Law (LAW)
LAW 2650 - Psychology and Law (4 Credits)
Crosslisted with HD 2650, PSYCH 2650
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: undergraduates.
Distribution Requirements: (D-AG, SBA-AG)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 3281 - Constitutional Politics (4 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: undergraduates.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 3800 - Economics and the Law (4 Credits)
Crosslisted with ECON 3800
Examines, through the lens of economic analysis, legal principles drawn from various branches of law, including contracts, torts, and property.
Distribution Requirements: (OCE-IL, QP-IL), (SBA-AG)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
Learning Outcomes:
- By the end of the course, students should be able to use basic economic analysis to better understand how the law does and should decide cases in various branches of law.
LAW 3887 - International Human Rights in Theory and Practice (4 Credits)
Crosslisted with GOVT 3887
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.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG)
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-SBY); (SAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Summer 2024, Winter 2024, Summer 2023 LAW 3920 - The U.S. Constitution: Crisis, Change and Legitimacy (4 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2020
LAW 4013 - Antisemitism in the Courts and in Jurisprudence (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with JWST 4013
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
LAW 4021 - Competition Law and Policy (4 Credits)
Crosslisted with ECON 3805
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.
Prerequisites: ECON 1110 or its equivalent.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: undergrads.
Distribution Requirements: (OCE-IL, QP-IL), (SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2020
Learning Outcomes:
- This course examines, through the lens of economic analysis, legal principles drawn from various branches of law, including contracts, torts, and property. Cases are assigned for class discussion; in addition, there are exams and writing assignments. By the end of the course, students should be able to use basic economic analysis to better understand how the law does and should decide cases in various branches of law.
LAW 4031 - Introduction to the Global Study of Law (4 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Summer 2024, Summer 2023, Summer 2022
LAW 4051 - Death Penalty in America (4 Credits)
Crosslisted with AMST 4051
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: undergraduates.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
LAW 4061 - Fashion Law (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023
LAW 4081 - International Human Rights Law and Advocacy (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with GOVT 3087
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: undergraduates.
Distribution Requirements: (CA-AG), (OCE-IL)
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-SBY)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022 LAW 4131 - The Nature, Functions, and Limits of Law (4 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: undergraduate students.
Distribution Requirements: (SBA-AG)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 4330 - Environmental Law and Policy (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 4443 - International Environmental Law and Policy (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 4556 - Gender, Race, and Law in Global Political Economy (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with HIST 4556, ILRGL 4556
Distribution Requirements: (ICE-IL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 5000 - Cornell Law School (12 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2020, Fall 2017, Spring 2011
LAW 5001 - Civil Procedure (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 5020 - Microeconomics for Management (2.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NCC 5020
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Johnson MBA first-year students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Summer 2022
LAW 5021 - Constitutional Law (4 Credits)
A study of basic American constitutional law, including structural aspects of the Constitution and certain of its rights provisions.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 5041 - Contracts (4 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 5061 - Criminal Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 5081 - Lawyering (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 5090 - Advanced Financial Statement Analysis (1.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 5090
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.
Prerequisites: NBA 5060, finance immersion course, or permission of instructor.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 5091 - Strategy (2.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NCC 5090
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Johnson MBA first-year students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Summer 2022
LAW 5101 - Professional Development: Laywers in the Best Sense (0.5 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: First Year Law Students.
Learning Outcomes:
- Student will conduct themselves with the highest moral and ethical standards.
- Develop Professionalism with Effective Communication and Dialogue.
- Understand the Legal Profession.
- Develop Networking and Mentorship relationships.
- Understand Wellness needs and resources as a Student and Lawyer.
LAW 5121 - Property (3-4 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 5151 - Torts (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 5311 - Introduction to Entrepreneurial Finance: Firm Valuation and Term Sheets (1 Credit)
Crosslisted with TECHIE 5311
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 5330 - Environmental Law and Policy (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with CRP 5331
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 5443 - International Environmental Law and Policy (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 6000 - Law In-Absentia Study (12 Credits)
This course is for Law students who have been approved for one semester of in-absentia study at an ABA accredited law school.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Law students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024, Spring 2024
LAW 6001 - Accounting for Lawyers (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6002 - Bioethics: From Nuremberg to Modern Times (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020, Summer 2009
LAW 6003 - Becoming Thriving Law Students (2 Credits)
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).
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 6007 - Contracts for LLM Students (3 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: LL.M. students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6009 - Constitutional Law for LLMs (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 6010 - Civil Procedure for LLMs (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 6011 - Administrative Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6012 - Administrative Law Research (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2018, Fall 2017, Fall 2016
Learning Outcomes:
- Engage effectively in legal research, analysis, and problem solving in a time frame appropriate to legal practice.
- Communicate effectively in both oral and written form as counselors and advocates.
- Possess the practical skills fundamental to exceptional lawyering and client representation.
- Conduct themselves with the highest moral and ethical standards.
LAW 6013 - Business Litigation (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6015 - Class Actions Law and Practice (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022
LAW 6016 - Cybersecurity Crisis Management Workshop (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 6024 - Managing and Resolving Conflict (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with ILRGL 6012
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022
LAW 6025 - Private Funds (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6027 - Campus Mediation Practicum (4 Credits)
Crosslisted with ILRGL 6027
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: ILRGL 6027: graduate students and LAW 6027: law students.
Distribution Requirements: (ICE-IL)
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 6029 - Campus Mediation Practicum II: Advanced Issues in Restorative Justice (4 Credits)
Crosslisted with ILRGL 6029
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.
Prerequisites: ILRGL 6027 or LAW 6027.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: graduate students for ILRGL 6029 and law students for LAW 6029.
Distribution Requirements: (ICE-IL)
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023 Learning Outcomes:
- Students will build on the knowledge gained in Campus Mediation Practicum I which sets the stage for the role restorative justice can effectively play in resolving conflict in multiple settings and environments.
- 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 the Judicial Administrator and referrals from other Cornell University offices.
- Students will conduct research and write a paper exploring the global use of restorative justice programs in a wide variety of contexts.
LAW 6030 - Philosophy of Punishment (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with PHIL 6475
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2021
LAW 6039 - Real Estate Tax (3 Credits)
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).
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 6051 - Advanced Legal Research in Business Law (1 Credit)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5081.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 6055 - In-House Lawyers: Day-to-Day, Deals and Managing a Crisis (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
LAW 6060 - Financial Statement Analysis (1.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 5060
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6067 - Compliance Systems (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6070 - Federal Policy Making in Action (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Learning Outcomes:
- Describe how policy is formulated in executive agencies.
- Advance policy objectives through the budget and the appropriations process.
- Explain how policy development by executive agencies is influenced by congressional involvement.
- Engage the public in policy making.
LAW 6081 - Animal Law (1-3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6085 - Law Practice Technology (2 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5081.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2019
LAW 6091 - Introduction to the American Legal System (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6092 - Litigating Across Borders (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2022
LAW 6101 - Antitrust Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6103 - Art Law (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5121.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2016, Fall 2013
LAW 6104 - The Art of Written Advocacy (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 6105 - Deciphering DeFi: Legal, Governance and Economic Issues Facing Decentralized Finance Platforms (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6111 - Arbitration Law and Practice (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6114 - Big Red Ventures (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 5075
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6120 - Bankruptcy and Restructuring (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 6121 - Bankruptcy (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 6121
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
LAW 6122 - Public Health Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022
LAW 6127 - Transnational Litigation (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
Learning Outcomes:
- Possess knowledge of the substantive and procedural law required for effective participation in the legal profession.
- Engage effectively in legal research, analysis, and problem solving in a time frame appropriate to legal practice.
LAW 6131 - Business Organizations (3-4 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6134 - Comparative EU and US Regulation: AI, Climate Change, and Antitrust (1 Credit)
LAW 6135 - Bioethics Mediation and Resolution of Ethical Dilemmas in Health Care (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6138 - Blockchain, DeFi and Evolving Regulatory Issues (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Learning Outcomes:
- Possess the practical skills fundamental to exceptional lawyering and client representation.
LAW 6146 - AI Law and Policy (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6158 - Client Counseling (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 6159 - Racism and the Law (2 Credits)
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.
LAW 6161 - Comparative Law: The Civil Law Tradition (3 Credits)
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.
Exploratory Studies:
(AFAREA, EAAREA, EUAREA, LAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021 LAW 6162 - Comparative Constitutional Law (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2024, Spring 2012, Spring 2009
LAW 6163 - Comparative Death Penalty Law (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2024
LAW 6164 - Comparative EU and US Regulation: AI, Climate Change, and Antitrust (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025
LAW 6177 - Comparative Legal Studies (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Summer 2024, Summer 2023, Summer 2022
LAW 6187 - Foundations of Public International Law (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2023
LAW 6188 - Trial by Jury: A Global Perspective (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2023, Summer 2014
LAW 6192 - Conflict of Laws (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2021
LAW 6193 - The Practice of International Arbitration (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6198 - Current Issues in Health Law and Policy (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6201 - First Amendment Law (2-3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5021.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 6203 - First Amendment: Speech and Press Clauses (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5021. Cannot be taken concurrently.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2021
LAW 6204 - Cornell Prison Education Program Teaching Practicum (3 Credits)
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.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022 LAW 6205 - Cyber Enforcement, Regulation and Policy Analysis (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6207 - Human Rights in Law and Culture (3 Credits)
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?
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 6209 - Cornell Prison Education Program Teaching Practicum (5 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 6230 - Copyright Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
Learning Outcomes:
- Possess knowledge of the substantive and procedural law required for effective participation in the legal profession.
- Identify key copyright and other intellectual property issues faced by creators and business owners.
- Recognize key contract issues regarding ownership and or assignment of copyrightable subject matter, including works made for hire.
- Explain why a particular work is entitled to copyright protection and the key limitations (such as Fair Use) that may be raised against this family of exclusive rights.
- Understand the policies behind the various limitations found in U.S. Copyright law.
- Understand the range of available remedies for copyright infringement.
- Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. Copyright system in the Digital Age.
LAW 6231 - Comparative Copyright and Knowledge Protection (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: a prior course in intellectual property or copyright is strongly recommended.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
LAW 6235 - Corporate Bankruptcy and Restructuring (2 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 6880
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.
Prerequisites: NCC 5060, NCC 5560, or similar course, with instructor approval. A solid finance background is neccessary to be successful in this course.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6238 - Adv Admin Law: Food & Agr Reg (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020
LAW 6241 - Federal White Collar Crime (3 Credits)
This course introduces the criminal statutes and procedural rules most commonly used in prosecuting white collar crime.
Prerequisites: LAW 5061.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2021, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
LAW 6243 - U.S. Surveillance: Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Private Actors (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020
LAW 6244 - Corporate Governance: Corporate Acquisitions and Capital Structure (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Summer 2022, Summer 2019, Summer 2018
LAW 6251 - Law and Politics of the Carceral State (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2021
LAW 6263 - Criminal Procedures: Adjudications (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6264 - Criminal Procedures: Investigations (3-4 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5021.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6265 - Critical Race Theory (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 6266 - Critical and Strategic Thinking (1.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NCC 5050
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Johnson MBA first-year students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Summer 2022
LAW 6267 - Race and the Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 6269 - Improv, Storytelling and Trial Advocacy (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6273 - Consumer Data Privacy (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6274 - Advanced Legal App Building (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021
LAW 6283 - Cybersecurity Law and Policy (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2021
LAW 6295 - The Death Penalty in America (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 6297 - Private Equity 101 (1 Credit)
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.
Prerequisites: Prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6131.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 6298 - Private Equity Playbook (2 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 6970
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 6131.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
LAW 6299 - Culture and Diversity in Professional Sports Organizations (2 Credits)
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).
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 6301 - Directed Reading (1-3 Credits)
An examination of a topic through readings selected by arrangement between the instructor and an individual student or group of students (not exceeding eight).
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6302 - Data Analytics and Modeling (2.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NCC 5010
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Johnson MBA first-year students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Summer 2022
LAW 6304 - Delivering Legal Services through Technology - Legal Tech Insights and App-Building Skills (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6305 - Digital Health Law (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6306 - Digital Property (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 6311 - Education Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
LAW 6315 - Topics in Higher Education Law (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 6330 - Environmental Law and Policy (3-4 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024
LAW 6331 - Employment Law (1-3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 6332 - Employment Law Fundamentals (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 6334 - Negotiation Skills Workshop – Complex Deal Making in the World of Tech (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 6335 - Emerging Growth Companies and Venture Capital Financing: Principles and Practice (2 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 6131.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
LAW 6336 - Law and Regulation of Artificial Intelligence (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 6341 - The Intersections of Immigration and Employment Policy and Law (2 Credits)
LAW 6344 - International Labor Law (1.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with ILRGL 6344
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA)
LAW 6345 - Entertainment Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 6361 - Environmental Law (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6011.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2019
LAW 6365 - Climate Change Law and Policy (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 6392 - Ethics and Corporate Culture (1.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 5140
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6401 - Evidence (3-4 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6421 - Family Law (4 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 6430 - Financial Markets and Institutions (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 5430
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6431 - Federal Courts (4 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6432 - Federal Criminal Practice (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2019
LAW 6433 - Ethics in Policing (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
Learning Outcomes:
- Analyze and debate the history, law, and public policy surrounding ethical and effective policing.
- Gain a better understanding how on and off-duty behavior, evolving technologies, uses of force, and race relations affect police legitimacy.
- Assess how municipalities, states, the federal government, courts, the public and other key interest groups examine police conduct in the context of crime reduction, technology, race relations, and other demographics.
- Formulate responses by courts, grand juries, and the federal Department of Justice to a variety of police conduct, policies, and tactics.
LAW 6434 - Talmudic Legal Reasoning (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6435 - Managing Criminal Defense Practice in State and Federal Prosecutions (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 6436 - Practicing Criminal Defense in Federal Court (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 6437 - Federal Practice and Procedure (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023
LAW 6441 - Federal Income Taxation (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6442 - Government Investigations (3 Credits)
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.
LAW 6451 - Indigenous Peoples and American Law (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with AIIS 6451
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6452 - The Law and Colonization in Indian Country (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021
LAW 6453 - Comparative Constitutional Law: Individual Rights in India and the United States (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021
LAW 6454 - Haudenosaunee - New York State Relations (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with AIIS 6454
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6456 - Transgender People and the Law (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6460 - Financial Accounting (2.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NCC 5000
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Johnson MBA first-year students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Summer 2022
LAW 6461 - Financial Institutions (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 6460
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
LAW 6463 - Globalizing Constitutional Law (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2022
LAW 6465 - Global M and A Practice (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6467 - Global Financial Markets (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2023, Summer 2017, Summer 2016, Summer 2015
LAW 6470 - High Growth Corporate Transactions (2 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: LL.M. Tech students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6471 - Health Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6472 - TECH: High Growth Corporate Transactions (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
LAW 6474 - High Growth Corporate Transactions II (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021
LAW 6475 - Hit the Ground Running: Skills and Techniques for Success on Day One (3 Credits)
LAW 6485 - Function of the General Counsel (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6501 - Insurance Law (3 Credits)
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.
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021 LAW 6509 - Immigration Federalism (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2023
LAW 6511 - Intellectual Property (3 Credits)
A survey of legal mechanisms for protecting intellectual property including patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and related state law doctrines.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6512 - Intellectual Property Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6521 - International Economic Law (3 Credits)
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA, LAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2020, Summer 2019, Spring 2018 LAW 6533 - Federal Income Taxation of Low-Income Taxpayers (2 Credits)
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.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021 Learning Outcomes:
- Develop effective communication skills when dealing with low-income taxpayers, including immigrant taxpayers.
