General Practice (LAW) (LGP)
LGP 900 - The Legal Profession
Credits: 1
In this course, students acquire a basic understanding of the numerous career paths available to lawyers, explore basic concepts of legal professionalism, understand the fundamentals of the business of law, practice the “soft skills” necessary for effective lawyering, and develop an individual career development strategy for exploring their unique professional interests throughout the next three years. During classes, students meet practitioners from a variety of practice areas. The attorneys address various business and professional issues they handle on a daily basis so that students can begin to discern not only the legal and business issues in different legal practices, but also the professional standards that attorneys will expect of them in the workplace. During a portion of each class, students apply the information they learned from the attorneys to a practical aspect of their own professional development. Students also research and establish a mentoring relationship with a practitioner, attend networking events, participate in community service projects, attend additional events, meetings, and conferences and practice other “soft skills” as requirements of the course. This class meets for two hours every other week. Students are expected to complete several specific written assignments. Grading is S/U and is based on attendance, participation and satisfactory completion of all projects and written assignments. This is a required 1L course.
Grade Mode: Law Satisfactory/Unsatisfactry
LGP #902 - Access to Justice
Credits: 1
This class explores the barriers that low-income and vulnerable individuals face when interacting with the civil side of the justice system, as well as how effective advocacy can help overcome these obstacles. Tackling complex access to justice issues requires substantive work across a range of doctrinal topics, including Property, Civil Procedure, and Family Law. It also requires understanding new and emerging solution spaces to addressing structural access to justice issues, including medical-legal collaboratives. Students receive significant opportunities to practice analyzing these issues by writing responses to bar exam style essays, as well as engaging in other forms of problem-solving. Students thinking about taking the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) are especially encouraged to take this class, at it will offer in-depth immersion into the strategies and tactics necessary for succeeding on all MEE (Multi-State Essay Exam) essays.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 903 - Administrative Process
Credits: 3
Administrative law is the law of how government agencies operate. Topics covered include the mechanisms through which agencies act, the constitutional constraints on their actions, and the ways in which the executive, legislative, and judicial branches can exercise oversight and control over those actions. By the end of this course, students should be prepared to identify and analyze the stages of administrative rulemaking and adjudications; apply constitutional doctrines that constrain agencies such as due process, nondelegation, and separation of powers; and apply statutory and constitutional doctrines governing administrative actions and judicial review of those actions. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 904 - Current Issues in Health Law and Policy
Credits: 2
This course will teach students key provisions of federal law regulating the health care delivery and finance system through an analysis of the Affordable Care Act and its historic implementation, and key health policy issues facing our country including our policy responses to public health issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, opioid crisis and access to health insurance coverage. Students will review currently debated policy implications, legal challenges and remaining health policy issues. Students will be guided through two short writing assignments and choose a longer in depth and current topic on health law or policy. Satisfies upper level writing requirement.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 906 - Statutory Interpretation
Credits: 2
This course, taught by the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of NH, offers instruction in statutory interpretation, with emphasis on three areas: (1) practice, meaning advocacy in litigation and judicial opinions; (2) doctrines: textual and substantive canons of statutory construction; and (3) competing theories: textualism, intentionalism, purposivism (legal process theory), and pragmatism. Despite its theoretical aspects, this is a highly practical course.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 907 - The Future of National Fiscal Policy
Credits: 2
In this interdisciplinary capstone, which satisfies the upper-level writing requirement, students will examine current data, law, projections and policy trends as they identify and assess the nation's long-term fiscal challenges, such as growing deficits and debt, health care cost growth, domestic investment needs, Social Security insolvency and more. Two major projects articulating practical solutions to such challenges will serve as the midterm and final assessments. Both will include written and oral presentation components.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 909 - Civil Procedure
Credits: 4
This introductory Civil Procedure course considers the issues that litigants and lawyers face in civil lawsuits filed in American federal courts. The course explores the current state of American civil litigation, the remedies a federal court may provide, the various stages of a federal civil lawsuit (including discovery), adjudicatory jurisdiction, subject-matter jurisdiction, the role of state law in federal courts, and joinder of parties and claims.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 910 - Secured Transactions
Credits: 3
This course examines the rules governing transactions in which personal property and fixtures are used as collateral to secure an obligation. This body of law addresses not only the rights of the debtor and creditor inter se but also the rights of third parties with an interest in the collateral. The primary source of authority is Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, but students will also be introduced to other applicable laws, including primarily the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP #913 - Modern Payment Systems: Art 3 to Mobile Money
Credits: 1
Money and the “financial system pipes” through which it flows are essential for commerce and the smooth functioning of society. Not surprisingly, governments worldwide heavily regulate these critical monetary and financial components. To complicate matters, these systems are changing and evolving to accommodate an international information age economy and new technologies. This course will examine modern payment systems with an eye on the applicable U.S. legal and regulatory environment. This will include Article 3 (drafts and promissory notes) and Article 5 (letters of credit) of the Uniform Commercial Code to provide an understanding of the legal context established by the Uniform Commercial Code for payments and money transfer. From there the emergence and regulation of credit, debt and pre-paid cards are examined. Tbe journey ends with an exploration of new payment methods such as mobile money and the challenges that they pose to the legal and regulatory machinery.
