publishing, software, and video games. This course examines copyright law and policy in depth, along with business challenges that new technologies and artificial intelligence present for the protection and exploitation of copyrighted works. Topics covered include the subject matter of copyright; authorship; the scope of rights and limitations on those rights; duration and transfer; infringement; fair use; the Music Modernization Act; the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; and copyright licensing.

Copyright and mechanisms of protection and use of knowledge touch countless creative endeavors and global economic and cultural activities. Domestic copyright law as expressed in the U.S. Code and case law answers some questions and gives rise to others. Students in this seminar will critically compare and evaluate legal approaches to elements of copyright law of selected foreign jurisdictions, from practical and normative perspectives. Through interrogation of scholarly readings and cases, class discussion, and their own research and analysis, students will examine comparative approaches to issues such as subsistence of copyright; the nature of authorship; originality and fixation requirements; the spectrum of conceptions of fair use and fair dealing; moral rights.

This course develops the framework for evaluating and managing firms' assets and liabilities in financial distress, including periods of formal bankruptcy and restructuring. It takes the perspective of managers as well as that of capital market participants - e.g., distressed-debt investors, analysts, legal professionals, regulators - that monitor and evaluate corporate policies in distress situations. The course will do so going beyond standard textbook coverage, making sense of practice and available research on financial distress, bankruptcy and reorganizations, looking at what professionals think and act, as well as in-depth study of real-world situations. All of these elements are integrated and analyzed with rigorous method. Our ultimate goal is to understand the objectives different economic agents mean to achieve given the institutional constraints they face in distress situations.

This course introduces the criminal statutes and procedural rules most commonly used in prosecuting white collar crime.

Since Lyndon Johnson called for a War on Crime in 1965, the United States has adopted a uniquely punitive agenda that has led to an unprecedented growth of the prison population. Nowadays, almost two million people are detained in prisons, jails, correctional facilities, and immigration detention centers. Moreover, nearly four million people are under community supervision. During the last two decades, however, the law-and-order narrative has been met with resistance and skepticism. Despite certain consensus among politicians on the need to reform the criminal justice system, a growing social movement has called for more radical transformations, such as abolishing the prison industrial complex. Against this backdrop, this course explores the modern US criminal justice system and emerging critiques of it. We will analyze the forces that shaped the United States as a carceral state and discuss its perceived problems, including structural police violence, crimmigration, the war on drugs, and collateral consequences. In doing so, we will pay particular attention to the interplay of race, class, and gender. We will then shift our attention to the US abolitionist movement and explore this on two main fronts. First, we will discuss the challenges of this movement's demands to the current criminal justice system. Second, we will examine the challenges this movement faces to advance alternative ways of dealing with social and interpersonal conflicts that do not rely on police forces, surveillance, and punishment.

This course will primarily focus on the adjudication phase of the criminal process including: (1) the right to counsel, including the right to the effective assistance of counsel and conflict-free counsel; (2) the admissibility of incriminating statements; (3) charging, severance & joinder, and pretrial detention; (4) the law of guilty pleas; (5) jury composition and selection; (6) fair trial procedures including rights afforded by the Confrontation, Double Jeopardy and Due Process Clauses; and (7) sentencing practice and procedure.

Criminal Procedure: Investigations examines the constitutional law that governs police attempts to solve crime and bring perpetrators to justice. The course considers the role of the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures as well as the Fifth Amendment ban on compelled self-incrimination, in guiding police behavior and in structuring the trials that follow constitutional violations. Students will evaluate the wisdom and constitutional validity of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule, which prohibits the introduction of evidence obtained as a result of an unreasonable search, and the well-known Miranda v. Arizona decision as it has evolved over time.

This seminar explores a vein of scholarship on race, racism, and law known as Critical Race Theory. It focuses on intellectual history (especially in the legal academe) and deep exploration of the far-reaching implications of viewing race and racism through a critical lens. In addition to providing a firm grounding in CRT scholarship and praxis, this course also interrogates the nascent anti CRT political movement as well as the viability of affirmative action under US law.

Succeeding in any business leadership role requires you to think critically, and make quality decisions, even in the face of challenges such as imperfect/incomplete information, changing and unforeseen circumstances, and human nature in all of its complexity and unpredictability. Major content themes of this course focus on constructing a persuasive argument and deconstructing arguments made by others; recognizing and avoiding reasoning flaws and the forces that make us most susceptible to such flaws; approaching business problems systematically and thoroughly; and producing a problem solution that is (a) well-reasoned; (b) likely to be well-received by ultimate decision makers; and (c) able to be implemented successfully.

What role does the law play in perpetuating and eradicating injustice based on race? How have race and racism been key to the creation and evolution of American law? How has race been defined in American law and culture, and in turn, how have law and culture been influenced by race? And, do our answers to the prior questions hold any lessons for the future — particularly with respect to the limits and potential of using the law as a tool for eradicating injustices tied to race? This weekly seminar will grapple with the depth and breadth of the complex relationship(s) between law, race, and racism.

Effective trial lawyers must have the ability to creatively use facts to tell compelling stories in a fast-paced, live environment. Improv is the art of storytelling from the known facts developed during a live performance. In this course, students will develop trial advocacy skills by learning the fundamentals of improvisational theatre in an intense, focused, fun and safe setting. Improv strengthens core skills a trial lawyer must have: the ability to pay attention, listen, work with the given evidence, build on it and tell compelling stories. Once those techniques are introduced, students will perform improvised segments of a jury trial: voir dire, opening statement and closing argument, direct and cross examination.

This course will survey the history of the death penalty in the United States, and then turn to its operation in the modern era, focusing on issues of continuing controversy.

This course will provide an introduction to the private equity industry and will highlight the many roles that lawyers and business professionals play in the private equity marketplace. The course will focus on private equity acquisitions (including public and private transactions) and the evolving fundraising market and the investor community and will also cover financing private equity transactions, exit transactions (such as IPOs, strategic and secondary sales), the impact that recent global developments has had on fundraising and private equity transactions, governance issues in private equity portfolio companies, regulatory issues facing private equity firms and the role of management and employees in private equity transactions. Although private equity is a global alternative asset class and includes investment strategies such as venture capital, growth equity and real estate, this course will focus on U.S. private equity buyouts with appropriate references and comparisons to other such investment strategies.

This course will examine the private equity industry and will explore the many roles that lawyers and business professionals play in the private equity marketplace. The course will focus on private equity acquisitions (including public and private transactions), as well as on the evolving fundraising market and the investor community, financing private equity transactions, exit transactions (such as IPOs, strategic and secondary sales), governance issues in private equity portfolio companies, regulatory and litigation issues facing private equity firms, and the role of management in private equity transactions. Guest speakers will include practicing (and non-practicing) lawyers and private equity professionals who will offer insight into the state and evolution of the private equity industry and how it has impacted the broader asset management business and the merger and acquisitions and financing marketplace. Although private equity in a global alternative asset class and includes many investment strategies , including venture capital, growth equity and real estate, this course will focus on the US buyout environment with some reference and comparison to other categories of private equity.

This course examines existing diversity initiatives within several North American professional sports organizations, (i.e., the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), and Major League Soccer (MLS).

An examination of a topic through readings selected by arrangement between the instructor and an individual student or group of students (not exceeding eight).

This course will expose you to introductory statistics and data analysis techniques for understanding business situations and improving business decisions under uncertainty. Specific topics are data visualization, probability, sampling, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, regression, prediction and causality, AI, and data ethics.

This course helps Cornell Tech students understand what's happening in the rapidly transforming legal landscape - and be ready to help lead its evolution with both insights and practical skills. This intensive course has two components: (1) Legal Tech Insights: Weekly readings and corresponding guest speakers on legal tech trends; and (2) App Building Skills: Hands-on work developing expertise-automation apps using Neota Logic, a no-code software development toolset The course ends with a collegial competition among student teams who present their apps to a panel of judges.

This course is designed to provide an understanding of the legal issues that arise in the world of digital health. Advances in technology have transformed the delivery of healthcare, improving the efficacy of care as well as its efficiency; electronic medical records, digital clinical decision support and big data analysis are just a few areas where entrepreneurs are bringing forth new technology-enabled enterprises. In this course, we will explore the opportunities and challenges that healthcare lawyers, providers, investors and entrepreneurs face, from a legal and regulatory perspective, in the digital health space.

This course focuses on selected legal issues that arise in the public and private education context, with emphasis on the elementary and secondary school setting. Topics considered include the legal and policy dimensions of the rights of students, parents, educators, and the state with respect to such issues as access to, control over, and regulation of the education setting and institutions. Issues germane to equal education opportunity, school finance, and school governance and regulation receive particular attention.