- Attain analytical and functional competency in various areas of Federal and state tax law.
- Demonstrate working knowledge of ethics and ability to apply to real-world settings.
- Demonstrate the ability to solve practical tax problems that surround low-income taxpayers.
- Develop skills to be critical consumers of tax information and research.
LAW 6536 - Internet Transactions (1.5 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
LAW 6550 - Gender and the Law (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with HIST 6555
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022
LAW 6554 - Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on Work Law: Race, Gender, and Capital (4 Credits)
Crosslisted with HIST 6554, ILRGL 6554
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 6556 - Gender, Race, and Law in Global Political Economy (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 6560 - Intermediate Accounting (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 5000
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.
Prerequisites: NCC 5000 or equivalent.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6561 - International Human Rights (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6564 - International Taxation (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 6441 or permission of instructor.
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020 LAW 6566 - Intensive Depositions (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6568 - Internet Law, Privacy and Security (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6569 - Introduction to Depositions (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6572 - Introduction to Transactional Lawyering (2 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: Prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6131.
Exploratory Studies:
(EAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021 LAW 6575 - Depositions (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6584 - International Trade Law - Short Course (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 6592 - Labor Law, Practice and Policy (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
LAW 6601 - Land Use Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2019
LAW 6609 - Discovery Disputes (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 6613 - Law and Development (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020
LAW 6614 - Law Team (1-1.5 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: LL.M. Tech students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6616 - Law and Development (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 6625 - Law and Society in North Korea (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
LAW 6631 - Startup Legal Issues - Early Stage Financing and VC Terms (1.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 6890
An analysis of key issues that an emerging high growth business must consider and address when incorporating and raising capital.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6632 - Transnational Corruption and the Law (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5061.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6635 - The Fight Against Unemployment: Advocacy and Policy (1.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with ILRID 6635, PUBPOL 5848
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: graduate students.
Distribution Requirements: (ICE-IL)
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2020 LAW 6641 - Professional Responsibility (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6643 - Law of Robots (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
LAW 6644 - Derivatives Law and Policy (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2020
LAW 6645 - The Fight Against Unemployment: Engaged Learning Option (1.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with ILRID 6645
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.
Corequisites: ILRID 6635 or LAW 6635.
Enrollment Information: Permission of instructor required.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2020 LAW 6646 - NFTs: Legal and Business Considerations (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6649 - Anticorruption Laws: Rule of Law, Practice, and Public Policy (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022
LAW 6652 - Managerial Finance (2.5 Credits)
Crosslisted with NCC 5060
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Johnson MBA first-year students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Summer 2022
LAW 6654 - Negotiating Your Series A: Legal Aspects of Early Stage Venture Funding (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6661 - Constitutional Law of the European Union (3 Credits)
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.
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2021 LAW 6681 - International Law and Foreign Direct Investment (3 Credits)
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.
Exploratory Studies:
(LAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022 LAW 6710 - Law and Literature (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2020
LAW 6721 - Mergers and Acquisitions (4 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2020, Spring 2009
LAW 6722 - Local Government Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6723 - Aggregate Litigation – A Global Perspective (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021
LAW 6730 - Multicultural Work Environment I and II (1-2 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: students who will be working during the summer in a country other than that of their citizenship.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6734 - Music Law (3 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Limited enrollment to: Law students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6739 - Research and Analysis in Law Practice (1-2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Fall 2016
LAW 6742 - Patent Law (3 Credits)
This course will focus on U.S. patent law giving comprehensive coverage of doctrinal elements and touching on key policy issues.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite: an intellectual property survey course such as LAW 6511.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6743 - Conflicts in Patent Law and Practice (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2019
LAW 6744 - Contemporary Chinese Law and Society (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020
LAW 6745 - Doing Business in the Middle East (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 6746 - Doing Business in the European Union: Legal Framework (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 6751 - Partnership Tax (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 6441.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2021
LAW 6752 - Oral-Presentation Skills (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021, Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
LAW 6761 - Principles of American Legal Writing (2 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: graduate students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6764 - Practical Lawyering (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6766 - Regulation of Food and Drugs (3 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Limited enrollment to: Law students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021
LAW 6767 - Cannabis Law and Policy (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024
LAW 6768 - Public Finance (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: A basic understanding of some of the foundational principles of finance - such as those taught in Accounting, Business Organizations, Corporate Finance, or Financial Institutions.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6784 - Professional Responsibility for LLMs (3 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: LLM students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 6791 - Public International Law (3 Credits)
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.
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022 LAW 6797 - Rules and Technology (3 Credits)
LAW 6801 - Remedies (2 Credits)
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.
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021 LAW 6803 - Roman Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2021
LAW 6811 - Secured Transactions (2 Credits)
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2021, Spring 2010 LAW 6821 - Securities Regulation (3-4 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: Prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6131.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6822 - Social Science and the Law (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
LAW 6842 - The Controversial Expansion of Presidential Powers (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020
LAW 6843 - Comparative Military Justice: Theory and Practice (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021
LAW 6844 - State and Local Government (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2011
LAW 6845 - The Value of Dissent: The Iconic Dissents of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5021.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Spring 2021
LAW 6848 - Social Ventures (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2020
LAW 6860 - Starting a Crypto FinTech: Legal Roadmap and Case Studies (2 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Law students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022
LAW 6861 - Supervised Teaching (0-3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Winter 2024
LAW 6862 - Supervised Experiential Learning (1-3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6871 - Supervised Writing (1-3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6881 - Supervised Teaching and Supervised Writing - Lawyering Program Honors Fellows (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024, Spring 2024
LAW 6883 - Corporate Finance Transactions Workshop: Bootcamp (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 6890 - Tax Treaties (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021, Spring 2020
LAW 6891 - Taxation of Corporations and Shareholders (3 Credits)
This course examines the federal income taxation of corporate transactions, including incorporations, dividends, redemptions, liquidations, and reorganizations.
Prerequisites: LAW 6441.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6893 - Technology Transactions (2 Credits)
This course is designed to familiarize students with common issues that arise in, and how they are addressed by attorneys who structure, technology transactions.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: LL.M. Tech students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6896 - Technology Transactions II (2 Credits)
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.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Cornell Tech LLM students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 6897 - The Business of Law Firms in Today's Tech Economy: Operations, People, and Strategies for Success (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 6898 - The Art of Negotiation in Business and Sports (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 6921 - Trial Advocacy (5 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite: LAW 6401.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6923 - Intensive Trial Advocacy (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Winter 2025, Fall 2023, Winter 2023
LAW 6925 - Mass Torts (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 6935 - Structural Inequality and Social Change: Theory and Practice (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 6941 - Trusts and Estates (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 6946 - Race, Constitution and American Empire (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021
LAW 6953 - Trade Secrets Law and Practice (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2020, Spring 2019
LAW 6984 - Wellbeing and the Future of the Legal Profession (And Your Future in It) (2 Credits)
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?
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022
LAW 6985 - Becoming Thriving Lawyers (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024
LAW 6991 - Law Study Abroad (4-12 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7001 - Anti-Liberalisms (3 Credits)
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?
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7011 - Antitrust Law Seminar (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 7012 - Advanced Criminal Procedure: Post-Conviction Remedies (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: Prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6264.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2017, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
LAW 7013 - Antisemitism in the Courts and in Jurisprudence (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 7014 - Advanced Writing: FinTech, Alternative Finance and Digital Assets du Jour (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 7017 - Abolition: Imagining a Decarceral Future (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 7021 - Antitrust Law and High Technology (3 Credits)
LAW 7022 - Advanced Topics in Property Theory (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2021, Spring 2021
LAW 7030 - Biblical Law and Its Modern Interpreters (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 7032 - Comparative Property Law (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Spring 2021
LAW 7033 - Criminal Justice Reform (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021
LAW 7034 - First Amendment Law Clinic III (1-6 Credits)
A continuation of the First Amendment Clinic for advanced students, with emphasis on leadership roles and advanced litigation skills.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7035 - First Amendment Law Clinic IV (1-4 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7066 - Challenges to the Marketplace of Competing Ideas: Censorship and Regulation of Big Tech (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7072 - Animal Rights (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2019, Spring 2015
LAW 7077 - Critical Evaluation of Legal Information (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7078 - Critical Theory in Clinical Practice (1 Credit)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7083 - Broker-Dealer, Investment Adviser and Exchange Regulation (3 Credits)
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.
Learning Outcomes:
- Possess knowledge of the substantive and procedural law required for effective participation in the legal profession.
- Engage effectively in legal research, analysis, and problem solving in a time frame appropriate to legal practice.
- Communicate effectively in both oral and written form as counselors and advocates.
- Obtain a fundamental understanding of the federal regulation of brokers, dealers, investment advisers and other financial intermediaries. Research and write on specific issues relevant to financial services industry, companies and investors.
LAW 7084 - Asian Americans and the Law (2 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5021.
Exploratory Studies:
(SAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022 LAW 7086 - Business and Human Rights (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022
LAW 7097 - Empirical Legal Studies Colloquium (3 Credits)
LAW 7113 - Technology and Law Colloquium (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with INFO 6113
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
LAW 7115 - Race and Technology Colloquium (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 7120 - Creating, Amending, and Replacing Constitutions: The Problem of Constituent Power (1 Credit)
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.
LAW 7123 - Chinese Law: Tradition and Modernization (3 Credits)
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.
Exploratory Studies:
(EAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2018 LAW 7124 - Disability Law and Theory (3 Credits)
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
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 7125 - Donald Trump's Constitution (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021
LAW 7130 - The Constitution in Times of War and Conflict (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 7133 - The Constitution's Political Economy (3 Credits)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 5021.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 7134 - Digital Assets (1 Credit)
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.
Prerequisites: LAW 6131.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 7135 - Bioethics and the Law Seminar (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024
LAW 7146 - Comparative Legal Philosophy (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2018
LAW 7156 - Copyright Litigation Lawyering (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7157 - Comparative Middle Eastern Law: Contemporary Issues (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2019
LAW 7162 - Contemporary American Jury (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2020
LAW 7166 - Deals Seminar: Capital Markets Transactions (3 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 7169 - Deals Seminar: Real Estate Transactions (2 Credits)
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.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7172 - Employment Discrimination (3 Credits)
This course considers legal prohibitions on employment discrimination. It focuses on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. We also discusses other statutes more briefly, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Legal readings will be supplemented by materials from history, psychology, philosophy, economics, and literature. The course will address topics including how to define discrimination, frameworks for proving discrimination, sexual harassment, affirmative action, and accommodation. We will examine questions including whether employment discrimination law should focus on protecting classes, eliminating stereotypes, or something else, whether the law should account for research from other disciplines such as history or psychology, and whether the law should forbid discrimination on the basis of additional categories.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2009, Fall 2008
LAW 7175 - Deals Seminar: Drafting and Analyzing Corporate Agreements (3 Credits)
This course is intended to familiarize students interested in a transactional practice with key provisions of significant contracts they may encounter. Its focus will be on clauses that are found in a variety of agreements, as well as what a corporate lawyer typically faces in addressing issues that arise in structuring and negotiating deals. The course does not address specialized areas (such as tax, intellectual property, environmental, labor, and employee benefits matters), but it will provide students interested in such a specialization with the context in which to better understand where their work fits into the bigger whole. Students will be expected to have read and thought about sample documents that will be discussed in class. Grading will be based on class participation and attendance, two drafting exercises, and a final examination. Professor Jacobs will teach a substantial portion of the course over videoconference.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2019
LAW 7176 - Deals Seminar: Hedge Funds, PE Funds, and Other Investment Vehicles (3 Credits)
This course will explore the regulatory and transactional side of funds/investment vehicles, including venture capital, hedge and private equity funds and public mutual funds. The course will explore how regulation interacts with the investment management industry.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
LAW 7178 - Moral Foundations of Anti-Discrimination (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with PHIL 6417
What makes discrimination wrongful, when it is? Does its wrongness depend on social context and historical background? Does it depend on harmful consequences? What makes a certain ground of discrimination an improper ground? Is indirect discrimination (disparate impact) really a form of discrimination or perhaps a mild form of affirmative action? What should be the reach and scope of anti-discrimination law? Should it allow for exemptions on religious or free speech grounds? We will address these and similar questions at a fairly abstract level, trying to understand the philosophical principles that might explain the various aspects of anti-discrimination law. Most of the legal examples will be focused on discrimination cases in the context of employment and service provision (Title VII), but we will also consider racial profiling, disability cases, and some others.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 7179 - Digital Life Research Seminar (1 Credit)
Crosslisted with INFO 7060
This seminar focuses on the societal perspectives on digital technology. Speakers will come from a range of disciplines including computer science, data science, engineering, OR, humanities, social sciences, law, and policy and will present work in progress that considers ethical and political questions related to the design, development, and deployment of digital, computational, and information systems and devices. Topics include accountable algorithms, bias in machine learning, AI and the workplace, privacy, and cybersecurity.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7182 - Eliminating Bias in Jury Selection: From the Composition of the Eligible Pool to the Voir Dire (3 Credits)
The course will include the history of the right to a jury in criminal cases, the history and status selection process from the composition of the jury pool to the courtroom, peremptory challenges, leading court decisions on jury selection such as Batson v. Kentucky, transparency, and diversity of juries. The course will further explore the ethical role of the Prosecutor to ensure justice specifically as it relates to the jury selection process.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023
LAW 7184 - Economic Analysis of Advanced Issues in Corporate Law (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 7187 - Disasters and Human Rights - Selected Issues (3 Credits)
This course examines domestic and international disaster law, with a focus on human rights interventions. Examples from across the globe show how the arc of disaster makes human rights violations both predictable and preventable. Key elements of the US domestic emergency response framework are covered in depth, with attention to areas that conflict with international human rights norms and obligations. The international disaster response framework is also examined. We also examine the US response to international disasters, including policy towards foreign nationals in the US when disaster strikes abroad. Finally, we consider questions of accountability for government actors and international organizations for human rights harms following a disaster. What the course does not do: This is not a survey course in international human rights. We will not cover the entire range of international instruments and mechanisms that potentially come into play within the context of disaster. They are endless. Rather, I include cases that I have personally worked on (Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti), those that stand as turning points in the development of disaster law and policy (Typhoon Haiyan), and others that reflect common themes. The goal is to impart a deeper understanding of pivotal issues and practical insights that can be applied across disaster contexts.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
LAW 7189 - Current Issues in Collective Bargaining (1 Credit)
Crosslisted with ILRGL 6189
This advanced level mini-course examines several key issues in today's collective bargaining between US private sector employers and unions. Through extensive pre-class readings and podcasts, and during four 3 hour classes, we will trace key developments that have set the table for today's bargaining environment, eg., the deindustrialization of the American economy, the decline of union workforce density, and the rise of defensive collective bargaining; examine resultant wage stagnation and troubled health care and defined benefit pension plans; investigate the effects and intersection of employment law and legislation on collective bargaining and dispute resolution; and consider the emerging arena of unionization in higher education.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7194 - Empirical Studies of the Legal System (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2011, Spring 2010
LAW 7230 - Faculty at Home Seminar (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024
LAW 7231 - Ethnoracial Identity in Anthropology, Language, and Law (4 Credits)
Crosslisted with ANTHR 6424, LSP 6424, AMST 6424
Exploratory Studies:
(AFAREA, LAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2021, Spring 2017, Spring 2015 LAW 7233 - Faculty At Home Seminar: Beyond English: Law, Lawyering, and Language Difference (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 7234 - Faculty At Home Seminar: The Laws of Surfing: Some Theoretical Puzzles (1 Credit)
Legal theory has long puzzled over a series of dilemmas regarding the regulation of social life. For example: Can effective regulation occur outside of the structures of the state and its legal system? How are social rules created, interpreted and enforced? This FAH seminar uses surfing as an excuse for discussing such issues. Surfing has a long set of conventional rules regarding behavior in the water. Who has priority to ride a wave? Are there limits to using the technicalities of such positional rules to gain priority? How are such rules enforced both in competition and in the water? The seminar will address such surfing questions by reading and discussing a series of classic texts ranging from Moby Dick on Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish to Bob Ellickson's work on the cattle ranchers of Shasta County, California.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 7236 - Faculty At Home Seminar: History of Legal Systems (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 7237 - Law and Lawyers in Contemporary Film (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 7248 - Faculty At Home Seminar: The 2024 Election and the Administrative State (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2016
LAW 7252 - Faculty At Home Seminar: Science Fiction and Law (1 Credit)
What is the law's relationship to biotechnology and bioengineering? How have advances in science impacted legal definitions of personhood, property, rights, and other core attributes of human-ness, and how has the law responded to these developments, especially in the midst of global climate change? This seminar will examine a series of science fiction texts in order to wrestle with such questions. Our materials will include novels (Asimov's Caves of Steel, Octavia Butler's Kindred) and films and television serials (Bladerunner), which we'll analyze alongside excerpts from specific legal decisions (Roe v Wade, Moore v UCLA).