Grade Mode: Law Satisfactory/Unsatisfactry
LGP 914 - Secured Transactions-UCC Art 9
Credits: 1
The Uniform Commercial Code has eleven substantive articles and according to the Uniform Law Commission "Article 9, Secured Transactions, may be the most important of the eleven." Debt and buying on credit is a common, if not essential, element of modern life. In the process of acquiring debt our creditors may want some assurance that they will be repaid. This is often in the form of collateral. When the collateral is personal property, we often become party to secured transactions governed by Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. This course is focused on providing a foundational understanding of Article 9 and to help develop the skills necessary to identify and analyze situations involving secured transactions. Since most bar examinations include coverage of UCC Article 9 this course can be critical for successful bar passage.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP #915 - Conflict of Laws
Credits: 2 or 3
This course cuts across all substantive subjects and much of Civil Procedure. When parties or their affairs are involved in more than one jurisdiction, it becomes necessary to decide whose law to apply. Say a private jet made in Washington, sold to an airline based in Georgia breaks up over LaGuardia, scattering bodies and damaging property on the ground in both New York and Connecticut, leaving heirs resident in several states and countries, all bringing lawsuits. Whose law of products liability, wrongful death, inheritance, measure of damages, statute of limitations, etc. will be applied, and will the decisions in some cases have binding effect in others. Or a rich person of ambiguous domicile dies and different states try to tax the estate. Or a NH court refuses to defer to a custody order of another state, or of Quebec, because one parent has brought the child here.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 916 - Constitutional Law
Credits: 4
This introductory Constitutional Law course familiarizes students with the Constitution’s three primary functions:(1) to create the three branches of the federal government and distribute power among them; (2) to allocate power between the federal government and the states; and (3) to limit the extent to which government may infringe individual liberties. The course explores the nature of federal judicial power, theories of constitutional interpretation, separation of powers, federalism, substantive due process, and equal protection. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 917 - Comparative Constitutional Law
Credits: 2
This course examines and compares the constitutional law of several different nations with a focus on three central themes: constitutional systems and the concept of constitutionalism, the role of judicial review, and the identification and enforcement of fundamental rights. In the area of fundamental rights, we will consider how different constitutional systems recognize and protect rights of religious freedom, privacy, and personal autonomy. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 918 - Constitutional Law I
Credits: 3
In the first of two courses, Constitutional Law I examines the structure of the U.S. government, with a focus on the allocation and separation of powers, judicial review, justiciability, and federalism.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 919 - Contract Design
Credits: 3
When a transaction and the relevant law are thoroughly understood, a good lawyer should be able to write a clear and effective contract before consulting forms and checklists. Although transactions are infinitely varied, there is a structural logic common to all contracts that can help the lawyer clarify the parties' objectives and understandings, see alternatives, organize the performances, anticipate difficulties, minimize or allocate risks, and provide for contingencies or disputes. First we will study this structural logic, the anatomy and physiology of contracts. The second part of the course will be more detailed application to several archetypal transactions, with their characteristic problems and solutions: Commercial Services, Purchase and Sale of Real Estate and of a Business, LLC Operating Agreement. The reading will be a short drafting text, cases involving drafting or design problems or oversights, and a bunch of clauses and contracts. In each part of the course there will be drafting exercises in class and out, starting with individual clauses. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 920 - Contracts
Credits: 3-4
Contracts is your introduction to the law of voluntary transactions. How do we make enforceable promises? How do we interpret them? When and how can they be undone or excused? If they are broken without lawful excuse, what till the law do about it? Most of the law about ordinary contracts is Common Law – the accumulated and evolving mass of decisions by courts in England and the U.S. There are also important types of contracts controlled by the Uniform Commercial Code, adopted in nearly identical form by the legislatures of each of the states. We will study both the common law and Article 2 of the Commercial Code which governs contracts for the sale of goods. Other things go on in a Contracts class. With trivial exceptions, contracts are made of words. Care in using and interpreting words is vital for lawyers. Contract-making also requires anticipating and providing for contingencies. The course is as much about developing professional habits of thought as it is about rules and vocabulary. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 921 - Constitutional Law II
Credits: 3
In the second of two courses, Constitutional Law II explores federal constitutional rights, with a focus on equal protection, due process, and the First Amendment protections for free speech and religion.