Environmental law deals with some of today’s most pressing challenges. This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the key challenges, legal frameworks, and landmark cases in environmental law. Students will explore the foundational principles that shape environmental regulations, examine cornerstone environmental statutes, and apply their knowledge through case-based analysis. In class, we will first develop an understanding of the foundations of environmental law by exploring its underlying principles, justifications, and policy objectives. Then, we will analyze the role of government agencies, courts, and key stakeholders in shaping and enforcing environmental regulations. By examining historical and contemporary legal developments, we will gain insight into how environmental law has evolved in response to scientific, economic, and social considerations. The course will survey major environmental statutes and regulatory frameworks, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and regulations governing waste and toxic substances. Students will interpret key provisions of these laws, assess their enforcement mechanisms, and evaluate their effectiveness in addressing environmental challenges. Special attention will be given to the role of administrative agencies in implementing environmental policies and ensuring compliance. Finally, students will apply their knowledge through real-world case studies. By the end of the course, students will be equipped with the analytical tools necessary to navigate the complexities of environmental law, engage in legal and policy discussions, and contribute to environmental decision-making.

Survey of major statutory schemes and common law doctrines that regulate the employer-employee relationship, other than laws regulating union formation and collective bargaining, which are covered in Labor Law. Topics covered include the common law of unjust dismissal, trade secrets, restrictive covenants, drug testing, free speech, and privacy. Major statutory schemes covered include Title VII and other antidiscrimination laws, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and ERISA.

Negotiation is a critical part of our jobs, our relationships, and our lives - but many of us avoid engaging in difficult conversations, and most of us are quite bad at it. It turns out that becoming a better negotiator is, in turns, both far easier and far more difficult than we imagined. While technology continues to make our deals more complex, the fundamentals of negotiations remain the same. Students who complete this course will have a strong foundational understanding of the principles underlying any successful negotiation, while addressing issues such as intellectual property, contract rights, value and remedies in the context of an IP deal on the brink. They will learn how to approach every negotiation - both the small ones, and the large ones - in ways that help ensure the best possible negotiated outcomes and build skills that will pay dividends both professionally and personally.

The start-up high technology enterprise, privately financed largely with funds provided by angel investors and venture capital firms, is a successful source of important new and technologically innovative products. Many highly visible and successful companies have raised venture capital at some point in their life cycle. This course covers the legal and business issues that arise in the context of representing emerging growth companies and the venture capital investors who provide an important source of capital to such companies. In particular, the course will focus on the legal issues typically encountered by private companies at formation, financing, operation and key corporate events, including acquisition transactions and public offerings. Topics covered will include corporate formation and governance, angel investments (both equity and debt), venture capital financing, employment and equity compensation matters, protection of intellectual property, securities laws compliance, venture debt financing and exit strategies through merger, acquisition or initial public offering. The course will offer an introduction to these topics through the eyes of attorneys who practice in a leading Silicon Valley-based law firm active in New York City's technology market and may also include guest presentations by industry participants, such as venture capitalists, angel investors and entrepreneurs.

We will use real world and hypothetical situations, together with over thirty years of war stories, to examine not only how entertainment law is practiced, but what entertainment law clients expect of their attorneys. Students will be expected to keep up with the ever changing landscape of the entertainment industry through regular reading of industry newsletters and websites. Copyrights, Trademarks, Rights of Publicity and Privacy and the acquisition of rights.

The course surveys the major environmental laws, with a primary focus on federal statutes. Emphasis will be placed on the various sources of liability to both individuals and corporations from common law, statutory provisions, administrative regulation and enforcement policy.

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. In this class, we'll examine the many facets of climate law-from litigation to regulation and from subnational to global scales-to give you a foundational understanding of climate law and how it is applied to policy. We'll begin with an introduction to climate law, followed by examining some of the available tools to address the climate crisis, including regulatory and legislative strategies. After diving deeply into the equity and justice issues in climate law, we'll look at U.S. and global climate policies. Finally, we will end the class on a hopeful note, collectively brainstorming ways to implement legal pathways for deep decarbonization. Note: this class is designed for law students. Undergraduate and non-law graduate students may be admitted to the class on an individual basis at the instructor's discretion. If you are a non-law student interested in the class, please submit an application (consisting of a statement of interest in the course and any prior relevant experience - academic or otherwise - in law or climate policy) to aab263@cornell.edu.

In the high-pressure worlds of business and law, all too often good people do bad things. In many cases, the unethical behavior is due in part to a toxic corporate culture. The attitudes, values, and practices that prevail in their organizations induce otherwise ethical employees to take actions that violate widely shared norms of conduct. Such behavior can be costly-even disastrous-leading to ruined careers, tarnished corporate reputations, and legal liability for the individuals and their companies. In an environment where only results matter, it can be difficult for a new MBA or law school graduate to recognize the risks. This course seeks to help MBAs and law students understand how a firm's culture, combined with common human tendencies, can tempt-or push-employees into unethical behavior. It also considers how employees can meet ethical challenges posed by their firms' cultures. Course consists of case studies and readings reporting on relevant research in psychology and organizational behavior, as well as the annual Day Family Ethics Lecture by a noted guest speaker from business, law, journalism, or academia.

The rules of evidence in civil and criminal cases with emphasis on relevance, hearsay, authentication, witnesses, experts, and confrontation. The course focuses on the Federal Rules of Evidence, with some attention to how they diverge from the common law.

This course examines the regulation of intimacy, gender, and economics through the legal recognition and nonrecognition of domestic relationships. Specific topics include marriage, adult sexual relations outside of marriage, rules respecting property distribution and child custody upon divorce, parent-child relationships, inheritance and elder care, and adoption and foster care. Course materials draw upon statutes, judicial decisions, and model rules, as well as scholarship in history, social science, and feminist and queer theory. Our goal is to understand and critique how the state defines family.

This course presents an overview of the structure and function of the financial markets. The course attempts to provide a general working knowledge of the financial system by examining not only how various intermediaries and markets work, but also their evolution over time. The role of central banks, and their operations, is particularly emphasized, as is the nature of risk management both within the financial institution and more broadly for the financial system. Topics considered here include swaps, credit derivatives, value at risk models, and systemic risk. Just as intermediation has moved from institutions to markets, the course follows a similar evolution in the topics studied over the course of the semester. Market topics examined include securitization, the Blockchain, digital currencies and the impact of fin tech on intermediation.

This course examines the various constitutional, statutory, and judge-made doctrines that control access to the federal courts to vindicate federal rights. It is particularly valuable for those planning a career in public interest or the public sector, anyone else expecting to litigate extensively in federal court, and students who have or hope to obtain a judicial clerkship. Topics covered include: case or controversy limitations, including standing; constitutional and statutory limits on jurisdiction; causes of action for constitutional and statutory rights, including 42 U.S.C. ?1983 and Bivens actions; bars to such actions, including sovereign immunity and abstention doctrines; and habeas corpus.

The course will focus on federal criminal proceedings from a practice based perspective and will introduce students to the different stages of a federal criminal prosecution. Topics covered will include the initiation of a federal prosecution, bail and detention hearings, pretrial discovery and motion practice in federal criminal cases, litigating suppression motions, plea negotiation and federal sentencing practice and procedure. Participatory simulations requiring both oral and written advocacy will be incorporated into the curriculum.

This course will take an in-depth look into police practices and police officer misconduct; both on and off-duty. Topics will include alcohol and substance abuse, sexual and other misconduct, uses of force, race relations, hate crimes, and use of evolving technology. We will explore solutions and debate remedies in criminal law, civil law, and administrative disciplinary proceedings. Our goal is to structure and implement honorable and effective policing. Later in the semester we will devote a significant portion of class time analyzing the racial tensions inherent in the New York City Police Department's stop and frisk policy, the broken windows policing strategy, the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri, and the choke hold death of Eric Garner on Staten Island.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the unique way that the Talmud approaches legal reasoning. We will consider a range of cases in the area of contracts, torts, employment, and inheritance, comparing and contrasting the way Talmudic scholars approach these cases with the way American case law has approached similar cases.

Whether you were a student in the Fall session looking to continue on our journey, or you are with us for the first time, this course takes you into the courtroom and the conference room to provide you with a real-world experience in defending a federal criminal case. Working off of real cases with an emphasis on role-playing - both as defense counsel and government prosecutors -we will get you ready to successfully prepare for and navigate the busy streets of a federal criminal case. From the very beginning - whether your client has been taken into custody or has been visited by government agents - right through to the sentencing hearing, we will cover what really happens.

Taught by a former federal district court judge and current federal court of appeals judge, this accelerated course will explore federal trial and appellate court practice through a very practical lens. We will think about litigation strategy and federal court theory as we survey and discuss the federal court criminal and civil docket. Emphasis will be placed on developing skills that will be particularly useful for future federal law clerks.