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7257 - Public Finance and Political Economy (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 7259 - Faculty At Home Seminar: Constitutional Law in the News (1 Credit)
This course will explore constitutional issues in the news within the six months preceding the fall semester, and that arise during the semester. Most of the issues will be constitutional rights issues, but some structural issues may also be addressed. The class will meet for six sessions. Each student will be responsible for selecting one topic of discussion, and for, after consultation with the professor selecting readings appropriate for the topic. Each student will have partial responsibility for the discussion of his or her own topic, and also partial responsibility for the discussion of one topic chosen by another student.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7261 - Feminist Jurisprudence (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2019, Spring 2018, Fall 2016
LAW 7262 - Faculty At Home Seminar: Startup Law Lessons from the Satirical Silicon Valley (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2020
LAW 7264 - Faculty At Home Seminar: Fintech (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020
LAW 7265 - Faculty At Home Seminar: Catholic Social Thought and the Law (1 Credit)
With a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court, understanding Catholic thought on social justice and the law can help make sense of some of the most pressing legal controversies of our day. In this course, we will explore some of the foundational texts of Catholic thought on the relationship between law, morality, and social justice. Potential topics include private property, the environment, economic justice, reproductive rights, and end of life care.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2019
LAW 7267 - Comparative Contract Law (1 Credit)
The main focus of the course is to analyze some key institutions of contract law from a comparative perspective. The course will start with the illustration and the discussion of some general principles of contracts (civil law tradition v. common law tradition), such for instance formation and termination of contract. After a general introduction, the focus will be on a specific issue: illegality in contract law. Illegality is a fundamental problem that must be handled with attention. It covers different cases and obliges jurists to answer to difficult questions, such as if it is right that a party to a contract tainted by illegality not be able to recover from the other party the money initially paid under the contract or to what extent illegal conduct may deprive a claimant of its rights. The topic assumes primary importance because from the twentieth century onwards the statutes that include prohibitions have been multiplied, for instance to protect collective values, the environment, health, and so on. Faced with the flourishing of this kind of legislation, appropriate remedies must be applied. This issue will be analyzed in detail to make students aware of the fundamental similarities and differences between the contract laws in different legal systems.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
LAW 7268 - Faculty At Home Seminar: Challenging the Deep State (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021
LAW 7269 - FAHS: Critical Perspectives on Race and Migration (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
LAW 7270 - Foreign Affairs and the Separation of Powers (3 Credits)
The Constitution grants considerable responsibility over foreign affairs to the legislative branch, including the power of the purse and the power to authorize war. Yet critics suggest that in practice, Congress exercises few of its constitutional foreign-affairs powers and instead confers almost all responsibility on the executive. This course examines congressional and presidential powers over foreign affairs and war. Topics covered will include the theoretical legislative checks granted by the Constitution, debates about the interpretation of statutory authority granted to the legislature versus the executive, historical cases of how these branches have exercised their authority, and a study of contemporary questions about the separation of foreign-affairs powers, in particular the post-9/11 experience that critics charge has largely muted legislative checks.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2020, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
LAW 7271 - Faculty At Home Seminar: Sherlock Holmes for Lawyers (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021
LAW 7272 - Faculty at Home Seminar: Trauma and the Law (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7273 - Form and Substance in Corporate Law and Capital Markets Regulation (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 7275 - Faculty At Home Seminar: Laws of Nature: Touring the Legal Structures of Ithaca’s Environment (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
LAW 7280 - Rule of Law, Governance, and Human Rights in Afghanistan (3 Credits)
LAW 7282 - Gender and International Human Rights (3 Credits)
This course explores issues of gender through an international and comparative human rights law lens. We will examine international instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), as well as regional treaties, cases, and customs. Course topics will include intersectionality, gender-based violence, women in the criminal legal system, LGBTQI+ rights, reproductive rights, women in armed conflict, human trafficking, and other human rights issues through the prism of gender.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 7284 - The Force and Will of the Judicial Branch -The Controversial Expansion of Federal Judicial Power (3 Credits)
The course will explore the history of judicial branch power from its inception, when it was the weakest branch, to the present, where some legal scholars consider it to be second only to the executive branch in terms of power. The course will cover, among other topics, the emergence of judicial activism, the use of authority by the federal judiciary to enjoin the exercise of executive privilege on a myriad of topics, determinations by SCOTUS of what matters it will considerand decide (the shadow docket), lifetime tenure, and SCOTUS decisions which have a profound impact on citizens for generations. This power includes the authority to determine the outcome of elections.
Prerequisites: LAW 5021.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022
LAW 7286 - Gender and Sexual Minorities and the Law (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023
LAW 7287 - The Global Rise and Fall of Constitutionalism (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023
LAW 7288 - Insanity (3 Credits)
This seminar explores the law of insanity in depth. After a preliminary discussion about abolishing the defense altogether, we will study: insanity before M'Naghten, the rule set forth in M'Naghten, the irresistible impulse test, and the product test. We then look at two academic proposals: according to one, insanity is a form of profound irrationality; according to the other, insanity is a lost sense of agency. We end with a look at psychopathy.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 7295 - Global Labor and Employment Law (3 Credits)
The legal framework governing the employment relationship in most of the world is dramatically different from that of the US, reflecting differences between the civil law and common law systems as well as contrasting historical and cultural contexts. In this seminar, we will review the most important concepts of labor and employment law outside the US, including formation and termination of the employment relationship (just cause protections vs. US employment at will); the concept of information and consultation of works councils and other employee representative bodies; global discrimination and diversity matters; international labor standards; special employee protections which impact multinational corporate restructurings and transactions; non-competes and other restrictive covenants; and litigation of employment claims in systems which do not have US discovery and trial processes.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Law students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
LAW 7296 - Corporate Governance: Corporate Acquisitions and Capital Structure (1 Credit)
Corporate governance has time and again been the subject of extensive scrutiny. This course will focus on the U.S. approach to corporate governance, control, and accountability, in particular in two contexts—corporate acquisitions (hostile and friendly) and capital structure. Both acquisitions and capital structure provide a means to improve corporate governance. A principal focus will be on large, publicly-traded corporations, in particular, the potentially conflicting interests that the corporate form must mediate. The problems faced by businesses around the globe – raising and deploying capital, allocating rights and responsibilities among owners and managers, and combining two or more businesses, to name just a few – are much the same; but the solutions developed in different legal systems can be different. I will focus principally on the U.S. approach, but in the process, I expect to touch on some of the other solutions to these problems. Topics to be covered include basic fiduciary obligations, shareholder voting rights, the impact of capital structure on corporate governance, and corporate control transactions.
LAW 7299 - Constitutionalism from the Global South: Theory, Practice, Critique (1 Credit)
The political project of Constitutionalism claims universal validity. However, Constitutionalism is differently understood, justified, and implemented in different parts of the world. This class will explore the constitutionalism of the global south. We will start by attempting to draw analytical distinctions between the general project of constitutionalism and its justifications and theoretic underpinnings in the global south. Then, we will focus on the major trends in global south constitutional practice: (i) widespread access to the constitutional jurisdiction; (ii) judicial enforcement of socio-economic rights; (iii) the doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendments; (iv) projects of peacemaking through transitional justice, and (v) the 'constitutionalization' of private law. Finally, the course will assess various global south critiques of constitutionalism, and evaluate whether it offers a plausible alternative to the current model of American constitutionalism.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024
LAW 7310 - Intellectual Property and Health Technologies (3 Credits)
This seminar will examine the role and impact of intellectual property, especially patent law, on the quality, affordability and accessibility of healthcare to the public. It will look at the current patent laws and how recent changes to those laws affect the research and development of new medicines. This seminar will also examine the ethical dilemmas created by intellectual property and the conflict between the patent holder's property rights in the technology versus the public's rights to having access to the technology.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
LAW 7311 - Immigration and Refugee Law (2 Credits)
This course explores the evolving relationship between U.S. immigration policy and our national purposes. Immigration plays a central role in contemporary American life, significantly affecting our foreign relations, human rights posture, ethnic group relations, labor market conditions, welfare programs, public services, and domestic politics. It also raises in acute form some of the most basic problems that our legal system must address, including the rights of insular minorities, the concepts of nationhood and sovereignty, fair treatment of competing claimants for scarce resources, the imperatives of mass administrative justice, and pervasive discrimination. In approaching these questions, the course draws on diverse historical, judicial, administrative, and policy materials.
Prerequisites: LAW 5021.
Exploratory Studies:
(LAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021 LAW 7315 - International Law and the Use of Force (3 Credits)
This course addresses contemporary challenges to the international law relating to the use of force and is designed to introduce students to both jus ad bellum (the recourse to force) and jus in bello (conduct in war). We will explore both the circumstances that legally justify the use of force, including a discussion of self defense, humanitarian intervention, counter-piracy, and counter-terrorism, including drone strikes. We then investigate international humanitarian law, the set of principles that seek, for humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflict. Here we will include a discussion of the implications of nuclear weapons and autonomous weapons. The course will rely on legal analysis of questions relating to the use of force, while also covering case studies and current news events.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022
LAW 7321 - International Criminal Law (3 Credits)
This seminar examines the questions surrounding international criminal law as a separate discipline and the sources of and basic principles underlying the subject. Particular attention will be paid to the question of jurisdiction over international crimes. It will consider international crimes such as aggression; war crimes, crimes against humanity, terrorism, and torture. It will also consider the treatment of past human rights violations in post conflict situations. It will further consider procedural aspects of international criminal law and the forums that deal with international crimes. In that context, it will look at the structure, jurisdiction and jurisprudence of Truth Commissions; the International Criminal Court (The Rome Statute); the former Yugoslavia Tribunal; Rwanda Tribunal and mixed tribunals such as Cambodia Tribunal and Sierra Leone Tribunal. The format will be class discussions of assigned readings. Final assessment in the course will be based on participation in class discussions and a written paper on a subject falling within the themes of the seminar. Paper topics must be submitted to the instructor for review not later than the third week of class. Each student is expected to give a presentation based on his or her paper to the class.
Exploratory Studies:
(EUAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Spring 2021 LAW 7358 - International Environmental Law (3 Credits)
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. We will focus on the core domains of international environmental management, including oceans and fisheries, biodiversity conservation, transboundary air pollution, ozone layer protection, desertification, plastics pollution, and climate change. The course will also highlight the dynamic nature of the international legal process, including environmental diplomacy and the critical role of non-state actors and institutions, politics, economics, norms, and science in shaping international environmental law. Finally, we will examine how international laws and policies have developed, their current status, challenges and obstacles to effective implementation and enforcement, and how international legal regimes must evolve to be effective.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
LAW 7360 - International Financial Regulation (2 Credits)
This seminar provides an introduction to the international regulation of financial markets. No prior familiarity with financial regulation is required. The course will focus on two issues: (1) Why should financial markets be controlled? These sessions will discuss the need for financial regulation. What is so special about banks and other financial intermediaries that calls for state intervention? How should we regulate financial innovation? (2) How can financial markets be controlled, and how are the rules enforced, and by whom? These sessions will discuss the issue that financial actors operate on a global scale whereas regulation and supervision is carried out on a national level. How then can these global players be prevented from using the loopholes of nationally fragmented regulation and supervision? The focus will be on international standard setting, cooperation, extraterritorial regulation and cross-border enforcement issues. Examples will be drawn from recent international cases with connections to the U.S. External experts will be invited to some sessions. The course includes lectures and discussions. Students will have to write a short paper and give a presentation. This year's paper topic is the corporate governance of financial institutions and how it differs from regular corporate governance. The seminar is held in an accelerated format.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6131.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 7368 - International Organizations and The World Legal Order (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022
LAW 7371 - Islamic Law and History (3 Credits)
This course is designed to introduce law students to the terminology, principles, and concepts of classical Islamic law. After discussing the origins and evolution of Islamic law, we will turn first to the organization of qadi courts (procedure and evidence) and then to specific areas of the law, e.g., personal status (marriage and divorce), the intergenerational transmission of property (bequests, gifts, and endowments), commerce (contracts, hire, allocation of loss), and crime. The application of legal doctrine to actual disputes will be analyzed through the reading of expert judicial opinions or fatwas (in English translation) issued in connection with medieval and modern court cases.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
LAW 7372 - Issues in FinTech (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7373 - Judicial Decision Making (3 Credits)
Judges play a central role in the justice system. Despite their importance, judicial decision making remains poorly understood. How do judges make decisions? What influences their rulings? Obviously, the relevant law and the facts of cases matter, but whatother internal or external factors shape their judgments? Drawing on the work of judges, legal scholars, and social scientists, this seminar explores those questions. Among other things, the potential impact of political ideology, religion, race, gender, life experience, cognitive limitations, professional norms, workload, selection and retention, specialization, collegiality, hierarchy, litigant characteristics, and public opinion will be examined. The implications for effective advocacy, court reform, and the achievement of social justice will be addressed.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7374 - Judicial Opinion Writing (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2011, Fall 2010
LAW 7385 - Advanced Administrative Law: The Federal Sentencing Bureaucracy (3 Credits)
LAW 7399 - Land Use and Administrative Law in New York City (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7405 - Law and Ethics of Armed Conflict (3 Credits)
We will explore legal and policy frameworks involving armed conflict. A descriptive approach is utilized to examine what the law is, while a normative approach is embraced to inquire whether the law is what it should be. Beginning with the law related to utilizing armed force, we will assess paradigms such as traditional just war theory and the emerging revisionist perspective, the present United Nations construct, and other related models. Law and policy involving the conduct of hostilities and enforcement of that law are examined from an international, domestic, and comparative perspective. Practical application of law and policy is emphasized by engaging in a thorough case study of an actual incident involving the use of armed force and by exploring the effect of emerging technologies, such as cyber, artificial intelligence, and space capabilities, on the law.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
LAW 7406 - Law and Economics Colloquium (3 Credits)
This Colloquium will feature a series of presentations by leading scholars from around the country who are engaged in research at the intersection of law and economics. Typically, we will spend two weeks on each paper. In the first session, we will discuss the paper and situate it in the relevant literature. In the second week, the author visits our class to present and respond to questions about the paper, and we are joined by other law faculty and members of the Cornell community. Students are expected to participate in these discussions and write multiple response papers during the term, which review and critique the working papers. Final grades are based on students' response papers, presentations, and in-class participation. There are no formal prerequisites. Although a background in economics and/or statistics may be helpful, it is not expected, and students who are curious and prepared to work through the ideas in the papers are strongly encouraged to enroll.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 7411 - Law and Higher Education (3 Credits)
Institutions of higher education are dynamic organizations that vary in scope, form, and complexity. They are bastions of community, knowledge and scholarship producers, and are often significant economic drivers and cross-sector partners. This course covers the key doctrinal areas in the law of higher education in a seminar environment that will cultivate original thinking on legal, regulatory, and policy issues facing the field. In addition to the traditional tracks of higher education law, the course will address trending legal issues on college campuses including Title IX, free speech, cyber security, affirmative action, and tuition regulation.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2020
LAW 7440 - Law and Social Change: Comparative Law in Africa (0-4 Credits)
This seminar is designed for students interested in a comparative study of law in Africa. The seminar will include an introduction to multiple African legal systems, as well as African customary law, constitutional law, labor law, property law and family law. The seminar will examine the current law in the context of changes that have taken place in African society from colonization through the present day. Students will read cases and statutes from multiple African countries. Students will be encouraged to choose an area of law to conduct a comparative analysis in the required final paper. The seminar creates opportunities for multicultural experiences through immersion in South Africa's society and culture during a three-week winter trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, where students will receive instruction at the University of Johannesburg. (Travel assistance will be available based on demonstrated need. Please contact, Program Manager, IAD at 190 Uris Hall for more information.) The main objective of this aspect of the program is to enhance and reinforce academic learning by providing students the opportunity to actively engage with individuals and organizations directly involved in the administration of law in Africa in a variety of concentrations. The seminar will examine problems of law and how they have been addressed in Africa with particular attention to the interaction of the common law, African customary law, and other imported systems of law. Legal interaction between Africa and Europe, which began before colonial rule, intensified during the colonial period and has continued after independence. During the Colonial period, the Common Law and Civil law were imported into Africa and operated alongside customary law. The result is that pluralism of law is a common feature of legal systems in nearly all African states. The conflicts between the imported laws and customary law have generated considerable interest in reform and the integration of laws in various African countries as well as creating an opportunity to look to other legal system for alternative approaches.