Prerequisite(s): LGP 918 with a minimum grade of D-.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 922 - Employment Law
Credits: 3
Using the Case File method developed in business schools, this course hones students' legal analysis skills in the context of a wide array of employment law problems. For each class students will read a case file that includes a memo from a senior attorney presenting a client with an employment problem and a number of relevant cases and statutes. During class discussion students will be required to analyze the relevant law in the context of the client's problem. Students analyze problems concerning employment contracts, wrongful termination claims, employees' rights to privacy, defamation in employment, and a variety of employment discrimination claims. Throughout the course, students are challenged to make nuanced judgments necessary to advise clients about likely outcomes. To make these judgments students must consider and weigh the law, facts, procedural hurdles, legal costs, business realities and human consequences of the problems their clients face. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 923 - Ethics and Government Service
Credits: 2
This course provides a rigorous introduction to the legal framework surrounding public integrity and government ethics for civil servants. The course will discuss federal ethics rules as applied to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as state and municipal frameworks. This course will allow students to explore the legal complexities related to ethics law and regulations regarding employee conduct and the associated challenges for lawyers who represent clients in ethics matters. Students will increase proficiency in practical legal writing skills by producing substantial pieces of written matter applying the law and framework in this course to a set of facts.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 924 - Evidence
Credits: 3
Evidence is a Prerequisite for Trial Advocacy, Expert Witnesses & Scientific Evidence and Patent Litigation. This course involves the study of law governing the flow of information into trials, focusing on the Federal Rules of Evidence. The course emphasizes the development of the skill of factual analysis and of the methods for analyzing evidentiary problems. It is not a course on the memorization of a body of rules. Rather, the principles underlying the rules and, in particular, their application are the focus. This course is recommended for taking the bar exam. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 925 - Expert Witness and Scientific Evidence
Credits: 3
This course recognizes that whatever type of lawyering one does (from patent litigation to criminal defense to personal injury to commercial), one must have an ability to manage effectively expert witnesses and scientific evidence. This course functions as an Advanced Evidence and Advanced Trial Advocacy course. It examines the law as to the admissibility of and limitations on expert testimony and on scientific evidence. It requires students to develop a competence in the use of experts during litigation by participation in simulated direct and cross-examination exercises as well as admissibility exercises. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Prerequisite(s): (LGP 924 with a minimum grade of D- and (LSK 928 with a minimum grade of D-.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 926 - Family Law
Credits: 3
This course provides an overview of the law as it relates to modern families, including defining a family, the parties' relationships with each other and their children as well as the consequences of dissolution of the family. The main topics covered will be marriage, divorce, spousal and child support, encroachments on family privacy, and rights and obligations of individuals in families. The subject matter also covers abortion, alternative methods of bringing a child into a family as well as government involvement in the family. Family law is in a period of rapid change in the 21st. century. Participants in various family situations search for legal change to accommodate the rapid change in society. Court decisions, lawyers' arguments and the legal issues themselves all show the impact of societal, political, and economic change in the field of family law practice. The course will also explore how the law has evolved, and is continuing to evolve, in recent years. Class time will be used for lecture and discussion regarding text materials. The course is designed to cover the law on a national scope.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 927 - Gender and the Law
Credits: 3
This is a survey course providing students with an overview of an array of issues involving gender. Topics will include definitions of gender and sexuality; a review of some Supreme Court decisions affecting gender issues; reproductive rights; surnames; and immigration. Additional topics are Title IX and sports; domestic violence; sexual harassment; the treatment of women in news reporting; and, women lawyers. Class time will be used for lecture and discussion regarding text materials. The course is designed to cover the law on a national scope utilizing federal and state cases and federal statutes that impact gender.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 929 - First Amendment Law
Credits: 3
This course will provide an intensive examination of the First Amendment's free speech and religion clauses. The freedom of speech aspect of the course will consider the various theoretical underpinnings for affording protection to expression and will explore how the protections afforded speech vary depending on (1) the kind of speech regulated, (2) the location where the speech occurs, and (3) the nature of the regulation at issue. The religion aspect of the course will consider the different doctrinal approaches to enforcing the free exercise clause and explore the limitations on government action imposed by the establishment clause. Course readings will include a case book and additional readings provided by the instructor.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 930 - Health Law and Industry Regulation
Credits: 3
This course will provide students the practical regulatory knowledge base necessary to practice in the area of health law by teaching how the health care delivery system is regulated from a business perspective. Students analyze how providers navigate a complex and changing regulatory environment by reviewing the basic federal and state legal frameworks regulating health insurance, payment reform mandates and the Affordable Care Act implementation, business structures and tax, Medicare and Medicaid, fraud and abuse including Stark/Antikickback and antitrust. Students review a variety of case studies and hear from experts in the field of health law on current topics in order to highlight the interplay between health care delivery, business and regulation.