A basic course designed to develop understanding of tax concepts and ability to work effectively with the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, cases, and other tax materials.

This seminar provides an in-depth examination of the mechanics, strategies, and implications of government and congressional investigations. Through case studies of significant investigations—ranging from historical inquiries to contemporary issues—students will explore the legal, ethical, and political dynamics that drive these processes. Key topics will include: the legal authority and procedures underpinning investigations by Congress and federal agencies; the role of subpoenas, witness testimonies, and document production; constitutional and statutory constraints on investigations, including issues of privilege and separation of powers; media involvement and public perception in shaping the trajectory and outcomes of investigations; and comparative analysis of bipartisan and partisan investigative approaches.

The course will focus on the basics of Federal Indian Law, the ever-changing body of case and statutory law and treaties that define the limits and extent of Indian tribal sovereignty in the United States in the late twentieth century. The course will explore the nature and extent of tribal sovereignty at the time of European contact, the changing strategies of the United States in relating to tribes, and the lasting impact of those strategies on current-day tribal communities and their rights of self-government. The course will also explore the role of the United States in protecting tribal sovereignty and tribal resources. It will also examine the powers and jurisdiction of tribal governments with regard to both members and non-members of the tribe, as well as the lack or extent, as the case may be, of state jurisdiction over activities on Indian lands. Students will be encouraged to continually identify and question the legal, political and moral basis of the laws and policies that constitute Federal Indian Law in the United States today. We will also examine the current ALI restatement project for Federal Indian Law.

This course is focused on the modern-day relationship between the Haudenosaunee and New York State. The first part of the course will introduce students to the historical relationship prior to the formation of the United States. The second part will be dedicated to the exploration of foundation legal and political principles governing the intergovernmental relationship. And the last part will focus on case studies of contemporary issues and conflicts.

This course is an introduction to the reporting system used by businesses to convey financial information to parties outside the firm. Primary emphasis will be placed on understanding the financial reports that are the end product of this system--what they tell us and what they do not tell us about a business. The accounting principles, conventions and concepts underlying financial reporting will be examined with the objective of developing your ability to interpret and analyze financial statements.

This course explores the economic functions, institutional design, and regulation of financial institutions. Beginning with conventional deposit-taking banks, the course examines the risks embedded within the business of banking, along with how regulation seeks to manage these risks. It then expands this framework to examine several other forms of 'non-bank' financial intermediation including investment banks, insurance companies, wholesale funding markets, structured finance markets, money market and other investment funds, and financial market infrastructure. The course also examines some of the related consumer/investor protection problems and how financial regulation seeks to address them.

It will provide a guidance on M&A practices in various jurisdictions, including the US, Europe, Japan and other emerging countries. The course will address global M&A trends, various transaction structures, terms of acquisition agreements and a comparison of different M&A practices (e.g., US-style and UK-style), as well as other legal issues such as merger filings and anti-corruption. The course will also introduce various aspects of Japanese corporates, including corporate governance, business cultures and commercial trends.

This course is designed to familiarize students with common issues that arise in, and how they are addressed by attorneys who structure, high-growth (principally start-up) corporate transactions. It will address that portion of the transactional practice not covered in Technology Transactions. A wide range of topics is expected to be covered, including: Choice of Entity; Founders' Agreement(s); Terms of Preferred Stock, including Liquidation Preferences and Conversion Mechanics; Basic Deal Structuring; Tax Issues/Benefits for Entrepreneurs/Startups; Employment and Incentive Considerations; Basic Securities Regulation; Convertible Notes and SAFEs; Series A Financing; Special Considerations with High Valuations and Unicorns; Distressed Situations and Down Rounds; Operational Agreements; Indebtedness; M&A Transactions; and Initial Public Offerings.

This course will consider legal aspects of the organization, financing, and distribution of health care in the United States. It will emphasize issues of access, costs, and quality, and address the use of regulation, litigation and market-driven strategies to confront emerging problems. Readings will be from a health law casebook, supplemented by occasional handouts of current materials. The goal is to convey an appreciation of the challenges involved in providing health care to those in need and of the role of law and lawyers in meeting these challenges.

The intention is to serve as a view of the general counsel function within a company. A central objective of the course is to demonstrate the vital role of the general counsel in avoiding problems, solving problems that do occur, and fulfilling the central mission of the business or organization.

Insurance is an increasingly important tool for the management of risk by both private and public enterprises. This course provides a working knowledge of basic insurance law governing insurance contract formation, insurance regulation, property, life, health, disability, and liability insurance and claims processes. The emphasis throughout the course is on the links between insurance theory, doctrine, and modern ideas about the functions of private law.

This course explores the historical evolution of local, state, and federal government regulations of immigration, and the ways in which contemporary political conflicts over immigration express themselves as intergovernmental conflicts. Immigration is commonly understood as an exclusively federal area of law, in which the federal government has nearly unchecked power. But while this view of immigration's status in the U.S. federal system remains intuitive, it fails to capture the reality of immigration policymaking both past and present. From the earliest days of immigration regulation, states played a major role in deciding who can enter the country and what rights they hold once they arrive. Even in today's far more centralized immigration system, state and local policy has an important impact-both direct and indirect-on the legal status and daily life of immigrants. In a context where the relationship between state and federal governments is evolving in new directions, immigration federalism is likely to play an outsized role in defining the contours of policy conflicts.

A survey of legal mechanisms for protecting intellectual property including patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and related state law doctrines.

This is a survey course in intellectual property (IP) law. It covers the what, when, who, how, and why of IP: what kinds of information can be protected, when these rights arise, who owns them, how they are enforced, and why the legal system goes to all this trouble. We will perform comparative anatomy on bodies of law including trade secret, patent, copyright, trademark, false advertising, and rights of publicity, dissecting them to understand them on their own terms and in relationship to each other.

This course covers the present structure of tax law in the United States, including the measurement of taxable income, tax compliance fundamentals, and other related Federal and state tax issues facing low-income taxpayers, with some emphasis on immigrant taxpayers. Participants also discuss various tax research and compliance tools that may be used by practitioners and/or volunteer low-income taxpayer assistance programs. Guest lecturers will focus on specific topics such as the rules surrounding ITIN preparation and other tax issues unique to low-income taxpayers.

This course will focus on the legal issues associated with internet transactions (including e-commerce, social media platforms, blockchain and digital currency, and interactive entertainment). The course will consider data protection and privacy, compliance and cybersecurity, as well as the legal, social and political impact from the democratization of media content. Moreover, the course will examine certain regulatory frameworks developed to address the legal concerns posed by such internet transactions.

This course is relevant to a general business career, but is particularly relevant to careers that involve the use of financial statements. The specific accounting topics covered includes: Statement of Cash Flows; Income Taxes; Divestitures; Financial Assets (Investments and Hedges); Leases; Non-Financial Assets; Revenue Recognition; Pensions; Equity-based Compensation; and EPS. My objective is to enable you to become more knowledgeable, skeptical consumers of financial information. This objective will be achieved by a combination of lectures and analyzing and discussing cases that are based on actual financial statements.

International Human Rights Law and Institutions seeks to promote and secure for the individual protection of an array of agreed rights in his/her national society. The individual will turn to international law and institutions in order to enhance support for and to vindicate his/her rights under national law. The objective of the course is to introduce the student to the theory, norms, and institutions central to the international human rights legal regime. The course will explore the emergence and the enforcement of international human rights norms, the international machinery for the protection of human rights in the world community including the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the European Court of Human Rights, the African Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court. Relevant decisions of these courts and of municipal courts will be studied as well as basic documents. It will also examine domestic mechanisms for the enforcement of international human rights against foreign violators through for example, the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act. It will further examine the liability of corporations for human rights violations.

This course examines the U.S. income tax laws and policies relating to the taxation of international transactions. Emphasis will be on fundamental issues, including international tax jurisdiction, source of income, the taxation of foreign persons with U.S. businesses or investments, the taxation of U.S. persons with foreign income, relief from double taxation of income subject to taxing jurisdiction of two countries, transfer pricing in transactions between related parties, and income tax treaties.

This course will provide an intensive insight into practitioners' goals in taking depositions and in representing deponents and will provide a study into methods for achieving those goals. It will include classroom discussion and demonstration and a practical opportunity for each student to take and to defend mock depositions. We will explore the use of depositions at trial, which is a predicate to understanding depositions' goals; the central role of admissions from documentary and deposition discovery in the development of civil cases; and techniques for eliciting admissions (or, when representing a deponent, avoiding such admissions). Techniques will also be explored for pure discovery, for trial preservation testimony, and for the avoidance of the development of evidence harmful to one's case.