Last Four Terms Offered: Winter 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 7450 - We the President: The Controversial Expansion of Presidential Power (3 Credits)
The course will address the history of presidential power and its constitutional and political implications. From the Age of Reason in 1787 to the present, the authority and power of the President of the United States has been the subject of intense scrutiny. The course will examine the executive branch relative to the enumerated and implied powers of that branch as shaped by war and conflict, presidential initiatives, congressional action, and judicial action. This will include the historical and recent presidential claims of inherent and prerogative power and the Constitutional endangerment associated with those claims.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024
LAW 7533 - Advanced Legal Writing for Appellate Advocacy (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022
LAW 7572 - Litigation Drafting (3 Credits)
This course focuses on drafting documents typically encountered during the pretrial phase of civil litigation. As drafters, lawyers must think strategically about, and understand the conventions unique to, each document. Students will have repeated opportunities to develop essential drafting and professional skills through a combination of in-class exercises and take-home writing assignments related to pleadings, motions, discovery requests, affidavits, demand letters, and settlement agreements.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2020
LAW 7578 - Markets, Democracy, and the Rule of Law (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2014, Spring 2014, Spring 2012
LAW 7580 - Markets, Morals, and Methods (3 Credits)
This seminar is devoted to the foundations of choice, agency, and welfare -- matters that lie at the core of normative legal and economic theory. Readings, guest speakers, and class discussion will focus on the nature of preferences, reasons, and norms, as well as (a) their inter-relations and (b) their roles in guiding human decision and action. A central theme will be the question whether and to what degree welfare, well-being, and wealth for that matter can be understood apart from and even as determinative of normative propriety (rightness and wrongness), or whether instead these concepts presuppose a prior conception of normative propriety. Many legal and economic theorists seem to assume the former, but this assumption can -- and in this course will -- be examined critically.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
LAW 7584 - Mediation (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 7587 - Shareholder Activism: Traditional Campaigns and Environmental, Social and Governance Concerns (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
LAW 7589 - Seminar in National Security Issues and Policy (3 Credits)
This seminar will explore key issues of national security law and public policy. Topics will include the collection (and production) of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, covert action, offensive counterterrorism operations, the laws of war, cybersecurity, and other current issues in the national security area. In evaluating these topics, the seminar will discuss the allocation of decision-making and oversight authority among the three branches of government; the politicization of intelligence; the balances between security and liberty and security and transparency; and it will consider possible ways to reconcile domestic law and policy objectives with international obligations and norms. It will focus on domestic sources of law-the Constitution, National Security Act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, among others-but also will touch upon and consider the impact of international legal frameworks such as the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols.
Enrollment Information: Limited enrollment to: Law students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
LAW 7590 - Mortgage and Asset Securitization (3 Credits)
This course analyzes the structure of mortgage- and other asset-backed securities, as well as the participants in their creation, distribution, trading and regulation. The financial and legal characteristics of the underlying assets will be considered, including a basic understanding of the asset cash flows, and factors that vary those flows. Securities and Tax Law aspects of the creation, marketing and trading of these securities will be reviewed, with particular emphasis on the REMIC structure. There will be review of the secondary markets, including Government-sponsored Enterprises and Private Label securities issuers; the credit rating agencies; and private mortgage insurers. Lastly, there will be consideration of the laws currently governing the GSEs and what future changes they and the broader market might anticipate for those laws.
Prerequisites: LAW 6131.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: Law students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7591 - Mergers and Acquisitions: A Module Based Approach (1 Credit)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2021
LAW 7592 - Cybercrime (3 Credits)
LAW 7597 - Cybersecurity Law and Strategy (3 Credits)
Cybersecurity is a top priority of organizations, governments and individuals worldwide. This course, taught by a former federal prosecutor, will discuss practical, legal, regulatory and ethical considerations for understanding and managing cyber risk, law and strategy. We will explore the evolving landscapes of cybercrime; cyber laws and regulations; cybersecurity incident response; and ethical challenges impacting trust and security related to AI, data collection, surveillance and disclosures. We will be joined by guest speakers working on the front lines of cybersecurity regulation, enforcement and defense. We also will engage in an interactive tabletop scenario of a cybersecurity crisis, to identify issues and work together in applying best practices and lessons learned.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2015
LAW 7598 - Negotiation and Facilitation Seminar (1 Credit)
Introduces students to the theory and practice of Negotiation and Facilitation in both legal and non-legal contexts. Theories of negotiation, conflict style, adversarial negotiation, and problem-solving negotiation will be covered, with an emphasis on developing necessary skills for use in meetings, with people in conflict, and with groups problem-solving together. Readings and lectures will provide students with a framework for analyzing negotiations as well as tools and concepts useful in negotiating more effectively, while practical exercises will highlight the challenges of this important but often-neglected lawyering skill. Simulations, exercises, readings and discussions will be used for this seminar. Participants will practice negotiation and will learn some of the challenges of this important, but often neglected, lawyering skill.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7599 - New Rights, Cyberspace and Law (3 Credits)
This seminar explores some of the cutting-edge issues in jurisprudence. It will mainly look at the two emerging fields of jurisprudence: cyber jurisprudence and earth jurisprudence. The purpose is to foster students' consciousness of new and emerging rights. Topics covered include the conceptual tree of rights, access to the Internet versus cyberspace sovereignty, cyber privacy, cyber civil and property rights, and the principles of earth jurisprudence.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
LAW 7603 - Movement Lawyering Practicum (4 Credits)
This course gives students the opportunity to engage in the movement lawyering. The course has both a classroom component and a community component.Practicum participants will gain first hand experience, knowledge, and skills in how to work with organizers to use the law to support and defend justice movements. Students will work with lawyers, community organizations, and activists to understand strategies and tactics of movement legal work. They will follow the lead of movement participants and community members to build power and assist in creating lasting change.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021, Fall 2020 LAW 7604 - Advanced Movement Lawyering Practicum (1-6 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2021
LAW 7611 - Philosophical Legal Ethics (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2021, Fall 2008
LAW 7613 - Ethics and Government Service (3 Credits)
LAW 7619 - Political Obligation (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023
LAW 7621 - Issues in Poverty Law (3 Credits)
In this seminar we will examine some of the ways in which the legal system (the law, courts, lawyers, and litigation) responds to some of the most severe problems of poverty. The concept of judicial review will be critical to our efforts, i.e. what role can and should the courts, our third branch of government, play in shaping social policy. We will also pay special attention to how courts and public bodies make decisions -- what factors get special consideration from decision makers. The assigned readings will serve as the basis of class discussions. Topics will include education, homelessness, public assistance, race and criminal justice, substance abuse, housing, and other areas of relevance.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7652 - Education Law Practicum (1-6 Credits)
This course has two components-a seminar component and casework. The Education Law Practicum offers students the opportunity to engage in experiential learning while providing legal services to individual organizations that provide educational programming. Students will learn fundamental practical skills necessary to represent clients in the educational and non-profit sector.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7654 - Education Law Practicum II (2-6 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
LAW 7655 - Property Theory and Practice (3 Credits)
This seminar focuses on lease law in the 50 states. I am an Associate Reporter of the ongoing Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property. As I am working on restating the lease law in the 50 states (along with Tom Merrill at Columbia and Henry Smith at Harvard) and consider the policy direction when the state laws are split, this seminar enables students to get involve in the restating process. Each week, the discussion centers around a number of closely related issues. Moreover, I have collected information on lease law for more than 100 countries in the world. The instructor thus will also compare the lease law provisions in the US with these countries. A reasonable amount of reading (mostly Restatement drafts) will be assigned.
Prerequisites: 1L Property.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7675 - Issues in Financial Regulation (3 Credits)
This seminar will seek to introduce students to a broad range of legal and regulatory issues that arise in connection with, and as a result of, financial innovation and increasing globalization of financial markets and institutions. Each semester, this seminar will explore in detail one or more of the key topics currently debated in academic and policy-making circles, which include the nature of risk in the global financial system, origins and resolution of major financial crises, theories of regulation and policy rationales for regulation of financial markets, and alternative approaches to regulatory reform in the financial services sector. Each student will be required to submit a research paper, which will form the basis for the final grade for the course.
Prerequisites: LAW 6461.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Spring 2020
LAW 7678 - Financial Institutions Mergers & Acquisitions (2 Credits)
LAW 7687 - AI Law and Policy: A Risk Assessment (3 Credits)
This course offers a comprehensive examination of the legal and policy challenges posed by the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Students will explore the ethical, regulatory, and societal implications of AI across various domains, including privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, and employment law. Through case studies and real-world examples, students will analyze the potential risks associated with AI deployment, including bias, discrimination, accountability, and transparency issues. The course will also cover emerging regulatory frameworks and international standards for AI governance, as well as strategies for risk mitigation and compliance. By the end of the course, students will gain a deep understanding of the legal and policy considerations surrounding AI implementation and be equipped with the skills to assess and navigate the complex challenges in this rapidly evolving field.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
Learning Outcomes:
- Possess knowledge of the substantive and procedural law required for effective participation in the legal profession.
- Engage effectively in legal research, analysis, and problem solving in a time frame appropriate to legal practice.
- Communicate effectively in both oral and written form as counselors and advocates.
- Possess the practical skills fundamental to exceptional lawyering and client representation.
- Conduct themselves with the highest moral and ethical standards.
LAW 7688 - Research Seminar: The Law of Software (3 Credits)
This course is intended for students who are interested in software and technology law and want to improve their skills in working with legal scholarship. There are no formal prerequisites, but you should have some familiarity with software, and some familiarity with technology law. Specific topics will vary from year to year, but will typically include intellectual property protections for software, constitutional rights to create and run software, embedding legal rules in digital systems, and the regulation of complex artificial intelligence and machine learning systems. The readings will primarily consist of classic and cutting-edge legal scholarship, supplemented with materials on technical background and legal research. Over the course of the semester, participants will research and write a publishable piece of scholarship.
Enrollment Information: Open to: both law and non-law graduate students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023
LAW 7691 - Money Talks: Amping Up Political Speech Under the First Amendment (3 Credits)
Money is speech. -Justice Antonin Scalia. Money is property; it is not speech. -Justice John Paul Stevens. Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, says the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court has interpreted speech to extend to money spent to influence electoral politics. When coupled with the Court's extension of some personhood rights to corporations, the outcome has been to invalidate many of Congress's attempts (especially since Watergate) to limit political spending by individuals and corporations. The course will first dive into post-Watergate jurisprudence. Then: What circumstances might justify restricting the use of money as political speech under the First Amendment?
Prerequisites: LAW 5021.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021
LAW 7695 - Restrictive Employment Covenants (3 Credits)
About one in five American workers has contractually promised, often on a take it or leave it basis, not to work for a competitor after leaving their job. These covenants not to compete cover CEOs and Jimmy John's sandwich artists. The Uniform Law Commissioners has just appointed a study committee to determine whether to recommend drafting a Uniform Law for the 50 states to adopt regulating restrictive employment covenants. This seminar will explore the many issues involved in do-not-compete covenants and related restrictive covenants not to solicit customers, not to divulge secrets, and among employers not to poach workers. The focal point will be our attempt to draft a uniform law.
Enrollment Information: Limited enrollment to: Law students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2020
LAW 7696 - Reclaiming the Public Private Distinction (3 Credits)
The distinction between the public and the private is one of the most fundamental distinctions in liberal legal orders. It carries important legal implications. For instance, identifying an entity as public (or as private) affects its rights, powers, duties, and responsibilities. There are things that entities can or cannot do simply because they count as public and, vice versa, there are things that only private entities can or cannot do by virtue of their private character. Yet, the public/private distinction is very poorly understood. As a result, some reject it entirely whereas others mis-characterize it. The overall purpose of the seminar is to gain better understanding of the public/private distinction by exploring relevant legal doctrine and its underlying normative considerations. Special attention will be given to questions of privatization, state action, property, and private discrimination (among other themes).
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2020
LAW 7698 - Comparative Private Law (3 Credits)
Although the seminar is called Comparative Private Law and indeed we will discuss fundamental issues in property, contract, torts, trust, and civil procedure in detail, the methodology explored in this seminar is useful for comparative public law, and in fact, any legal studies. The legal methods covered in the seminar may differ from a more conventional comparative law course in two ways: Wesley Hohfeld's analytical jurisprudence and social science approaches. It has been more than 100 years since Hohfeld advanced his powerful insights: all legal relations can be reduced to one of the four jural correlatives. The Hohfeldian method is useful in guiding jurists through the maze of comparative law. Using the Hohfeldian method, comparative lawyers may uncover unnoticed similarities or identify critical differences across legal systems. Believe me: the Hohfeldian method will help you win a case or two in your legal career by enabling you to see through the conceptual confusion made by your opponent or made in the key legal documents. In addition, this seminar will explore how economic theories and statistical methods (including artificial intelligent algorithms) change the way jurists use foreign materials. Positive social science methods provide a new normative foundation for comparative law exercises: for domestic lawmakers and courts, how foreign laws have worked provides a valuable real-world examination of whether a certain legal rule would produce normatively desirable outcomes.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024
LAW 7701 - Trauma Informed Lawyering (2 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 7710 - Research Seminar: Content Moderation and Platform Regulation (3 Credits)
This is a research seminar on the law of platform regulation and content moderation. Specific topics will vary from year to year but will typically include content-moderation policies and procedures, independent review (or not) of content-moderation decisions, intermediary liability, antitrust and structural regulation, network neutrality and must-carry regimes, commons governance, and control of essential Internet infrastructure. The readings will primarily consist of classic and cutting-edge legal scholarship, supplemented with materials on technical background and legal research. Over the course of the semester, participants will research and write a publishable piece of scholarship. The class is open to law and non-law students, but enrollment is limited to 16 students total. Interested non-law students should contact the instructor for permission.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
Learning Outcomes:
- Communicate effectively in both oral and written form as counselors and advocates.
- Possess the practical skills fundamental to exceptional lawyering and client representation.
- Conduct themselves with the highest moral and ethical standards.
LAW 7712 - Civil Procedure Colloquium (3 Credits)
This colloquium will highlight current scholarship in the fields of civil procedure, federal courts, and access to justice. Students will learn how to read and critique law review articles, become familiar with current debates in the field, and be introduced to canonical articles.
LAW 7713 - Empirical Legal Studies Colloquium (3 Credits)
This colloquium focuses on empirical legal studies, using quantitative method (statistics) to analyze legal issues. Cornell Law School is the birthplace of empirical legal studies and publishes the leading journal in the field, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. In this colloquium, I will spend a few weeks giving a crash course on empirical legal studies. No math or statistics background is presumed for the colloquium, but it surely does not harm to have taken statistics before. My goal is to give students the essential toolkits to understand the empirical papers. As a corporate counsel or a litigator, it is inevitable that you will encounter statistics in your professional career, this colloquium aims to give students basic knowledge about how to understand statistical tables and figures and empirical results more generally. The Colloquium will bring in six external speakers to present their ongoing empirical legal research presenting their empirical works. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in The Path of the Law (1897), boldly predicts that “[f]or the rational study of the law, the blackletter man may be the man of the present, but the man of the future is the man of statistics and the master of economics.” The goal of this colloquium is to make students lawyers of the future. Students are evaluated based on 5 response papers and class participation.
LAW 7736 - A Practical Guide to Trademark Law and Litigation (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023
LAW 7737 - Social Entrepreneurship (2 Credits)
This class will allow students to begin the process of creating an advocacy project around a special population or novel approach of their own choosing. Students will spend the semester developing their projects. The class is designed to support students in working in areas not addressed (or under-addressed) by existing clinical or legal service programs. Students may work alone or with one or more partners. Students must be comfortable in a less structured, more entrepreneurial environment, and be highly motivated by their chosen topic. They should have a project idea ready for the first class. Students should feel free to contact Doug Lasdon with questions about the class. They can email Doug at dlasdon@urbanjustice.org.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7739 - The Role of the State Attorney General (3 Credits)
This course will cover day-to-day challenges faced by Attorneys General and their staffs in delivering high quality legal advice that will guide state government in a constitutional and ethical manner. The course will cover the relationship of Attorneys General with the Federal government, private attorneys, citizens, and a myriad of other people and organizations. It will focus on the unique ethical conflicts that can arise between the State Attorney General's role as the attorney charged with defending the State and its employees in litigation (State's Attorney) and in representing the people of the State in public interest litigation (People's Attorney).
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021
LAW 7740 - Law and Economics: A Game-Theoretic Approach (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with ECON 7740
This course introduces graduate students to the main concepts and ideas of law and economics, founded on elementary game theory. These ideas are then applied to contemporary policy concerns, from promoting economic development and designing welfare interventions in developing countries, to controlling corruption and financial fraud. The defining feature of the course is the structuring of these topics within a common conceptual framework, and training students to develop these ideas further and apply them to new research questions.
Prerequisites: ECON 1110.
Exploratory Studies:
(SAAREA)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021 LAW 7743 - Topics in Meta-Ethics (3 Credits)
This is an advanced seminar in meta-ethics and meta-normative theory. We shall examine competing theories of the nature of moral judgment, language, reasoning, truths, and properties. Special attention will be paid to questions of moral epistemology. Admitted students should have prior experience with philosophy through a previous course in the field (ideally value theory) or permission of the instructor.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Learning Outcomes:
- Conduct themselves with the highest moral and ethical standards.
LAW 7745 - Seminar on Mergers and Acquisitions (1 Credit)
The focus of this course is developing the lawyering skills required by an attorney advising a client who is selling or acquiring a business. Individual drafting exercises, as well as strategy discussions and negotiations by student teams acting as counsel to the buyer or seller, will be interspersed with lectures on the business acquisition process and analysis of selected publicly available documentation of actual acquisition transactions. The typical chronology of an acquisition: negotiation by the buyer and the seller of the basic terms of the deal including selection of structure (sale of stock or assets; merger); drafting and negotiation of a term sheet or letter of intent; due diligence investigation; drafting and negotiation of the definitive acquisition agreement; handling of problems encountered between the execution of the agreement and the closing of the acquisition; and the closing.
Prerequisites: Contracts and Corporations; Prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6131.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 7746 - Psychological Dimensions of Criminal Law (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021
LAW 7748 - Selected Topics on Business Bankruptcy (3 Credits)
This course explores the core policy rationales, basic legal mechanics, and other select topics in business bankruptcy in the United States. Topics include types of creditors and their priority in bankruptcy, the role of courts in the bankruptcy process, the automatic stay and its safe harbors, asset sales and debtor-in-possession financing, avoidance transactions, third party releases, divisive mergers, money and bankruptcy, group bankruptcy, and transnational bankruptcy procedures.
Prerequisites: LAW 6131.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
Learning Outcomes:
- Possess knowledge of the substantive and procedural law required for effective participation in the legal profession.
- Possess the practical skills fundamental to exceptional lawyering and client representation.
LAW 7749 - Psychology for Practicing Transactional Lawyers (2 Credits)
During the years of my practice as a transactional attorney, I have looked back at my law school years and wished that I took a class of practical psychology because practicing as a lawyer means working with people. Typical transactional lawyers spend most of their time working with clients, other lawyers and colleagues. Effective lawyering requires a good understanding of people and how they interact. It is very helpful for an attorney to consider how people think, feel and behave. Therefore, in my view, most lawyers could benefit greatly from knowledge of practical psychology. This course is designed to consider practical psychology as it applies to the transactional law practice. We will also consider insights psychology provides for attorney success, and, dare we say, happiness and balance.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023
LAW 7760 - Movement Lawyering Clinic I (1-6 Credits)
This course gives students the opportunity to engage in the movement lawyering. The course hasboth a classroom component and a community component. This course gives students the opportunity to engage in the movement lawyering. The course has both a classroom component and a community component.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7762 - Movement Lawyering Clinic II (1-6 Credits)
This course gives students the opportunity to engage in the movement lawyering. The course has both a classroom component and a community component. Clinic participants will gain first hand experience, knowledge, and skills in how to work with organizers to use the law to support and defend justice movements. Students will work with lawyers, community organizations, and activists to understand strategies and tactics of movement legal work. They will follow the lead of movement participants and community members to build power and assist in creating lasting change.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7763 - Movement Lawyering Clinic III (1-6 Credits)
This course gives students the opportunity to engage in the movement lawyering. The course has both a classroom component and a community component. Clinic participants will gain first hand experience, knowledge, and skills in how to work with organizers to use the law to support and defend justice movements. Students will work with lawyers, community organizations, and activists to understand strategies and tactics of movement legal work. They will follow the lead of movement participants and community members to build power and assist in creating lasting change.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7764 - Contemporary Challenges in International Law and U.S. Foreign Policy (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7765 - Tax Policy (3 Credits)
This seminar analyzes the tax policy goals of fairness, simplicity, and economic efficiency, and examines how well the present tax system satisfies these goals. Specific topics include: progressivity of the tax rate structure; use of the tax system to advance social policies; tax legislative process; taxation of the family; and comparison of income and consumption taxes.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2020, Spring 2013
LAW 7766 - Taxation of Mergers and Acquisitions (2 Credits)
Crosslisted with NBA 5766
This course will examine the federal income taxation of M&A transactions and prepare students for the practical aspects of transactional tax work in the context of mergers and acquisitions. We will explore selected tax issues that drive deal structure in both public and private M&A transactions and pay special attention to tax considerations relevant to private equity fund acquisitions. We will also cover topics of current political relevance that relate to M&A taxation. Students will learn to draft and negotiate tax provisions in M&A documents and conduct tax research in the manner of a transactional tax attorney. The content of this course will be useful not only to students interested in transactional tax work but also to those who will pursue a more general corporate practice in which they will encounter significant tax issues.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025
LAW 7767 - Movement Lawyering Clinic IV (1-6 Credits)
This course gives students the opportunity to engage in the movement lawyering. The course has both a classroom component and a community component. Clinic participants will gain first hand experience, knowledge, and skills in how to work with organizers to use the law to support and defend justice movements. Students will work with lawyers, community organizations, and activists to understand strategies and tactics of movement legal work. They will follow the lead of movement participants and community members to build power and assist in creating lasting change.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7771 - The Supreme Court and Tax Law (3 Credits)
In this class we will read and discuss about 30 tax cases decided by the United States Supreme Court over the last 100 years. The goal of the course is to give students a reasonable familiarity with the structure of the U.S. tax law and important tax policy themes, as well as a number of technical tax issues that businesses and individuals are required to confront. This method of proceeding departs significantly from the more usual approach of introductory (and other) tax courses which involves studying the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, court cases and IRS rulings they relate to the taxation of corporations, partnerships, international transactions, and so on. Instead, the course will seek to expose the principal themes of U.S. tax law by examining a number of important controversies that have arisen in the tax law, and their resolution as analyzed in the Supreme Court opinions. The totality of the case readings and discussion hopefully will allow students to obtain a general but broad-based understanding of U.S. tax law - and in the course of doing that we'll hopefully generate some good discussions regarding several unanswered questions in the tax law! As well, the course's emphasis on judicial opinions may provide insight for anyone wishing to gain a better appreciation of how judges evaluate complex problems.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
LAW 7775 - Critical Perspectives on Law (3 Credits)
Over the last few decades, numerous strains of legal scholarship have leveled sweeping critiques of law. Scholars have criticized law for deep-seated failures involving class, gender, sexual orientation, race, citizenship, etc. This course explores the history of these critique-based movements and approaches, while also examining their contemporary status. It focuses on Critical Race Theory, Critical Legal Studies, the Law and Economics Movement, and Feminist and LGBT Jurisprudence. Our goals will be not only to understand the genesis of these important grounds for critiquing law and to consider how they may intersect, but also to question the potential limitations confronting such critique-based perspectives on law.
Enrollment Information: Limited enrollment to: Law students.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2020, Spring 2019
LAW 7777 - Why and How Do We Punish? (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 7780 - The Woke Constitution (3 Credits)
In recent years, pundits and government officials mostly but not exclusively on the political right have decried wokeness-a somewhat catchall phrase apparently meant to convey a judgmental attitude on the part of progressives. Insofar as the wokeness label connotes censoriousness, it implicates questions of constitutional free speech. More generally, many of the culture-war battles over what Elon Musk has called a civilization-threatening woke mind virus raise important legal questions. This seminar will examine various such questions, chiefly through discussion of assigned readings selected by the instructors but also in four or five sessions in which outside scholars with a variety of perspectives will present works in progress. Topics will include: the legal status and scope of academic freedom; restrictions on critical race theory and DEI; state laws banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth; regulation of social media platforms; laws restricting corporate ESG programs; the reorientation of some conservative and liberal views about campus free speech in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas; and more. Students will produce short reflection papers and a final paper that satisfies the writing requirement.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024
LAW 7782 - Topics in Social and Political Philosophy (3 Credits)
Crosslisted with PHIL 6430
Advanced discussion of a topic in social and political philosophy.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7783 - Topics in Intellectual Property (3 Credits)
Sizable disagreement and controversy surround many areas of intellectual property. This seminar explores these disputes. By surveying the academic literature the seminar aims to introduce, understand, and ultimately critique the arguments being made for and against various aspects of intellectual property.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7785 - Law of Genocide and War Crimes Trials (3 Credits)
Beginning in November 1945, in an unprecedented attempt to bring war criminals to justice, more than 20 senior government officials and military leaders of Hitler's Third Reich were indicted and tried, in what has become known as the Nuremberg Trial, for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Earlier that fall, the SS commandants, officers and guards who had been arrested by the British upon the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, had been tried before a British military tribunal. These were the first of numerous trials of Nazi war criminals and related criminal and civil proceedings arising out of the Holocaust. This seminar will examine legal and ethical issues raised in these and other trials of Nazi war criminals and individuals accused of collaborating with the Nazis in perpetrating crimes against humanity, including the 1947 Justice Trial of Nazi judges and senior officials of the Third Reich Ministry of Justice, the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem and the 1963-64 Tel Aviv trial of Hersz Barenblat, the head of the Jewish police in the ghetto of Bedzin, Poland. The course will also examine the history of the Genocide Convention, and the developing law of genocide and crimes against humanity with respect to atrocities in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Darfur, including the evolving law on rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7786 - Western Legal Tradition (3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2011
LAW 7789 - Women in Business Law and International Trade (1 Credit)
Business laws can have substantial positive and negative implications for gender equality. Discriminatory laws or the absence of legislation could threaten women's economic security or create a business environment that does not adequately support working women. On the contrary, supportive laws could promote women's career growth, ability to run businesses, and equal employment opportunities, bringing economic advantages to women and society. In addition, trade liberalization policies as a primary source of economic development can affect gender equality. This explains why gender equality lies at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which asserts gender equality as a fundamental human right and a necessary foundation for a sustainable world. This course examines women's rights in business and trade law as a gateway toward economic growth and development. The course introduces the basics of gender and the law. It, also, looks into the relationship between gender equality and business law, including the various legal aspects of governance and board diversity, women and ownership, gender equality and alternative dispute resolution, and the challenges and advantages facing women in business law. An examination of the relevance of integrating gender issues in trade policies and a discussion of the implications of women's economic empowerment on trade follows. Economic empowerment of women is also highlighted, including promoting women in entrepreneurship, monitoring women into management roles, and empowering women in the workplace. Also, a course on women in business and trade law cannot be completed without elaborating on the role of gender equality in promoting the SDGs. The course concludes with a timely overview of how technology could be used to promote gender equality in general and women's rights in business and trade law in particular.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7790 - Afghanistan Assistance Clinic (1-4 Credits)
Students will learn general immigration law, asylum, and related forms of relief in class lectures, and in representation of clients who are recently arrived scholars and Fulbright students from Afghanistan.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022
LAW 7794 - Afghanistan Assistance Clinic II (4 Credits)
In this course, students represent and/or provide research, instruction, and other legal support, directly or indirectly through pro bono lawyers and not-for-profits to Afghans at risk, primarily by filing affirmative asylum applications for scholars and students in the U.S. Advanced students also provide support to entry-level 7790 students filing first-time asylum applications. For example, advanced students share tips with entry level students on best practices for interviews, trust-building, research on domestic and international law and country conditions, editing and filing petitions, and drafting affidavits.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 7801 - Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic (4 Credits)
Students will learn asylum, Convention Against Torture, and immigration law in class lectures, readings, and while representing clients. Most students will represent clients on appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals, although the Clinic does accept federal petitions for review and cases before asylum officers from time to time. Students will also learn advanced legal writing techniques, including appellate strategies, persuasive storytelling, the use of expert reports, and effective argument within complex legal frameworks. Students will work in teams to complete all tasks necessary to zealously represent their client, including drafting an appellate brief, affidavits, and motions; maintaining client contact; and locating expert and other witnesses. In addition, students will develop litigation skills such as advanced legal research, case theory development, factual development and analysis (including interviewing, transcript review, and international human rights research), collaboration, cultural competency, and self-evaluation. Students will learn to overcome the unique challenges attorneys face when representing clients from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds, as well as clients who are incarcerated. The instructors will consider the following factors (in no particular order) when admitting students: commitment to public interest or immigration law work, legal writing and research ability, and collegiality. For more information about the Clinic, visit the clinic website: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/academics/clinicalprogram/Asylum-Clinic/index.cfm
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022 LAW 7805 - Advanced Labor Law Clinic (1-6 Credits)
The Advanced Labor Law Clinic provides students another opportunity to deepen their understanding of traditional labor and employment law by representing the interests of workers with typical workplace issues. There is no classroom component to this course. Students will dedicate their time to addressing client inquiries related to organizing, collective bargaining, unfair labor practice charges, the Family Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act or other workplace issues. Students may also have the opportunity to represent their clients in a case before the National Labor Relations Board, in mediation or arbitration pursuant to the dispute resolution mechanism in the collective bargaining agreement. In addition to the domestic labor law inquiries, interested students may have the opportunity to address international labor law topics as well. The international labor law work typically occurs in Latin America. During the semester, there will likely be two guest speakers and two panel discussions on timely labor law topics, which students will be required to attend, along with weekly meetings to discuss case preparation and advancement. In this course students will advance the following skills: interviewing, counseling, factual investigation, legal research and writing, problem-solving and depending on the assignment, trial preparation skills (direct and cross-examinations, opening statement and evidentiary arguments).