This is a survey course in Internet law, with particular emphasis on privacy and security. It is designed to teach lawyers what they need to know to work effectively with computer technologists, and vice versa. Topics covered may vary based on recent events, but will typically include jurisdiction, free speech, privacy, cybersecurity, e-commerce, digital property, intermediary liability, and network neutrality. What unites these disparate areas of law is that, in each of them, computer and network technologies are challenging settled legal understandings in similar ways. We will explore these recurring patterns of legal disruption and predict how they will play out online and offline.

Depositions are a critical component of pretrial discovery. Indeed, many cases are lost, won, or settled because of information gleaned at a deposition. Attorneys also often modify trial strategies because of a witness's performance at a deposition. Because depositions play such an important role in litigation, the majority of junior litigation attorneys can expect to deal with depositions in some manner from the very start of their careers. This introductory course will expose students to several facets of a deposition: preparing for deposition, asking questions at a deposition, defending the witness at a deposition, using documents at a deposition, and reviewing the transcript of a deposition. Students can expect to take and defend mock depositions and to observe and critique their fellow students' deposition skills. The course will culminate in a three-hour deposition in which students will team up to depose and defend two witnesses. Students must set aside one Saturday morning at the end of the semester for this deposition.

The conventional law school curriculum implicitly emphasizes appellate litigation, teaching students to read, argue and distinguish cases, and to predict what a judge will do. A transactional practice demands additional skills. A full understanding requires years of experience - not something that can be bottled into a one-credit course. Transactional Lawyering provides students with an initial intro?duc?tion to how a deal is structured and what a deal lawyer does - familiarizing them with some common problems and the tools used to address them. In exploring these problems, the course draws on moral hazard, adverse selection, and other economic theories and applies them to real deal issues.The course will culminate in the Transactional Lawyering Competition, to be held in October or November (before Thanksgiving Break). Students will be paired off into two-person teams, representing opposing sides in a transaction. Using tools from the course, each team will mark-up a simple transaction document to reflect their client's interests, to be submitted before the Competition. Those mark-ups will then be used as the basis for team-to-team negotiations at the Competition. The mark-ups and the negotiations will be reviewed, scored, and judged by adjunct instructors who are themselves experienced transactional attorneys, assessing - and providing feedback on - how students perform.Students who participate in this course must commit to attending (i) nine lectures on transactional structuring (which may include a 90-minute guest presentation), (ii) a team meeting, and (iii) the Competition (which is expected to take place over a weekend), including a presentation by judges/adjunct instructors on how they would have handled the mark-up and negotiations. Readings for the lectures will be posted in advance on the course website.

The course introduces the legal framework of international trade and the economic and political considerations surrounding international trade. The evolution of a global economy in the post-war period, the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, and the announcement of new trade and economic policy by the U.S. administration have made the understanding of trade regulation and practice, and current trade policy issues, essential to one's knowledge of how the U.S. economy operates, how it interacts with other systems, and what will be necessary to compete successfully in the global marketplace and promote economic growth and job creation domestically. For example, the current trade disputes between the United States and China require an understanding of the international legal frameworks applying to them to assess the possible outcomes. This course will cover the legal framework of international trade under the auspices of the WTO system, the evolution of the trading system, current and future trade policy issues, and economic analysis of the international trading system.

This course will focus on the federal laws regulating the organization of private-sector workers and unions and the process of collective bargaining in addition to addressing protected concerted activity unrelated to union organizing. Issues of race, economic justice and immigrant workers will also be addressed. Practice in the field of labor and employment law will be highlighted along with important and timely public policy issues.

This course will provide a broad introduction to the theory, doctrine, and history of land use regulation. Topics will include the meaning of ownership; theories behind land use controls; the private nuisance action; zoning, including the permissible content of zoning laws, and contract and conditional zoning; vested rights, development agreements, and ballot box zoning; and constitutional limitations on government action in land use controls, including takings law, the First Amendment, and due process challenges. We will also consider current hot topics in land use law such as brownfields legislation, natural gas fracking, sprawl, conservation easements, historic preservation laws, endangered species legislation, and global warming litigation.

Document discovery is a critical aspect of pre-trial practice in which litigants must obtain the evidence necessary to transform their allegations into facts to be proven at trial. Bad documents uncovered in the course of discovery often make or break a party's claims, defenses, and-in high profile cases-willingness to risk public disclosure of damaging or embarrassing internal emails, chats, and text messages. Parties are therefore incentivized to withhold such communications on the basis of attorney-client or other forms of privilege which, in turn, results in extensive motion practice. Despite the high-stakes nature of this phase of trial, junior attorneys are often primarily responsible for setting the strategy and carrying out the day-to-day tasks involved in obtaining and producing documents necessary to satisfy a litigant's obligations under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This introductory course will familiarize students with the mechanics of document discovery and resolving the disputes between litigants that frequently arise complex commercial cases. Students will team up to assume the roles of plaintiff's or defendant's counsel to navigate a discovery dispute based on outcome-dispositive facts and communications based on real-world cases. Students will learn to collaboratively strategize and draft requests for production, responses and objections, deficiency correspondence with opposing counsel, and briefing to compel production of improperly withheld documents. Students will also participate in simulated meet-and-confer negotiations with opposing counsel, and the course will culminate in oral argument on their motion.

This seminar will examine current issues, debates and research in the field of law and economic development. Course materials will include an examination of competing theories of the relationship between law and development, how those theories translate into platforms for legal and policy reform, and how and why reform has or has not occurred. We will discuss current development projects aimed at changing the legal regimes of developing countries, including judicial reform, land titling, market deregulation, and promotion of human rights. Special attention will be given to case studies and applied learning in comparative context.

One or more students will be paired with a lawyer and/or law firm with substantial experience in technology and high-growth corporate transactions. Students will work under the supervision of the lawyer and/or law firm in providing legal support to student and other project teams, including studio teams, that are assigned to it. Through the law team process, students will have an opportunity to practice what they learn in the classroom, as well as become familiar with a range of legal and regulatory issues (and solutions) relating to technology and high-growth corporate transactions.

Law and development addresses the impact of law, legal frameworks, and institutions (LFIs) on social and economic development. LFIs have significant impacts on development, particularly economic development. Recognizing this importance, the post-2015 development initiatives by the United Nations (Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs) includes rule of law as a development agenda. The course explores the theories and practices pertaining to law and development. In particular, the course explains how LFIs affect economic development in several key areas relevant to economic development, such as property rights, regulatory framework for business transactions, and industrial promotion. The course examines law and development issues in developing countries as well as developed countries, such as the United States.

This is an introductory course in North Korean law and society. This is a very rare opportunity to explore the law of North Korea-the most socialistic and secretive country in the world. Although overshadowed by many pressing issues, such as nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and human rights, North Korea has enacted many laws since the 1990s to both promote its economy and control its society. While little is known about North Korea and even less is known about its laws, analyzing the socio-political and economic contexts of the changes and continuities of North Korean laws provides us with fresh insight into the history and society of the socialist country.

An analysis of key issues that an emerging high growth business must consider and address when incorporating and raising capital.

This class examines the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 and examples of other transnational corruption laws around the world, most significantly the United Kingdom's Bribery Act 2010. We will consider the policies behind the criminalization of corrupt overseas conduct by corporate actors in various countries, and whether the goals of these laws have been met. The course will also examine how enforcement of the FCPA and other transnational bribery laws works in practice, with a focus on the policies of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the UK Serious Fraud Office. Other topics include current controversies about the reach of the FCPA, and key cases examining the statute, proposals to extend the FCPA's reach, corporate anti-corruption compliance, and the role of anti-money laundering laws. The class will also include a case study of anti-corruption initiatives in a Latin American country.

Unemployment is damaging to individuals, families, and society. Governments around the world have attempted to mitigate these harms, in some countries through generous out-of-work benefits, targeted retraining services for job seekers, and disincentives for employers to lay workers off in the first place. But why is unemployment so persistent in capitalist societies? What does it mean for an individual to be unemployed? What can the US learn from other countries to better combat unemployment and reduce its socially damaging effects? Students will work with community partners to assist the unemployed or conduct policy-relevant research.

This course is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the law governing lawyers in a variety of practice settings, including transactional, counseling, and civil and criminal litigation. The course is not focused merely on the ABA's Model Rules, but draws extensively from judicial decisions in malpractice and disqualification cases, the new Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, and other sources of law. A major theme is the relationship between state bar disciplinary rules and the generally applicable law of tort, contracts, agency, procedure, and crimes. Another significant theme is the prevention of attorney discipline and malpractice liability through advance planning.

Robots, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems have long been the realm of science fiction, but they are increasingly a part of contemporary life as well. Autonomous vehicles, robots and artificial intelligence create special problems for law, and often force policymakers to re-evaluate existing policy, especially as machines make decisions and take actions that were previously the domain of people only. This course will examine how smart machines challenge law and policy, notions of responsibility, rights, and what it means to be human.