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL, CU-ITL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023 LAW 7810 - Advanced Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic (1-6 Credits)
Students will learn asylum, Convention Against Torture, and immigration law in class lectures, readings, and while representing clients. Most students will represent clients on appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals, although the Clinic does accept federal petitions for review and cases before asylum officers from time to time. Students will also learn advanced legal writing techniques, including appellate strategies, persuasive storytelling, the use of expert reports, and effective argument within complex legal frameworks.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7811 - Capital Punishment Clinic I (4 Credits)
Death penalty litigation: investigation and the preparation of petitions and briefs. Case selection and student assignments depend on both pedagogical factors and litigation needs of clinic clients. Students read the trial and lower court record and research legal issues. Some students are involved in investigation, while others primarily assist in the preparation of briefs, petitions and other case documents. No student will be required to participate in investigation. All students are included in discussions regarding the necessary investigation, research, and strategy for the cases.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7814 - Advanced Transnational Disputes Clinic (6 Credits)
In this course, students learn to use strategic litigation to influence the progressive development of the law. Clinic clients and partners include those appearing before international investor-state arbitral tribunals, national courts,such as U.S. federal courts, and other fora. Students learn key skills through acting as counsel for parties as well as for amici curiae in disputes that implicate the protection of fundamental rights. The course includes a seminar component as well as extensive, supervised work as part of a case team.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7815 - Capital Punishment Clinic II (1-6 Credits)
Death penalty litigation: investigation and the preparation of petitions, memoranda, and briefs. This course is taught as a clinic. Two or possibly three capital cases are worked on by students. Case selection depends on both pedagogical factors and litigation needs of the inmates. Students read the record and research legal issues. Some students are involved in investigation, while others assist in the preparation of papers. All students are included in discussions regarding the necessary investigation, research, and strategy for the cases.
Prerequisites: LAW 7811.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7817 - Child Advocacy Practicum (1-6 Credits)
Each student in the Child Advocacy Clinic is assigned to a local attorney who has been appointed to represent children (and in some cases, parents) in Family Court in Tompkins County or surrounding areas. The attorneys and students work together on all aspects of representation, including home visits, pre-trial conferences, negotiation sessions, client and parent interviews, litigation documents, and hearings. The student may also help the attorney with appellate work. A classroom component of the Clinic allows students to learn the substantive law of Family Court and to share their insights and experiences with one another.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7818 - Child Advocacy Practicum II (4 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7825 - Clemency and Parole Clinic (4 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021
LAW 7830 - Summer Externship (1-3 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2024, Summer 2022, Summer 2021, Summer 2019
LAW 7832 - Externship - Full Time (12 Credits)
The Externship - Full Time course allows students (24 each semester, for all externship courses) to earn 12 credit hours as externs working full time at approved placement sites at virtually any location (most sites are non-profit organizations or governmental agencies) during the fall or spring semester of their third year or the spring semester of their second year. The course purpose is to provide a bridge between the study of law and its practice. A written application for the course must be submitted to the instructor and approved during the semester preceding the semester the student plans to participate. The student must be supervised/mentored by an attorney and engage in meaningful and attorney-like work at the placement which furthers the student's education and career goals. In addition to his or her work responsibilities for the placement, the extern will create a Learning Agenda, prepare weekly Journal entries, engage in a regular electronic Discussion Board with other externs and the instructor, host the instructor for a site visit, and do a written Description of Placement. See the BlackBoard web site for Externship - Full Time for more detail on these requirements. Note: This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022 LAW 7833 - Criminal Defense Trial Practicum: Local Court (4 Credits)
Students in this course represent defendants in non-felony criminal cases. The course has classroom, courtroom and client representation components. The classroom component focuses on all aspects of the handling of a criminal case, including criminal law and procedure, ethics, trial strategy, plea bargaining and trials. The courtroom component involves attendance at court proceedings, including pre-trial conferences. Students will also interview clients and witnesses, and prepare clients and witnesses for trial. All students will conduct negotiations with the District Attorney's Office, do legal research, conduct fact investigation, prepare discovery demands and engage in motion practice.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite: LAW 6401.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021 LAW 7834 - Externship - Part Time (1-10 Credits)
The Externship - Part Time, Other Local course allows students to earn 4 or more credit hours as externs working at least 8 hours per week at approved placement sites in the Ithaca area while continuing to attend classes at the law school (most sites are with non-profit organizations or governmental agencies). The course purpose is to provide a bridge between the study of law and its practice. A written application for the course must be submitted to the instructor and approved during the semester preceding the semester the student plans to participate. The student must be supervised/mentored by an attorney and engage in meaningful and attorney-like work at the placement which furthers the student's education and career goals. In addition to his or her work responsibilities at the placement, the extern will create a Learning Agenda, prepare weekly Journal entries, engage in a regular electronic Discussion Board with other externs and the instructor, host the instructor for a site visit, and do a written Description of Placement (see the BlackBoard web site for for Externship - Full Time for more detail on these requirements). Note: This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022 LAW 7837 - International Human Rights Clinic (4 Credits)
Students in the Immigration Law & Advocacy Clinic will provide direct services to immigrant communities and create related advocacy materials, such as public-facing presentations. In Fall 2024, Clinic students will likely be focused on collaborative projects and individual cases on behalf of DACA and undocumented communities and/or immigrants in detention. Students will learn relevant substantive immigration law and develop practical skills including client interviewing and counseling; legal analysis and persuasive and/or predictive research and writing; and case management and partner work. Students may have the opportunity to travel for casework and/or visit immigration detention centers.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: 2L and 3L students.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL, CU-ITL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2013 LAW 7839 - Entrepreneurship Clinic I (1-6 Credits)
The Entrepreneurship Clinic provides students who are interested in transactional work with an opportunity to learn about the legal issues specific to starting and running a business venture. Weekly classes, which may include guest speakers, will introduce students to the common legal questions that entrepreneurs face, including how to choose and form a business entity, structure the ownership of the business, contract with employees and independent contractors, protect intellectual property, and set up the venture for successful financing. Building on the concepts learned in class, student teams will represent local entrepreneurs and start-up businesses on a variety of transactional matters. The client work will introduce students to fundamental transactional skills, ranging from legal research to drafting term sheets and contracts.
Prerequisites: LAW 6131.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023 LAW 7840 - Estate Planning Practicum (3 Credits)
The newest addition to Cornell Law School's Clinical Programs, the Estate Planning Clinic aims to provide students with the unique opportunity of enriching and furthering their legal awareness and experience beyond the classroom environment.Participants will gain valuable, practical experience by assisting people from the local community with some of their more basic estate planning needs, thereby applying their theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios. The students' best skills will be put to practice while they work towards creating an atmosphere of trust and comfort for their clients and learning the essentials of establishing solid attorney-client relationships. Specifically, students will be working in pairs under supervision of faculty to prepare an actual estate plan for the client which includes a last will and testament, a living will, a health care proxy and a power of attorney along with the statutory major gifts rider (if applicable). Students will take part in the entire estate planning process from the initial informational intake meeting, to the preparation of the client's estate planning documents, to discussing the drafts with the clients along with addressing their comments and changes and to preparing and assisting with the execution of the client's estate planning documents. To further enhance the learning experience, lectures will be provided on the fundamentals of estate planning from establishing a healthy attorney-client relationship, drafting considerations for the client's last will and testament, basic related estate and income tax issues, ethical issues and the administration of the client's estate upon death. The classroom component of the course ensures that students understand not only the legal issues but also the practical and human issues involved in a trusts and estates practice.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022 LAW 7841 - 1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic (3 Credits)
This course provides students the unique opportunity to engage in direct services with clients in their first year of law school. Students will learn substantive immigration law and develop practical skills including client interviewing, persuasive writing, community-based lawyering, and case management by representing clients in immigration applications. Further, students will engage in community advocacy through presentations on campus and in the community.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7842 - Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic II (2-5 Credits)
In this advanced course, students will continue work on immigration matters including asylum cases, representation for detained and/or undocumented communities, and other projects involving litigation and/or community outreach. Students will take ownership of their cases and projects, working independently or in teams to advance their clients' goals under the instructor's supervision. Prior casework and projects for advanced clinic students have included participation in trial-level immigration litigation; research and writing on issues for undocumented students; time-sensitive case work for detained clients; and filing various immigration petitions with USCIS. Advanced students may also mentor students new to clinic.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7843 - Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic III (4 Credits)
In this advanced course, students will continue work on immigration matters including asylum cases, representation for detained and/or undocumented communities, and other projects involving litigation and/or community outreach. Students will take ownership of their cases and projects, working independently or in teams to advance their clients' goals under the instructor's supervision. Prior casework and projects for advanced clinic students have included participation in trial-level immigration litigation; research and writing on issues for undocumented students; time-sensitive case work for detained clients; and filing various immigration petitions with USCIS. Advanced students may also mentor students new to clinic
Prerequisites: LAW 7842.
Enrollment Information: This course has a limited enrollment, dependent on the clinic's docket.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7845 - Advanced Entrepreneurship Law Clinic (1-6 Credits)
Students will continue to represent local entrepreneurs and start-up businesses on a variety of transactional matters. Students may also engage in additional related projects, such as preparing and delivering workshops to the local business community on relevant topics.
Prerequisites: LAW 7839.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022 LAW 7851 - Externship (1-12 Credits)
This course allows students, as externs to work full time at approved placement sites (most sites are non-profit organizations or governmental agencies) during the fall or spring semester of their third year or the spring semester of their second year. The course purpose is to provide a bridge between the study of law and its practice. The student must be supervised/mentored by an attorney and engage in meaningful and attorney-like work at the placement which furthers the student's education and career goals. In addition to work responsibilities for the placement, the extern will create a Learning Agenda, prepare weekly Journal entries, engage in a regular electronic Discussion Board with other externs and the instructor, possibly host the faculty director for a site visit, and do a written Description of Placement.
Last Four Terms Offered: Summer 2025, Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
LAW 7854 - Tenants Advocacy Practicum I (3-6 Credits)
In this course, students will provide information, legal advice, and representation to tenants. The student work in this practicum will directly address the needs of local residents financially impacted by the current pandemic. Students will work on cases for tenants facing a wide variety of housing issues (including but not limited to habitability issues, payment disputes, lease violations, unlawful lockouts, and small claims actions) or seeking eviction defense and homelessness prevention.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7855 - International Human Rights: Litigation and Advocacy Clinic I (4 Credits)
In this clinical course, students will work on projects that will expose them to diverse forms of human rights advocacy. The clinic is litigation-oriented, although clinic students may also be exposed to legislative advocacy and may have the opportunity to engage in fact-finding and research regarding human rights violations abroad. A current sampling of projects includes: (1) appellate advocacy on behalf of prisoners in Malawi who have been denied the right to counsel, and collaboration with lawyers in Malawi to reduce prison overcrowding and protect the rights of pre-trial detainees (in the past, a number of clinic students have traveled to Malawi to work directly with prisoners there); (2) representation of a prisoner at Guantanamo who was tortured by U.S. interrogators; and (3) working with lawyers around the world to promote the implementation of international norms regarding the application of the death penalty.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023 LAW 7857 - Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic I (1-6 Credits)
Permission of instructor required. Students who wish to apply to the clinic should submit a resume, transcript, and short statement of interest (no more than two pages) to Prof. Lyon. For more information about the clinic, email Prof. Lyon (beth.lyon@cornell.edu) and schedule a meeting. This course requires off premises travel to meet with clients and participate in hearings. Employment on a farm is one of the worlds' most difficult and dangerous occupations. Farmworkers experience geographic, linguistic, and cultural isolation, separation from family, immigration insecurity reinforced by policing practices, workplace sexual violence, and exclusion from protective employment laws. Working with the new clinic's community partners, Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic I student attorneys will handle immigration and employment matters on behalf of farmworkers in the region, work that will typically involve negotiation and often require litigation. Students will also work in brief advice and referral outreach sessions in farmworker communities. Clinic participants may also have the opportunity to work on research and writing projects with civil rights, environmental protection, and farmworker rights organizations. Farmworker Clinic students will participate in a lawyering seminar and work with a clinic partner on their assigned cases. The lawyering seminar will focus on skills students need for effective client representation. Students will develop key lawyering skills, including interviewing, counseling, fact investigation, drafting, negotiation, language accessible practice, and, in some cases, trial advocacy.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7858 - Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic II (1-6 Credits)
Students collaborate with farmworkers, farmworker families, and partner organizations to use the law in service of their clients' goals. Students who have completed the first semester of any clinical course can seek the instructors' permission to enroll in Farmworker Clinic II, for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 credits, depending on the number of projects undertaken. Students in Farmworker Clinic II work on individual cases for clients and/or non-litigation advocacy projects. They attend roughly four one-hour seminar class case rounds meetings during the semester, usually at the same time that Farmworker Clinic I meets. Other multi-clinic classes and trainings will be made available as well.
Prerequisites: LAW 7857.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7859 - Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic III (1-6 Credits)
Students collaborate with farmworkers, farmworker families, and partner organizations to use the law in service of their clients' goals. Students who have completed the first semester of any clinical course can seek the instructors' permission to enroll in Farmworker Clinic III, for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 credits, depending on the number of projects undertaken. Students in Farmworker Clinic II work on individual cases for clients and/or non-litigation advocacy projects. They attend roughly four one-hour seminar class case rounds meetings during the semester, usually at the same time that Farmworker Clinic I meets. Other multi-clinic classes and trainings will be made available as well.