In the engaged learning option, you will work with community partners providing legal advice or workforce development services, or gather and analyze research data supervised by Prof. Ian Greer.

This is the MBA core finance course at Johnson. It is meant to give students a strong basis in finance that can be used in their professional career as well as to provide the background necessary for more advanced finance classes. The topics we cover include how to move cash flows in time, the methods and principles of capital budgeting, bond and stock valuation, and how to characterize risk and calculate the cost of capital.

This course will conduct a detailed examination of the key aspects of a venture-backed Series A funding round, including the business and legal relationships and interactions between founders, board members, and investors in considering and negotiating the key documents/provisions of the Series A funding round. The faculty will use their experiences representing startups, investors and other key stakeholders in both internal and outside counsel roles to review real-world examples and illustrate the various perspectives of the key parties and their respective negotiation strategies on critical points.

This course introduces students to the law and institutions of the European Union. It examines the composition, organization, functions and powers of the Union's governing bodies; analyzes the Union's governing treaties and constitutional law; and studies the Union's decision-making processes. The course also explores broader questions of political, economic and legal integration, such as the proper relation between the Union's law and the domestic law of the Union's Member states, and the desirability and feasibility of using the E.U. as a model on which to pattern other transnational agreements.

This course studies legal aspects of direct foreign investments. It seeks to identify legal problems that are likely to affect a commercial investment in a foreign country. Inter alia, it deals with the public international law principles and rules governing the establishment by foreign businesses of various factors of production (persons and capital) on the territory of other states and the protection of such investments. Thus, the course includes a discussion of the following topics: economic development and foreign capital; obstacles to the flow of investments to developing countries; guarantees to investors and investment codes; bilateral treaties; nationalization; joint ventures; project financing; transfer of technology; arbitration; investment insurance; unification of trade law; and the settlement of investment disputes.

What can lawyers and judges learn from the study of literature? This course explores the relevance of imaginative literature (novels, drama, poetry, and film) to questions of law and social justice from a range of perspectives. We will consider debates about how literature can help to humanize legal decision-making; how storytelling has helped to give voice to oppressed populations over history; how narratives of suffering cultivate popular support for human rights; the role played by storytelling in a trial; and how literature can shed light on the limits of law and public policy.

A merger or large acquisition is often the most significant event in the life of a firm and can have dramatic consequences for all of a firm's constituencies - from shareholders, directors, and managers to employees, customers, and communities. Lawyers andthe law play critical roles in how mergers and acquisitions are evaluated, structured, and implemented. The course covers key legal issues relevant to the M&A of large companies, both public and private, including important forms of private ordering (such as poison pills, lockups, and earnouts). A principal focus will be on the key drivers of M&A activity, the business incentives of the parties to the transactions, and the documentation and negotiation of the deals.

This course will explore how local governments (cities, counties, towns, special districts and authorities) operate in practical detail. It will focus on the powers of local government as established by Constitutional, Federal, State and local law. The course will look at issues faced by these governments and explore how they govern in light of legal, practical and political considerations. The course will include: a) a review of the balance of legal powers between Federal, State and local governments; b) The rules by which local governments operate including the forms, structures and financing of local governments, and c) the practical application of the laws to numerous functions of local governments including policing, health, discrimination and the environment.

The goal of this course is to promote an understanding of the challenges encountered in the work environment as a result of cultural differences. Students are required to complete a ten-page paper by September 15 following their summer internship.

Music Law will be practical look at representing performers, bands, song writers, and others in the music industry. We will look at both the law and the industry, exploring the agreements that transfer rights between the various players and case law affecting those rights, as well as examining the industry itself and who those players are. Taught by Howard Leib, who has over thirty years experience in the music industry, having worked with artists such as Whitney Houston, B.B. King, Kiss, BeBe & CeCe Winans, Bobby McFerrin, and more.. Corporate clients have included MCA, BMG, Atlantic Records, Arista Records, Rhino Entertainment, Shout Factory Entertainment and 20th Century Fox. Students will also benefit from the insight of guest speakers from various areas of the industry. Topics are expected to include recording agreements, band agreements, touring, merchandising, licensing, songwriting, music publishing, management and others.

Build upon the research skills honed in Lawyering to explore advanced strategies for conducting legal research. This course provides an overview of the resources, methods, and strategies necessary to conduct efficient and effective online legal research for upper-level courses and employment. Students will learn when and how to use subscription and open access databases for researching legal information. Students can expect to complete a series of research assignments and a final research project.

This course will focus on U.S. patent law giving comprehensive coverage of doctrinal elements and touching on key policy issues.

At the outset, the course provides an introduction to the legal system of the MENA countries. In the same context, it introduces Islamic law (Shari'a law), including sources of legislation, MENA countries' reaction towards the Shari'a as a source of law, and the impact of the Shari'a on MENA laws and regulations in general and on the doing business in particular. The course then samples the specificity of several substantive areas for foreign lawyers in MENA countries, including business associations, contract law, mergers and acquisitions, securities regulations, settlement of disputes, and corporate governance. These areas will be examined to the extent required to enable foreign lawyers to access MENA countries or to support American companies investing in the MENA.

The European Union is the largest trading partner and the most important regulatory counterpart of the United States. The course provides an overview of the legal framework governing the pursuit of business activity in the Single Market of the European Union. It covers what every lawyer needs to know about the EU regarding the legal framework for the pursuit of business activity (both from the perspective of businesses and consumers involved). The course explores both the foundations of the Single Market of the EU and specific area of regulation applicable to business transaction.

This course will examine the federal income taxation of and prepare students for the practical aspects of transactional tax work in the context of mergers and acquisitions, investment funds and joint ventures involving the partnership form. We will explore the basic tax rules applicable to partnership formation; the determination of partnership taxable income and its allocation among partners; partnership distributions; and the sale of partnership interests. Students will also learn to draft the tax provisions in partnership and limited liability company agreements. The content of this course will be useful not only to students interested in transactional tax work but also those who will pursue a more general corporate practice dealing with investment funds or joint ventures.

This course provides foreign-trained lawyers with an introduction to the American legal system and essential principles of legal writing, analysis and legal research skills in the United States. Students are afforded an opportunity to practice some of the forms of writing common to American legal practice by drafting documents such as memoranda and briefs in the context of representing hypothetical clients. Students are given the opportunity to conference individually with the instructor and to re-write assignments after receiving the instructor's comments.

This class focuses on the practical aspects of lawyering, doing so by exploring the lawyer's role in four typical situations: advising clients in connection with (a) the formation and early financing of a business entity; (b) the exercise of boards of directors and management of their fiduciary duty of oversight; (c) the day-to-day operations of a business, including contractual and online relationships with customers and suppliers; and (d) sale or change-of-control transactions.

The Course will strive provide (1) an understanding both the black letter of food and drug law and the underlying policies and themes of our system of food and drug regulation, (2) the opportunity to ponder on the material at a deeper level, thinking about food and drug law's role in our society and your views on the key public policy issues, and (3) a few practical skills relating to an administrative practice in food and drug law. Topics that will be discussed include an overview of the FDA and its Organization, FDA's History, Politics and the FDA: Contraception, Regen, Zohydro, and User Fees, Statutory Overview and Definitions, Enforcement Actions/Prohibited Acts, Medical Product Development including o Preclinical Issues: Animal Use, GLP o INDs and IDEs o Legal and Ethical Issues in Human Trials - IRBs and informed consent o Special Issues in First Use in Humans o Harmonization and International Trials Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry, Drug Approval Process: NDA, Vioxx and FDAAA, Post-Approval Surveillance, Postmarket Safety Authorities (REMS, Safety Labeling Changes, Post-Market Requirements), Market Exclusivity Schemes: Orphan Drug Act, GAIN, and Others Hatch-Waxman and Generics, Patents versus Regulatory Exclusivity, Labeling, Product Liability and Preemption, Prescription Drug Promotion and the First Amendment, Access to Unapproved Products, FDA's regulations and statutory authority, Access Litigation - Rutherford & Abigail Alliance, Right-to-Try statutes, GMPs & Drug Shortages, OTC Drugs, Biologics, in general, Case study - the early 2000's policy fight over embryonic stem cells and cloning, The Med Tech Industry/Introduction to Devices, Device Classifications and Marketing Authorizations, Frontier Issues: Mobile Apps & Preview of Genetic Testing (DTC and LDTs), Pharmaceutical pricing and The Future of the FDA, Drugs, Biologics, and Devices.