Prerequisites: LAW 7858.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7860 - International Human Rights: Litigation and Advocacy II (1-6 Credits)
In this clinical course, students will work on projects that will expose them to diverse forms of human rights advocacy. The clinic is litigation-oriented, although clinic students may have the opportunity to engage in fact-finding and research regarding human rights violations abroad. A current sampling of projects includes: (1) Advocacy on behalf of prisoners in Tanzania and Malawi whose legal rights have been violated. Our work in Malawi has already resulted in the release of 250 prisoners, and a number of clinic students have traveled to both countries in connection with this project; (2) Representation of a Mexican national sentenced to death in the state of Ohio, including litigation of treaty violations in his case; and (3) Advocacy before the United Nations regarding human rights violations committed by Israel in the Occupied Syrian Golan.
Prerequisites: LAW 7847 or LAW 7855.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2022 LAW 7862 - Externship - Pro Bono Scholars Program (12 Credits)
The Externship - Pro Bono Scholars Program course allows third year students in their last semester to take the NY Bar Examination in February and then earn their last 12 credits hours working full time from the end of February through the end of May as externs at approved placement sites doing exclusively pro bono legal services for indigent clients. The course purpose is to provide a bridge between the study of law and its practice, as well as serving low income clients who might otherwise not receive legal services. A written application for the course must be submitted to the instructor and approved during the early fall of the student's third year. The student must be supervised/mentored by an attorney and engage in meaningful and attorney-like work at the placement. The experience must further the student's education and career goals. In addition to his or her work responsibilities for the placement and indigent clients, the extern will create a Learning Agenda, prepare weekly Journal entries, engage in a regular electronic Discussion Board with other externs and the instructor, host the instructor for a site visit, and do a written Description of Placement.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022 LAW 7864 - Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic IV (1-6 Credits)
Students collaborate with farmworkers, farmworker families, and partner organizations to use the law in service of their clients' goals. Students who have completed the first semester of any clinical course can seek the instructors' permission to enroll in Farmworker Clinic IV, for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 credits, depending on the number of projects undertaken. Students in Farmworker Clinic II work on individual cases for clients and/or non-litigation advocacy projects. They attend roughly four one-hour seminar class case rounds meetings during the semester, usually at the same time that Farmworker Clinic I meets. Other multi-clinic classes and trainings will be made available as well.
Prerequisites: LAW 7859.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023 LAW 7866 - Advanced Criminal Defense Trial Practicum - Local Court (1-6 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7867 - First Amendment Law Clinic (1-6 Credits)
This will be the first semester of the newly-created First Amendment Clinic. Students will engage in litigation and policy analysis supporting the interests of news outlets, journalists, researchers, and other newsgatherers in aid of their critical function of reporting and communicating important news and information, as well as human rights advocates, political activists, and other individuals targeted based on their expression. The Clinic's cases involve the intersection of Freedom of Information laws or the First Amendment with several substantive areas of law related to the promotion of social justice: immigration, criminal justice, scientific integrity, democratic institutions and norms, human rights, journalism, and internet speech. Students will have the opportunity to vet potential cases, conduct offensive and defensive legal research, write party and amicus briefs, and, if they continue in the clinic next year, may have the possibility of conducting oral argument. The First Amendment Clinic is committed to teamwork and developing student's collaborative skills, and students will have the opportunity to work on these skills in tandem with members of other clinics with which we are co-counseling. In addition, in the clinic seminar, practitioners in the field will speak to the class to provide additional practical insight to students. Finally, students will have the option to visit a newsroom as part of the clinic's field trip toward the end of the semester. Students who sign up for the clinic will be required to participate in a bootcamp to take place the weekend after the first week of classes. To apply, please submit a resume, statement of interest, short writing sample, and a transcript.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7868 - First Amendment Law Clinic II (1-6 Credits)
A continuation of the First Amendment Clinic for advanced students, with emphasis on leadership roles and advanced litigation skills.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7870 - Juvenile Justice Clinic l (4 Credits)
In this clinic, students will assist in the representation of juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole and other draconian punishments (e.g., life with parole where the juvenile has been repeatedly denied parole and sentences that exceed a reasonable life expectancy). Students will be involved in the preparation of petitions, legal memoranda, and briefs in state and federal courts. Students will also assist in marshalling information on behalf of individual clients and also in the development of applications for parole and executive clemency. Students will also be involved in litigation seeking broader systemic changes to the juvenile justice system (e.g., needed updates to laws governing transfer of children from juvenile to adult court) and advocacy efforts working on behalf of meaningful legislative change to unnecessarily harsh juvenile sentencing laws. All students are included in discussions regarding the necessary investigation, research, and strategy for cases as well as law reform efforts. To learn more about the Juvenile Justice Clinic, visit: https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/academics/experiential-learning/clinical-program/
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Learning Outcomes:
- Possess knowledge of the substantive and procedural law required for effective participation in the legal profession.
- Engage effectively in legal research, analysis, and problem solving in a time frame appropriate to legal practice.
- Communicate effectively in both oral and written form as counselors and advocates.
- Conduct themselves with the highest moral and ethical standards.
LAW 7871 - Labor Law Clinic (1-6 Credits)
The Labor Law Clinic will provide students a practical opportunity to learn labor law, while making meaningful contributions to the labor movement and working people. This clinic will combine a substantive classroom component with practical experience. Students will advise labor unions and workers on a variety of legal issues that surface during the semester and may have the opportunity to represent unions in different forums. Students will communicate directly with union representatives and will be required to sort through the facts, research the issues, and provide information and advice. Students will routinely draft legal memoranda, prepare and file pleadings and briefs as required. Students may have the opportunity to represent unions at hearings, mediation or arbitration. Students may also be required to observe a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board, Public Employment Relations Board or an arbitration. Students have also been invited to observe the collective bargaining process. A small number of students will have the opportunity to dedicate their clinical time to international labor law. Interested students can support the work of nonprofit organizations or global union federations with ongoing cases or projects. These projects occasionally involve a short period of field work outside of the country, typically in Latin America.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL, CU-ITL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021 LAW 7873 - Juvenile Justice Clinic II (4 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7875 - Low-Income Taxpayer Law and Accounting Practicum (1-4 Credits)
Working with College of Business faculty, the law school has established this new practicum course to bring accounting and law students together in a law school clinic to provide inter-professional services to the community. The course carries two credits, one credit for thirteen hours of seminar meeting time, and one credit for forty hours of casework. Up to two additional credits can be earned with further casework. There is an urgent need in upstate New York for competent, specialized income tax law advice and tax return preparation for low income immigrants. We designed a course sequence to train students and address this widely unmet need in the region. Students will work with casework supervisors from three settings: private practice, the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York, and Worker Justice Center of New York.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022 LAW 7876 - Low-Income Taxpayer Law and Accounting Practicum II (1-6 Credits)
Working with College of Business faculty, the law school has established this new practicum course to bring accounting and law students together in a law school clinic to provide inter-professional services to the community. The course carries two credits, one credit for thirteen hours of seminar meeting time, and one credit for forty hours of casework. Up to two additional credits can be earned with further casework. Our client base includes low-income immigrants and other communities in need of our services. Students will work with casework supervisors from private practice.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023 LAW 7877 - Low-Income Taxpayer Law and Accounting Practicum III (1-6 Credits)
Working with College of Business faculty, the law school has established this new practicum course to bring accounting and law students together in a law school clinic to provide inter-professional services to the community. The course carries two credits, one credit for thirteen hours of seminar meeting time, and one credit for forty hours of casework. Up to two additional credits can be earned with further casework. Our client base includes low-income immigrants and other communities in need of our services. Students will work with casework supervisors from private practice.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2019 LAW 7878 - International Human Rights Clinic: Litigation and Advocacy III (1-6 Credits)
In this clinical course, students will work on projects that will expose them to diverse forms of human rights advocacy. The clinic is litigation-oriented, although clinic students may have the opportunity to engage in fact-finding and research regarding human rights violations abroad.
Prerequisites: LAW 7855.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7879 - International Human Rights: Litigation and Advocacy IV (1-6 Credits)
In this clinical course, students will work on projects that will expose them to diverse forms of human rights advocacy. The clinic is litigation-oriented, although clinic students may have the opportunity to engage in fact-finding and research regarding human rights violations abroad.
Prerequisites: LAW 7855.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
LAW 7891 - Tenants Advocacy Practicum II (1-6 Credits)
In this course, students will continue to provide information, legal advice, and representation to tenants. Students will work on cases for tenants facing a wide variety of housing issues (including but not limited to habitability issues, payment disputes, lease violations, unlawful lockouts, and small claims actions) or seeking eviction defense and homelessness prevention.
Prerequisites: LAW 7854.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7892 - Tenants Advocacy Practicum III (1-6 Credits)
In this course, students will continue to provide information, legal advice, and representation to tenants. Students will work on cases for tenants facing a wide variety of housing issues (including but not limited to habitability issues, payment disputes, lease violations, unlawful lockouts, and small claims actions) or seeking eviction defense and homelessness prevention. Students will draft legal memoranda and may prepare pleadings for town, village, and city court cases. Students may have the opportunity to appear (likely virtually) in court.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7893 - Tenants Advocacy Practicum IV (1-6 Credits)
In this course, students will continue to provide information, legal advice, and representation to tenants. Students will work on cases for tenants facing a wide variety of housing issues (including but not limited to habitability issues, payment disputes, lease violations, unlawful lockouts, and small claims actions) or seeking eviction defense and homelessness prevention. Students will draft legal memoranda and may prepare pleadings for town, village, and city court cases. Students may have the opportunity to appear (likely virtually) in court. The students may also circulate tenants' rights information to the community in conjunction with the Ithaca Tenants Union.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7905 - Advocacy for LGBT Communities Practicum (1-6 Credits)
Prerequisite: completion of 2 full semesters of law study at a U.S. law school. Permission of the instructor. Limited enrollment. 12 to 16 hours of work per week. This course has two components. First, a weekly seminar that covers a survey of different legal topics affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals and communities. Topics include relationship recognition, parentage, custody, asylum, employment discrimination, and more. This seminar generally takes place at Cornell Law School. Second, students will spend, on average, 8 hours per week doing client work and case rounds in Syracuse at the offices of the Volunteer Lawyers Project of Onondaga County. Students will work on a variety of legal cases and advocacy projects that advance or defend the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals and communities. Students will work on developing fundamental lawyering skills such as interviewing, client counseling, and drafting of court forms. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in public education, legal research and other advocacy. Students must be able to arrange for their own travel to and from Syracuse on a weekly basis. Students are requested to submit a resume, transcript and letter of interest when applying.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7906 - Advocacy for LGBT Communities Practicum II (1-6 Credits)
Prerequisite: Completion of LGBT Practicum I. Completion of 2 full semesters of law study at a U.S. law school. Permission of the instructor. Limited enrollment. Class may be taken for 2 or 3 credits; 6 to 10 hours of work per week. Students will continue the client work portion of the Practicum I. Students will work with instructor to identify number of hours worked in Syracuse versus remotely. Students will attend on average 1 hour of class per week for case rounds and for new subject material not covered during their time in Practicum I.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7907 - Advocacy for LGBT Communities Practicum III (1-6 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2018, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
LAW 7914 - Gender Justice Clinic (1-6 Credits)
Students in the Gender Justice Clinic examine and engage in local, national, and global efforts to combat gender-based violence and discrimination. Students work in teams under faculty supervision on cases and projects that address a variety of issues relating to gender justice, including domestic violence, sexual assault, obstetric violence, gender-based discrimination at work, child and forced marriage, and violence and discrimination against people who are transgender and incarcerated, work in the sex industry, or are trafficking survivors. Clinic members provide legal advice and representation to individuals, engage with regional and international human rights bodies, draft or analyze proposed legislation or policy documents, conduct fact-finding and reporting, or contribute to legal trainings and community education initiatives. Recent clinic projects have included representing a client who was terminated from her job because of a pregnancy-related disability, representing a client who fled from her home country because of domestic violence in her application for asylum, representing survivors of military sexual assault in a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, developing legal resources for pro se litigants who are transgender and incarcerated, drafting and successfully advocating for the adoption of local government resolutions recognizing freedom from domestic violence as a human right, representing survivors of obstetric violence in their efforts to seek redress, preparing a submission to the United Nations experts on gender rights in Kashmir, and developing a handbook on anti-gender-based-violence laws for judges and prosecutors in Zambia. Class sessions offer an overview of substantive gender rights issues, help students integrate the theory and practice of gender justice advocacy, and provide training in critical lawyering skills. Students who wish to apply to the clinic should pre-register and also submit a CV, unofficial transcript, and statement of interest (no more than 2 pages) to Prof. Brundige by the end of the pre-registration period. Please also contact Prof. Brundige if you have any questions about the course.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL, CU-ITL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022 LAW 7915 - Gender Justice Clinic II (1-6 Credits)
Clinic students contribute to efforts to address gender-based violence and discrimination by representing people in a variety of legal matters and undertaking advocacy projects in collaboration with community partners. Students will gain experience in legal advocacy on gender justice issues and develop lawyering and leadership skills. Students will participate in regular weekly team meetings and attend occasional seminars of the full Gender Justice Clinic.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL, CU-ITL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7916 - Gender Justice Clinic III (1-6 Credits)
Students who have completed the Gender Justice Clinic II may seek the instructors' permission to enroll in the Gender Justice Clinic III for 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 credits, with credits reflecting the workload taken on. Clinic students contribute to efforts to address gender-based violence and discrimination by representing people in a variety of legal matters and undertaking advocacy projects in collaboration with community partners. Students will gain experience in legal advocacy on gender justice issues and develop lawyering and leadership skills. Students will participate in regular weekly team meetings and attend some of the seminars of the full Gender Justice Clinic. Students who wish to enroll in the Clinic should pre-register and contact Prof. Brundige to discuss their participation by the end of the pre-registration period. Supplementary application materials are not required. Please also contact Prof. Brundige if you have any questions about the course.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7917 - Gender Justice Clinic IV (4 Credits)
Clinic students contribute to efforts to address gender-based violence and discrimination by representing people in a variety of legal matters and undertaking advocacy projects in collaboration with community partners. Students will gain experience in legal advocacy on gender justice issues and develop lawyering and leadership skills.
Prerequisites: LAW 7196.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7918 - Gender Justice Clinic V (2-6 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2024
LAW 7921 - Non-Jury Trial Practicum (4 Credits)
The purpose of this course is to give students the opportunity to conduct non-jury trials. While the cases are the prosecution of non-criminal violations in Ithaca City Court, the course is focused on developing trial skills as they apply to both prosecution and defense of criminal and civil cases. The course has both a classroom component and a courtroom component. The classroom component involves lecture, discussion and trial simulation exercises. Topics include criminal law and procedure, prosecution ethics, trial strategy and preparation, trial conduct including direct and cross-examination, plea-bargaining and professional judgment. The courtroom component involves regular attendance at Ithaca City Court's non-jury terms. Students will observe and critique trials and will prosecute offenses including traffic tickets (such as speeding and running a red light), city code violations (such as open container and noise offenses), non-criminal penal law violations (such as disorderly conduct, possession of marijuana) among others. Each student will be expected to conduct multiple trials during the semester, depending on docket volume. During the semester students will also be expected to prepare witnesses (typically police officers), conduct plea-bargaining negotiations, case research and fact investigation, respond to discovery demands, and engage in legal research, motion practice, and appellate practice as needed. Note: This course requires off premises travel within the City of Ithaca. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.