Adult-use cannabis (also known as recreational marijuana) is now legal in 24 states and the US cannabis industry is expected to reach almost $40 billion in 2024. Yet adult-use cannabis also remains federally illegal. Amid this contradiction, California sits as the largest cannabis market in the world, and New York State (which legalized adult-use cannabis on March 21, 2021) is expected to boom from a $2 million cannabis industry in 2022, to over $7 billion in 2025. This course will explore conundrums for lawyers advising clients in a dramatically expanding industry where - in just two examples of myriad complexities that we will consider - the product currently may not travel across state lines and (until legalized by states) has contributed to disproportionate community effects by the American war on drugs. Students will write a substantial and research-based paper.

In the U.S., federal government expenditures represent over one-third of the nation's GDP annually. Yet few seem to know much about the law-governed processes of federal budgeting, appropriating funds for, or otherwise financing US government operations. Still less do they generally understand the aims or consequences - short term and longer term - of these essential public sector activities economy-wide.

This course explores ethical issues relating to the legal profession. It has two aims-one immediate, the other more lofty. The immediate aim is to help prepare students for the MPRE. The loftier aim, by contrast, is to investigate the ways in which one's professional responsibilities might conflict with one's personal obligations or self-interest, and to consider the societal implications of the regulatory regime governing lawyers. What should a lawyer do when her professional duties conflict with her financial interests or obligations to friends or family? How does the legal profession's monopoly on the right to give legal advice shape the justice system? We will investigate such questions by reading relevant legal materials as well as work by legal academics. Students will take several smaller exams to test their mastery of central ethical rules governing the conduct of lawyers, and complete short writing assignments on topics discussed in class.

An introduction to the legal rules governing the conduct of states vis-?is other states, individuals, and international organizations, with reference to major current events and issues. Topics include the nature and sources of international law; the establishment and recognition of states; principles concerning state sovereignty, territory, and jurisdiction; the law of treaties; state responsibility; use of force; the protection of individuals; and relationships between international and national law.

This course examines the remedial consequences of lawsuits and the remedial choices open to litigants: essential strategic information for students considering a litigation-oriented practice. It covers compensatory remedies, injunctions, and special remedies such as constructive trusts. It also clarifies the meaning of equity and the role of equity in modern American law, as well as the developing law of unjust enrichment. The course focuses on private law (tort, contract, property), but it also includes some coverage of remedies for enforcement of Constitutional rights and public law.

This course investigates the rich body of Roman laws on slaves, crime, and women and children. Students will explore the evolution of power over marginalized groups and penalties for crimes at the beginnings of the Western legal system in order to consider ideas of identity, agency, responsibility, and punishment from a cultural and historical perspective. Through an examination of the legal sources (in translation) and the study of the rise and changes of governmental institutions of justice, this course will examine the evolution of jurisprudence: the development of conceptions of power and shifts in the understanding of just punishment. The course is designed as an introduction to these topics suitable for all students.

This course analyzes key issues under the U.S. federal securities laws, principally the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, with respect to the domestic and international offer and sale of securities. It includes a study of what constitutes a security, the public offering process, mandatory disclosure requirements for public companies, exemptions from registration (including exempt global offerings), and potential liabilities and sanctions.

The employment of social science research evidence to support legal claims is dramatically expanding in both civil and criminal domains. Social scientists are called upon to discuss trademark surveys, race and gender discrimination claims in education, employment and housing, damage awards, eyewitness identifications, false confessions, lineups, cultural defenses, and more. Social Science and the Law examines these and other rapidly accelerating uses of social science in litigation. The course also examines controversies over the use of social science in various legal domains.

State and local governments have emerged as more and more important actors in the United States, as federal action has often foundered on the shoals of bitterly divided government. State and local governments have unleashed social change and prodded national action in controversial areas such as gun rights, universal health care, pro- and anti-fracking laws, "sanctuary cities" policies, paid family leave policies, reproductive rights and restrictions, gay marriage and LGBTQ+ rights, and more. This course will examine the powers of state and local governments as a part of the American polity and federal constitutional order. Topics will include the power and independence of state and local governments in the federal system; state constitutions, their empowerment of local governments, and the individual rights that they confer; local government formation, powers, and voluntary and involuntary dissolution; state attempts to control local government action through preemption; whether state and local governments owe the provision of services to individual citizens, and questions of the equality of those services; and more. The final part of the course will examine the new movement that there is an "inherent right" to local government under international law.

While some scholars refer to the value of dissents by the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States as limited to posterity and for the benefit of law students, other scholars view their value as impactful contributions to jurisprudence that affect the outcome of future cases. Despite their philosophical differences, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Antonin Scalia were recognized for dissents that were well-reasoned evaluations of the law and the underlying facts. The Ginsburg and Scalia dissents were also notable for their passion and their pragmatism. The course will involve analysis of Ginsburg's and Scalia's dissenting opinions based upon style, content, legal analysis and persuasiveness. Class exercises will involve advocacy in favor of or in opposition to the dissent. The class will also involve a study of the how Ginsburg's and Scalia's personal and professional life experience shaped and influenced their opinions.

This semester-long course will focus on a variety of core issues relevant to launching a crypto start-up in the US, including formation and corporate structure, regulatory requirements, and considerations regarding data and intellectual property.

Supervised experiential learning courses allow students to complete a discrete pro bono advocacy project under faculty supervision. The course operates much like a directed reading or supervised writing - students must make arrangements directly with a faculty member. Only full-time, long-term members of the faculty may teach this course. The student's role must involve a substantial lawyering experience that implicates one or more of the Law School's learning outcomes. Work for the course should consist of the types of matters that are currently handled by the clinical program. If a student wishes to seek pro bono hours certification for their work in the course, the student and faculty member should ensure the work satisfies the relevant standard.

Lawyering Program Honors Fellows serve for the full academic year as teaching assistants in the Lawyering course. With training and guidance from the Lawyering faculty, Honors Fellows work on myriad course-related tasks and some program-wide initiatives. In addition to meeting regularly with first-year students and critiquing papers, Honors Fellows may help design course assignments and documents, participate in simulations, and assist the research attorneys with the teaching of legal research. Honors Fellows also teach classes on the Bluebook. Additionally, Honors Fellows serve as educational mentors to first-year students and may participate in workshops on basic law-school skills.

This course will cover the day-to-day function of lawyers practicing corporate finance (both in-house and as outside counsel). Topics will include basic corporate finance principles, accounting for lawyers and how to learn and stay on top of current issues and trends, non-GAAP measures, important investor disclosures in both the private and public company context, relations with the CFO, audit committee and board of directors and significant shareholders, capital raising and other transformative transactions and financings, developing high quality compliance and risk management policies and procedures, the impact of significant litigation and government investigations.

This course examines the federal income taxation of corporate transactions, including incorporations, dividends, redemptions, liquidations, and reorganizations.

This course is designed to familiarize students with common issues that arise in, and how they are addressed by attorneys who structure, technology transactions.

This course provides a deep dive into the law and practice behind the agreements that govern how technology companies do business with each other and with consumers. In the spring, we will dive into additional kinds of technology contracts such as terms of service, privacy policies, and browsewrap or clickwrap agreements as well as a variety of special topics, which may include open source software, media and music licensing and distribution, and data licensing. Other areas of law and practice that relate to technology transactions, such as bankruptcy, government contracts, dispute resolution and ethics may also be covered.

This course helps students understand the structure, operation, key financial metrics, technology and the business and human capital strategies employed to optimize law firm performance. In addition to providing insight regarding decisions impacting business operations andstructure,focus will be placed on how law firms are adapting (or failing to adapt) to changing technology, including how these changes affect the lives and careers of associates and partners.

In this course, we will be analyzing and incorporating negotiation techniques and strategies, along with problem solving solutions, through in-depth simulations and experiential learning exercises taught by top executives who have successfully negotiated in business and sports. Students will get the opportunity to improve their skills through practical training and guidance from one of the most experienced negotiators in professional sports, Michael Huyghue. This course involves direct supervision of the student's performance; numerous opportunities for performance, feedback, and self-evaluation; and an in-depth classroom instructional component. The classroom component includes negotiation simulations with collaborative problem solving for actual business problems of sports organizations. Lastly, this course implements both formative and summative assessment methods in its curriculum to measure and improve student learning and provide meaningful feedback to students.

The course is devoted to the study and weekly performance of the full range of trial techniques. Fundamental skills are taught in the context of challenging procedural and substantive law problems. Each stage of the trial is examined: jury selection, opening statement, direct examination, cross-examination, objections, impeachment, exhibits, expert witnesses, child witnesses, pre-trial, and closing argument. In addition to a lecture and student exercises every week, students will do a full day jury trial exercise at the completion of the course on a weekend at a local court with an actual judge and jury. All weekly performances are digitally recorded and reviewed and then re-reviewed by another faculty member with the student individually. There are occasional written assignments and class attendance is mandatory for all exercises sessions and the first class lecture.

Each major segment of a trial will be explored opening statement, direct examination, cross examination, objections, impeachment, use of exhibits and visuals, and closing argument culminating in a trial. The emphasis for this trial advocacy program will be on learning by doing in a simulated courtroom setting, from a prepared trial case record, with constructive faculty critique. Each segment will include demonstrations, doing, and critique.

The course surveys the law of succession to property, including wills and intestate succession, as well as the law of trusts. The course covers the basic aspects of the federal gift and estate taxes, but does not examine them intensively.

This course will address the nature, protection, and defense of trade secrets, from their common law origins to their role in several recent high-profile cases. We will do a deep dive into the different trade secret regimes at the state and federal level. We will review civil and criminal remedies and also examine how key international jurisdictions protect trade secrets (or not). The goal of the course will be to develop an understanding of how trade secret protections work and how companies can guard their trade secrets in their interactions with investors, collaborators, customers, and competitors while steering clear of misappropriating the secrets of others. We will also discuss the practicalities of trade secret litigation in the digital age.

Wellbeing issues in the legal profession are well-documented. The first studies showing higher rates of depression and substance abuse among lawyers than in the general population are more than 30-year old and recent surveys show that the legal profession has not been able to reverse the trend. While the current state of affairs is worrying, it also provides us with the opportunity (challenge? imperative?) to think about change. Can wellbeing become part of the future of the legal profession? Can it become part of your future in the legal profession?

Critiques of liberalism have long been foundational to leftist political thought including to critical theory. However, parallel critiques of liberal legalism today are even more central to rightwing and conservative legal and political thought-including the jurisprudence of the Roberts Court. This Seminar examines the nature of anti-liberal sentiment for both left and right over history and into the present. Readings will range across philosophy, popular journalism and commentary, and legal opinions and will investigate the usual targets of anti-liberal critique (whether capitalism, legal positivism, the state, or individualism); alternatives to liberalism (Romanticism, communitarianism, natural law, Catholic and other political theology); and intellectual touchstones (Schmitt, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kafka) that have connected left and right. Why critique liberalism today? Does such thinking in fact unite both poles of the political spectrum? To what extent can critiques of liberalism be seen to shape legal and political reasoning, including changing constitutional law doctrine?

This seminar examines the procedural and substantive law governing collateral challenges to criminal convictions in state and federal courts, and explores the tensions between the criminal justice system's competing interests in finality and production of reliable convictions and sentences. The course includes a historical overview of modern habeas corpus, and will examine substantive areas of habeas law, including exhaustion, procedural default, successive petitions, cognizable claims, prejudice and harmless error, the role of innocence, the enactment and interpretation of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), statutes of limitations and equitable tolling.

Antisemitism, a deep-seated prejudice against Jews, is seeing a global revival. The most brutal U.S. instance was the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue massacre, where Robert G. Bowers, an active antisemitic online poster, took 11 lives. Tried in 2023, he was condemned to death for his crimes. As emphasized by Assistant U.S. Attorney Soo C. Song, Bowers was driven by his belief that Jews are a cancer upon the planet. Bowers' trial was only the most recent in a series of trials and judicial proceedings, both in the U.S. and internationally, that had antisemitism at their core in a myriad of ways. This course examines various manifestations of antisemitism in law and jurisprudence, from 19th century Europe to early 20th century America to Nazi Germany and the Stalinist U.S.S.R. to the present. Among the topics covered are blood libel trials, the Dreyfus affair in France, the Leo Frank trial in Georgia, the defamation case against Henry Ford, the Nazi Nuremberg laws, the annihilation of European Jews as the core of the crimes against humanity charge at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, and contemporary proceedings charging a hostile anti-Semitic environment at certain U.S. colleges and universities under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Selected research and writing topics drawing from fluid FinTech issues, developments in Alternative Finance, Digital Assets and Digital Engagement Practices (DEPs). Rapidly changing technologies, asset structures and platforms can shape our economy as well as the conduct of market participants. All of these topics are examples, (not exclusive examples) of appropriate material for student research/writing. Upon the professor's approval, students will identify their individual research topics and devote the term to writing a 30-40 page article of a caliber suited for publication in an academic or trade journal. Several students in a forerunner offering of this course had their course papers published in prestigious academic journals.

This course will explore abolition theory and abolitionist movements for change (praxis). The nationwide demonstrations against police violence in 2020 increased attention and public calls for transformational reforms to law enforcement and the criminal legal system. Some of these social movements have centered abolition in their calls for transformative change. These calls reflect the frustration that activists have had with the ongoing harms of legal reforms and the failure of such reforms to end ongoing police and state violence, particularly against Black people, but also against Latino/a, indigenous, disabled, and transgendered communities. In this course, we will focus our analysis and discussion on the objectives and methods of those pushing for transformative change and abolition. We will explore the tensions and choices made between reformist and abolitionist efforts; abolitionist methodology, including its historical analysis of race-, gender-, disability- and class-based subordination, racial capitalism, and settler colonialism; ways to evaluate the success of these movements for transformative change; current and potential failures and/or backlash; and the viability of policies and practices that can be characterized as abolitionist, or non-reformist reforms. Through student led class facilitation, class discussion, and writing, this course invites you to imagine pathways and methodologies toward abolition, reflect on such efforts, and/or offer critiques of current abolitionist efforts.

This seminar will explore what the idea of property means, and its usefulness in resolving issues of intense social conflict. Seminar sessions will encourage student participation, with the instructor guiding that discussion.

A continuation of the First Amendment Clinic for advanced students, with emphasis on leadership roles and advanced litigation skills.

Critical Theory in Clinical Practice, open only to students concurrently enrolled in a Cornell Law School clinic, focuses on issues relating to critical theory, social justice, and their intersection with clinical practice. Students will engage with issues of race, gender, class, disability, and other elements of social difference through academic scholarship and in-class exercises, and by exploring how these issues impact their clinic work. Lecture, case rounds, and in-class discussion will form the foundation of instruction. The course seeks to increase community and dialogue amongst clinical students across practice areas, and provide an entry-point into an interdisciplinary, systemic, and critical examination of legal practice representing marginalized, under-resourced, and public interest clients. The class will meet every other week for a total of seven times. Enrollment is limited to students currently enrolled in a Cornell Law School clinic.

Lectures on the structure of the federal securities laws; the operations of brokers, dealers, investment advisers, exchanges and other financial intermediaries; the regulation of broker-dealers, investment advisers and other intermediaries under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and other federal statutes, state securities (blue sky) laws, and self-regulatory organization (SRO) rules; securities trading and markets; investment banking and research; insider trading prevention and supervision; anti-money laundering (AML); information privacy and security; SEC and SRO enforcement. The course focuses primarily on substantive obligations under the federal securities laws. Individual lectures also emphasize: (1) traditional common law principles underlying statutory requirements, particularly with regard to the functions of brokers, dealers and investment advisers; (2) concepts of federalism, constitutional limitations, and the division of labor created by Congress under the statutes between the SEC, the states and the SROs in formulating and administering legal, professional and ethical standards; and (3) specific policy objectives for investor protection, capital formation and market structure, the legislative reforms made to carry them out, and their intended and unintended consequences. Case studies highlight major developments and progressions in financial regulations.

Asian Americans have played a prominent role in America's legal history. Despite their small numbers, Asian Americans have been at the center of many legal controversies -- some historic that involved issues still of relevance today and some contemporary that present challenging and contentious questions. The objective of this course is to examine the legal history of people of Asian descent in the United States. The method of the class is to focus on primary legal sources: the Constitution, statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions, to trace this history and the themes it reveals. The seminar will be divided into four units, each to be covered over approximately three classes. We begin in Unit 1 with Arrival, Exclusion, and Citizenship -- the arrival of Asians in America and the first immigration statutes, the exclusion laws, the recent travel ban, and the question of citizenship. In Unit 2, we examine Historical Discrimination -- early violence against Asian Americans and efforts by state and local governments to regulate Asians in the United States. In Unit 3, we turn to Internment and Redress and Reparations -- the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the efforts to obtain redress and reparations. Finally, in Unit 4, we consider Contemporary Issues -- profiling and the question of spies, employment discrimination and the so-called Bamboo Ceiling, education and the thorny issue of reverse discrimination, the concept of the model minority, and contemporary violence against Asians, including during the pandemic. The last class will be reserved for summation and concluding discussions about the themes of the class.

This course explores new developments at the intersection of law and information technology. The class is structured as a series of dialogues with a diverse group of scholars - professors, practitioners, journalists, and others -- investigating how law and new technologies interact with and shape one another across many different domains. Students will be exposed to innovative research about technology policy, privacy, platforms, law enforcement, the nature of expertise, and the changing nature of legal and technical practice. The class will include both a public lecture component and a smaller group discussion.