Prerequisites: LAW 6401 or permission of instructor.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019 LAW 7923 - Protest and Civil Disobedience Defense Practicum I (4 Credits)
Depending on case assignment and litigation needs, students in the practicum typically represent clients arrested in connection with protest activities in their criminal court proceedings, appellate proceedings or federal civil rights litigation, and/or protesters who may face arrest and need front end counseling. If case needs allow, students will also participate in drafting a handbook that will be published for use by mass protest event organizers and attorneys. The course classroom component will revolve around developing skills, approaches and strategies for legal representation in the protest context. Special attention will be paid to the unique challenges and opportunities involved in mass arrests and ongoing civil disobedience movements. Class discussions will also focus on the role and legal ramifications of civil disobedience in the United States. Core skills advanced include: interviewing and counseling clients, factual investigation, basic and advanced legal research and writing, case analysis and strategy development, trial preparation, witness preparation, oral argument, and potentially trial or appellate practice. This course may require travel off premises.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020 LAW 7924 - Protest and Civil Disobedience Defense Practicum II (4 Credits)
This section is for students wishing to take the practicum again. Depending on case assignment and litigation needs, students in the practicum typically represent clients arrested in connection with protest activities in their criminal court proceedings, appellate proceedings or federal civil rights litigation, and/or protesters who may face arrest and need front end counseling. If case needs allow, students will also participate in drafting a handbook that will be published for use by mass protest event organizers and attorneys. The course classroom component will revolve around developing skills, approaches and strategies for legal representation in the protest context. Special attention will be paid to the unique challenges and opportunities involved in mass arrests and ongoing civil disobedience movements. Class discussions will also focus on the role and legal ramifications of civil disobedience in the United States. Core skills advanced include: interviewing and counseling clients, factual investigation, basic and advanced legal research and writing, case analysis and strategy development, trial preparation, witness preparation, oral argument, and potentially trial or appellate practice. This course may require travel off premises.
Prerequisites: LAW 7923.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
LAW 7925 - New York Attorney General Practicum I (6 Credits)
The New York State Attorney General offers a clinic in which law students work 12-15 hours per week in the Attorney General's Syracuse Regional Office and attend a weekly class at Cornell. Under the supervision of an Assistant Attorney General, students perform legal research, writing, analysis, draft original legal documents and provide trial support. Students will have an opportunity to attend hearings, trials, court arguments, and pre-trial proceedings. Students will acquire litigation skills as well as specialized knowledge of public advocacy litigation. The class will focus on legal and ethical issues seen in litigation and review student experiences working in the Attorney General's office. Each week there will be a different subject area of Attorney General practice discussed or there will be a guest speaker. Topics include medical malpractice, defective highway design, 1983 civil rights actions in Federal Court, petitions in State Court seeking to overturn state actions, prisoner claims public advocacy litigation. Guest speakers will be attorneys serving in various capacities in State or Federal government and often include a judge or court attorney. There will also be a pro bono opportunity to accompany an attorney to a volunteer legal services clinics operated by the Onondaga County Bar Association.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023 LAW 7927 - Appellate Criminal Defense Clinic (1-6 Credits)
In this one-semester clinical course, students will take on the professional responsibilities of handling a criminal appeal in New York State. Students will work in pairs to review the full appellate record, research and select the most salient appealable issues, and draft the opening appellate brief on behalf of an indigent client convicted of a felony in Manhattan or the Bronx. Throughout the process, students will collaborate with their incarcerated client.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
LAW 7928 - Advanced Appellate Criminal Defense Clinic (1-4 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2022
LAW 7935 - Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic (4 Credits)
The Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic allows to students to work on matters involving individual and organizational rights, with a focus on First Amendment topics. Students will engage in litigation, policy, and advocacy projects to affirm their clients' legal interests in courts, legislatures, and in society under the supervision of the instructor. Clients may include individuals, organizations, and groups seeking to promote and protect civil rights and civil liberties, including journalists, activists, non-profit organizations, and citizens committed to social justice. Projects will explore specific areas of First Amendment law and how they intersect with other areas (e.g. racial justice, criminal law, immigration, reproductive rights, administrative law, and intellectual property). Students work collaboratively and with primary responsibility for the client relationship, developing core lawyering skills (e.g. interviewing, counseling, legal research and writing, strategic planning, and cross-cultural lawyering). Students will also learn selected areas of First Amendment law, constitutional litigation, and remedies, though no formal experience in those areas is required. Through interaction with the clients and the communities in which they live and operate, students will gain exposure to the role of public interest lawyers in a larger social and political system, and how litigation and advocacy can help facilitate strategic goals.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024
LAW 7938 - Advanced Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic (1-6 Credits)
For students interested in returning to the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic (or students who have enrolled in another public law-oriented clinic), an opportunity to develop advanced litigation and policy advocacy skills on topics relating to First Amendment law and its intersections with other doctrinal areas.
Prerequisites: LAW 7935.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024
LAW 7945 - Federal Indian Law Practicum I (1-6 Credits)
This ongoing practicum course represents tribes and tribal members in matters involving federal Indian law, large or small, and regardless of forum or the location of the tribe. One current case involves pursuing a claim against the Department of the Interior under The Judgment Funds Act on behalf of disenrolled members of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan. Student work on that matter includes research and document preparation related to filing an appeal of a decision of the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs in federal court, while concurrently developing a broad-based knowledge of a voluminous historical and administrative record, which includes expert reports, research memoranda, client declarations and interview transcripts.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7946 - Federal Indian Law Practicum II (3 Credits)
This ongoing clinical course is pursuing a claim against the Department of the Interior under The Judgment Funds Act on behalf of disenrolled members of the Saginaw Chippewa tribe. We have filed a complaint asking the Secretary to perform a non-discretionary action to re-enroll our clients. Because the tribe is not a necessary party we have avoided issues of sovereign immunity, but expect that it may be raised in an attempt to join the tribe. The Department has filed a motion to dismiss and we responded and are awaiting judgment. We will continue to develop strategies that will permit us to go forward regardless of the decision. Student work will entail designing an administrative appeal and preparing documents for a motion for summary judgment. Students will continue gathering and preparing evidence as well as preparing memoranda on the various tactics. The voluminous historical record remains to be fully cataloged and exhibits for the client declarations also remain to be prepared.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7949 - Federal Indian Law Practicum III (3 Credits)
This ongoing practicum course represents tribes and tribal members in matters involving federal Indian law, large or small, and regardless of forum or the location of the tribe. One current case involves pursuing a claim against the Department of the Interior under The Judgment Funds Act on behalf of disenrolled members of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan. Student work on that matter includes research and document preparation related to ongoing federal court litigation, while concurrently developing a broad-based knowledge of a voluminous historical and administrative record, which includes expert reports, research memoranda, client declarations and interview transcripts.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7950 - Federal Indian Law Practicum IV (1-6 Credits)
This ongoing practicum course represents tribes and tribal members in matters involving federal Indian law, large or small, regardless of forum or the location of the tribe. One current case involves pursuing a claim against the Department of the Interior under The Judgment Funds Act on behalf of disenrolled members of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan. Student work on that matter includes research and document preparation related to ongoing federal court litigation, while concurrently developing a broad-based knowledge of a voluminous historical and administrative record, which includes expert reports, research memoranda, client declarations and interview transcripts. LAW 7946, LAW 7949, and LAW 7950 are advanced courses for students who have completed previous semesters in the practicum.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
LAW 7953 - Securities Law Clinic I (1-6 Credits)
The course will focus on fundamental investigatory and advocacy skills applicable to representation of public investors in disputes subject to arbitration at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (f/k/a National Association of Securities Dealers), with particular attention to the elderly and to small investors. Substantive legal topics will include the scope and nature of binding arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act and New York law, and the legal and regulatory remedies available to defrauded investors. Coursework will include training in skills such as interviewing potential clients, evaluating potential claims, preparing pleadings, conducting discovery, representing clients at hearings and negotiating settlements. Class work will include presentations by nationally-recognized experts on topics applicable to evaluation of securities accounts, trading, and products. Students will have the opportunity under faculty supervision to represent investors, to provide public education to community groups as to investment frauds, to draft position statements to regulatory authorities, and/or to participate in preparing amicus briefs, in support of public investors.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6821.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2023 LAW 7954 - Securities Law Clinic II (1-6 Credits)
The course will focus on fundamental investigatory and advocacy skills applicable to representation of public investors in disputes subject to arbitration at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (f/k/a National Association of Securities Dealers), with particular attention to the elderly and to small investors. Substantive legal topics will include the scope and nature of binding arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act and New York law, and the legal and regulatory remedies available to defrauded investors. Coursework will include training in skills such as interviewing potential clients, evaluating potential claims, preparing pleadings, conducting discovery, representing clients at hearings and negotiating settlements. Class work will include presentations by nationally-recognized experts on topics applicable to evaluation of securities accounts, trading, and products. Students will have the opportunity under faculty supervision to represent investors, to provide public education to community groups as to investment frauds, to draft position statements to regulatory authorities, and/or to participate in preparing amicus briefs, in support of public investors.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6821.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2023 LAW 7955 - Securities Law Clinic III (1-6 Credits)
The course will focus on fundamental investigatory and advocacy skills applicable to representation of public investors in disputes subject to arbitration at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (f/k/a National Association of Securities Dealers), with particular attention to the elderly and to small investors. Substantive legal topics will include the scope and nature of binding arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act and New York law, and the legal and regulatory remedies available to defrauded investors. Coursework will include training in skills such as interviewing potential clients, evaluating potential claims, preparing pleadings, conducting discovery, representing clients at hearings and negotiating settlements. Class work will include presentations by nationally-recognized experts on topics applicable to evaluation of securities accounts, trading, and products. Students will have the opportunity under faculty supervision to represent investors, to provide public education to community groups as to investment frauds, to draft position statements to regulatory authorities, and/or to participate in preparing amicus briefs, in support of public investors.
Prerequisites: Recommended prerequisite or corequisite: LAW 6821
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2023 LAW 7957 - Clinic Spanish Conversation (1 Credit)
Spanish is the most frequently spoken non-English language in the United States. According to the Migration Policy Institute, Spanish is the predominant language spoken by limited-English-proficient (LEP) individuals in this country, with roughly 64 percent (16.2 million) of all LEP individuals speaking Spanish. The legal profession has a responsibility to competently serve all LEP communities, and lawyers with Spanish language-accessible practices are an important resource. To support Spanish learning at the law school, we are offering this ungraded Spanish conversation course for students who are concurrently enrolled in one of the in-house clinics. To apply for the course, submit your resume and a brief statement describing your Spanish language ability. Once clinic registration is final, we will confirm that you have joined one of the in-house clinics and reach out to you regarding next steps, which may include a brief phone call to check your level of Spanish. The course will be taught by a clinical professor and a bilingual law student TA.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2023
LAW 7958 - Advanced Spanish Clinic Conversation (1 Credit)
This course is for students enrolled in a clinic in the spring 2024 semester. The class will focus on verbal and written communication and language comprehension. Please note that this class is not for students looking to learn basic Spanish conversational skills; instead, the course will focus on strengthening legal vocabulary. A minimum level of Spanish comprehension is required to enroll.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024
LAW 7959 - Transnational Disputes Clinic (4-6 Credits)
Students in this course learn to use strategic litigation to influence the progressive development of the law. Clinic clients and partners include those appearing before international investor-state arbitral tribunals, national courts, such as U.S. federal courts, and other fora. Students learn key skills through acting as counsel for parties as well as for amici curiae in disputes that implicate the protection of fundamental rights. This course includes a seminar component as well as extensive, supervised work as part of a case team.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7964 - Veterans Law Practicum (1-6 Credits)
In the Veterans Law Practicum I, students will provide information, legal advice, and representation to veterans. The student work in this practicum will directly address the gaps in legal representation for veterans seeking access to various veteran-specific benefits programs. Obtaining and accessing benefits can impact the lives of veterans in many ways: by preventing homelessness, improving a veteran's economic security and wellbeing, and providing access to medical care. Students will work on cases to secure service-connected disability compensation, discharge upgrades, overpayment issues, and other related claims. The students will interview veterans and conduct substantive research into the applicable law, including Title 38 Code of Federal Regulations, Uniform Code of Military Justice, and Federal Legislation. Students will draft legal memoranda and may prepare briefings for Veteran District Offices and/or the Board of Veterans Affairs. Students may have the opportunity to appear virtually at hearings. The students may also circulate veterans benefits information to the community in conjunction with the Tompkins County Department of Veterans Services. Students will develop key lawyering skills (including interviewing, client counseling, fact investigation, drafting, and oral advocacy), gain substantive and procedural knowledge of veteran benefits laws and regulations, and engage with the ethical implications of creating an attorney-client relationship. Students are requested to submit a statement of interest.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 7965 - Veterans Law Practicum II (2 Credits)
In the Veterans Law Practicum II, students will continue advocating for veterans to obtain service-connected disability compensation, discharge upgrades, and other related claims. Students may also perform research and draft memoranda on policy issues affecting veterans benefits programs. The classroom component of the course will mostly consist of case rounds, in which students discuss their current cases with fellow students and with the instructor. Advanced students will be expected to take on leadership roles within the Practicum and assist newer students with understanding the substantive and procedural issues involved in veterans advocacy.
Prerequisites: LAW 7964
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
LAW 7966 - Veterans Law Practicum III (1-6 Credits)
The Women's Decarceration Practicum will give students the opportunity to work with incarcerated women in the following contexts: (1) effective research, writing, and mitigation investigation for post-conviction relief efforts (clemency, parole, and/or 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)); (2) prison and reentry lawyering for incarcerated and recently released women's biopsychosocial health; and (3) policy briefing and testimony preparation for legislative education opportunities. Used here, decarceration means working to address the myriad ways people affected by the criminal justice system are and remain unfree. True decarceration recognizes that release from prison is a necessary but insufficient condition for each person--and society--to scale their healthful human capacity. Commensurately, women is used here to include the diversity and nuance of women's lived experiences; that is, to include trans-women, cis-women, and any person who identifies as woman, regardless of their state- or birth-assigned gender. Among other learning objectives, students will improve their client and witness interview skills, will learn how to incorporate storytelling in persuasive legal writing, will identify the nuanced and intersectional ways women experience the criminal punishment system, and will learn how to incorporate those experiences in legal advocacy.
Exploratory Studies:
(CU-CEL)
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024 LAW 7991 - Cornell Research Colloquium (3 Credits)
This seminar is a course in advanced academic research methodology. The Colloquium is designed to prepare the students to engage in doctoral-level research, analysis and writing, especially in comparative and international contexts. How is the researcher to select an object or subject of investigation? How should she formulate research questions? How should she engage in the study of foreign and domestic legal institutions, doctrines and/or cultures? How is interdisciplinary work to be accomplished? The early portions of the course will involve discussing readings in comparative research methodology, including functionalism, Common Core analysis, legal transplant theory, historicism, law and development, legal pluralism, cultural analysis, colonial studies, and comparative institutionalism. In the latter portions of the course, students will present and critique their methodologically reflective research projects. A modest number of external speakers will be invited to present their work in progress for the purposes of generating methodologically oriented discussion.
Last Four Terms Offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
LAW 7999 - Independent Study (12 Credits)
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
LAW 8991 - Thesis (5 Credits)
Arrangements for a master's thesis are made by the student directly with a faculty member. A faculty member may require the student to submit a detailed outline of the proposed thesis, as well as a summary of previous writing on the subject or other appropriate information. The work is completed during the academic year under the supervision of a law faculty member.
Enrollment Information: Enrollment limited to: graduate students and students completing joint J.D.-LL.M. program.
Last Four Terms Offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021