Constitutions claim to be stable, yet they usually include a framework for their own revision. This class will explore different explanations of constitution-making found in constitutional theory and political philosophy. Besides this “constituent power,” we will also look into what factors facilitate and impede the amendment and replacement of constitutions. We will start by analyzing the standard theories of constituent power. Then, we will cover more recent characterizations of this normative concept, especially that of Philip Pettit, for whom the possibility of constituent power hinges on particular cognitive attitudes. In the second half of the course, we will look into the justifications for and against amending constitutions, or even replacing them outright. We will focus on the theories of explicit and implicit constitutional unamendability, as well as study the arguments used against them.

This seminar offers an examination of how tradition and embedded cultural values have influenced the legal modernization in contemporary China. The focus of the seminar will be on the issues and dilemmas confronting China's ideal of empowering its state and people through the use of law. Topics will include the rule of law vs. the rule of Li (rituals and gifts), individual rights vs. collective interests, preference of informal justice over formal justice, cultivation of citizenship, growth of civil society, and the role of law in promoting the rights and interests of women, ethnic minority groups and disabled persons, and facilitating economic development. Interdisciplinary approaches will be employed in this seminar to facilitate understanding of Chinese legal tradition and its modern transformations, which include the efforts since the late 19th century of borrowing Western law and institutions and implementing current law reforms in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Readings are drawn from English translations of Chinese codes, cases and literary works, and academic writings by Western and Chinese scholars.

In this course, we will discuss the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Air Carrier Access Act as well as the historical contexts in which they were passed and the current context in which they are enforced. Together, we'll think through theories of disability that underly these laws, work in opposition to them, or don't intersect at all. These are likely to include the medical model, the social model, how disability and modernity have co-developed, intersections between disability and other human identity taxonomies, how concepts of disability work with other ideologies of difference such as feminism, racialized identities, and value systems associated with paid work under capitalism. We'll talk about what we mean when we call disability visible or invisible, Descartes' mind-body dualism, cyborg theory, anti-work theory, disability and forced intimacy, disabled marriage equality, and who is allowed subjectivity within disability constructs. We'll ask the difficult questions: can we find the edge between disability and ability? What, exactly, is a body, and why? For whom is disability useful? We will learn through reading, but also through film and audio. Works may include those by by Judith Heumann, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Marta Russel, Alice Wong, Eli Claire Jasbir K. Puar, and others

The United States Constitution was rooted in a governmental concept unique to the eighteenth century and unique to today- the separation of powers. This concept was intended by the Framers to limit, if not eliminate, centralized power in any one branch, which they regarded as a breeding ground for tyranny and as repugnant to liberty. The first Congress enacted, after ratification, 10 Amendments to the Constitution (The Bill of Rights) guaranteeing individual rights and liberties and protection thereof by due process of law. Throughout the course of this country's history there have been periods of war and conflict, foreign and domestic, when the system of checks and balances, integral to the separable triad, may have malfunctioned as a bullwork. As well, during these times, there have been putative governmental deprivations of liberties safeguarded by the Bill of Rights. Would the Framers and members of the first Congress have understood that certain governmental measures, inconsistent with the intended limitations of governmental power and intrusions on liberty, were sometimes required? Should we accept these inconsistencies and deprivations? The course will include a study of executive actions, legislation, and Supreme Court decisions during times of war and conflict when the law of the land has arguably fallen silent.

Can be taken concurrently by LLM, JSD, or other non-JD students with permission from the instructor. Since the so-called New Deal Settlement of the late 1930s, courts have largely adhered to the view expressed by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in his dissent in Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 75 (1905), that the Constitution does not embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire. Nonetheless, issues of economic regulation remain fundamental to constitutional law-both within and outside the courts. This seminar explores some of those issues, with an emphasis on the relation between economics, the Constitution, and politics.

This course will introduce students to the law and policy governing digital assets, particularly crypto assets, a super-set of computer software protocols. The professor will approach the course from his perspective as a full-time business planner and advisor with more than 40 years of experience in major law firms and the SEC. The bankruptcies of FTX and other centralized crypto companies will be explored in this seminar. Crypto assets include cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins, consumption tokens, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other decentralized finance (DeFi) assets, often traded on exchanges and sometimes managed by decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). The applicable law is a combination of securities, commodities, derivatives, banking, money transmission, business organization and other US federal and state laws. Attention also will be given to non-US law in this seminar and to pending US federal legislation. Political economy views and choices, game theory and concerns about regulatory capture, the environment and inclusion of historically underbanked communities also will inform instruction and classroom discussions. Pedagogy of the course will consist of assigned readings (articles, cases, existing and proposed regulations and legislation) underlying seminar discussions. There might be occasional guest speakers from diverse sectors of the digital assets industry and the practicing Bar. Students will be expected to participate via Q&A when guest speakers present. A final paper also will be required.

This course will provide an overview of legal and ethical issues in the provision of health care in the United States. It will provide a foundational understanding of bioethics, which forms the ethical basis for modern health care decision-making, as well as how it interplays with law and medicine. After building an ethical and legal knowledge base, the class will focus on selected bioethics issues and how they arise in patient care. Topics to be discussed will include informed consent, advance directives (health care proxies, living wills, etc.), surrogate decision-making for incapacitated adults and for children, reproductive health care issues, and end-of-life treatment issues, including medical futility. Students will be graded based upon participation and a written paper discussing an ethical and legal issue arising in a health care setting.

This seminar will allow students to gain the knowledge, expertise and confidence to successfully advocate and resolve copyright disputes. Seminar content will include the elements of direct and secondary liability; demonstrating and defending against claims of substantial similarity; navigating through the ever-evolving defense of fair use; enhancing or minimizing actual and statutory damages; the application of the Copyright Act statute of limitations; and negotiating strategies. Student will sharpen their skills in applying these concepts through in-class presentations in nearly every class, many of which will be videotaped. Students will also prepare a 5-page memo, based on the facts of an actual case, analyzing whether infringing content qualifies for fair use. Towards the end of the semester each student will start a mock litigation based on a hypothetical fact pattern by drafting a complaint and answering a fellow student's complaint. During the final two classes each student will negotiate with a fellow student (one playing the role of plaintiff's counsel and the other defendant's counsel) in an attempt to settle the mock litigation. The negotiation sessions will be videotaped. After each session, fellow students and the professor will provide feedback and guidance.

This course addresses students to key issues in Middle East legal systems and politics today. It introduces the current Middle East by drawing upon cutting-edge scholarships written from a diversity of disciplinary views. These include history, law, political science, as well as studies of religion, gender, mass media, sexuality, human rights, and urban life. It will emphasize the main tendencies and movements in modern Arabian World history. It will analyze both groundwork (basics) in Middle Eastern research and a common sense of modern directions and tracks in the field. It examines the people, traditions, society and politics of the area and the role that religion, gender, culture have played in designing and influencing contemporary issues. It discusses the fundamental internal and external performers in the region; peace and conflict (Israel/Palestine); the geo-strategic significance of the region; political economy matters; political transformation and development; the problem of identities in the Middle East and legal philosophies around this; family law issues (inheritance); the politics of religion (appearance of political Islam); Arab constitutionalism, September 11 and the fall-out in the region from the US-led war on terrorism, the Arab Spring, and the unfolding uprisings in the Arab World. Also, this course will introduce the field of Islamic law.

This course evaluates claims about the benefits and drawbacks of the contemporary American jury. Drawing on the work of legal scholars and social scientists, we will explore a range of topics relating to criminal and civil juries, including: jury selection; the use of jury consultants; juror perceptions of attorneys, evidence, and experts; individual and group decision making processes; jury instructions; jury deliberations; damage awards; juries in death penalty cases; and jury reform. By studying legal and empirical scholarship about the jury, and by writing their own research papers about a jury topic, seminar participants should develop insights into jury trial functioning and policy debates over the jury's role.

This seminar examines selected legal issues and documents in connection with capital raising transactions by companies and investment banks in the United States securities markets. Initial public offerings and offerings of investment grade and high yield debt securities will receive special focus. The seminar will review the essential aspects of equity and debt securities offerings such as the preparation of the prospectus, investor protection covenants in debt offerings, the indemnification and other key provisions of underwriting agreements, and the due diligence process. The seminar will include negotiation and problem-solving exercises, basic drafting, and student analyses of deal-related issues.

In this seminar, students will learn to analyze and evaluate customary commercial real estate transaction agreements, such as purchase and sale contracts, management, development and joint venture agreements, space and ground leases, debt financing instruments and commitment letters and term sheets, with particular attention given to the give and take involved in negotiating these documents and their business rationale.