Prerequisite(s): LGP 903 (may be taken concurrently) with a minimum grade of D-.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 931 - Health Law
Credits: 2-3
This course provides a general introduction to the law of health care in the United States. Students will gain an understanding of the legal and policy considerations that shape the relationships between providers (physicians and hospitals) and patients and how different areas of law have developed when applied within the health care industry. Because health law is a broad subject matter, this course will cover a wide range of topics in brief, including the physician-patient relationship, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, medical malpractice, regulatory compliance, conflicts of interest, human subjects research, and end-of-life decision-making.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 933 - Immigration Law
Credits: 3
Immigration law is complex and multi-faceted; it touches on other substantive areas of the law including constitutional law, criminal law and foreign policy. By the end of the semester students should be able to think critically about the historical, theoretical and constitutional context of immigration law, including division of immigration power between federal and state government as well as limits to the federal immigration power under the United States Constitution and the Amendments; possess a good understanding of the core principles of immigration law, its norms and practices; develop analytical skills to question and appraise immigration law policies and practices; identify current immigration issues in the United States, including analyzing the constitutionality and rationality of recent state and federal legislative enactments and proposals; and explore causes of present immigration problems and violations and what possible steps might Congress or states take to remedy flaws in current legislation on immigration. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 934 - Inclusion@Work
Credits: 1 or 2
Organizations have transitioned from diversity as a compliance issue to inclusion as a business necessity. Beyond risk management, legal counsel is expected to help establish corporate policies and practices with an inclusive lens. This introductory course provides students with awareness of the importance and role of inclusive leadership in an increasingly globalized and dynamic marketplace. Students will learn about inclusive concepts such as unconscious bias, intent-impact and insider-outsider dynamics. Particular attention will be given to differentiating diversity from inclusion, traditional versus modern practices and levels of application (i.e. individual, group, systemic and marketplace).
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 939 - Privacy Law
Credits: 2
Privacy is the study of society’s efforts to draw boundaries between different contexts in which information flows. In recent years, privacy law has become one of the most important and pressing issues for businesses, consumers, and government officials of all kinds. This course will survey legal regimes governing the collection, use, and dissemination of information. Topics of discussion will include information dissemination and the First Amendment, associational privacy, the privacy torts, consumer privacy on the internet, the role of the Federal Trade Commission, medical privacy, government surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, privacy and national security, and international privacy regimes.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP #940 - European Union Privacy & Data Governance Law
Credits: 1
This course will examine the background to the emergence of privacy and data governance law in the European Union. It will contrast the English common law approach to privacy with that of France and Germany. It will examine the establishment of a European wide approach to data protection and privacy,. In particular it will examine in detail the new General Data Protection Regulation provisions, including the discretion of member states. It will further explore the responsibility of non EU entities when acquiring data on EU citizens and the ability to transfer that data outside of EU using data protection equivalency, international agreements or contractual provisions between private entities. Finally the course will examine the protection of e-Privacy and the move towards an Open Data society in the EU for non-personal data.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 951 - Professional Responsibility
Credits: 3
Professional Responsibility provides an in-depth study of the law of lawyering. The coverage includes the provisions of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, bar admission, malpractice, and the "business of law," such as multijurisdictional practice, advertising, and practices with professionals from other disciplines. The course will also expose students to the criticism of the ethics of the legal profession and discuss the use of the adversarial system as the dominant model for our justice system. The course will use the problem-method as its primary vehicle to structure the discussion. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 952 - Property
Credits: 4
This course will introduce and illustrate the fundamental legal concepts and terms involved in the control of property, including real estate, personal property, intangible property, and intellectual property. With primary emphasis on real property, topics covered include the rights and powers of ownership, how property rights are acquired and conveyed, how those rights can be shared between people simultaneously and over time, and how property rights can be divided, regulated, and restricted by the government. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 953 - Remedies
Credits: 3
In this course students review the major kinds of relief clients can obtain in claims involving torts, contracts, property and other civil causes of action - all of which are tested on the bar exam. The course focuses on three majors kinds of remedies - damages, injunctions, and restitution - through readings, solving problems, and short writing assignments. Classes will be focused on solving problems through active team-based learning strategies. During the course students will show in writing and orally how lawyers solve problems in the area of remedies- what laws they use, how they apply them to new facts, and how they use those facts to make arguments to judges or juries. To successfully complete this course students will: 1. Analyze and synthesize primary and secondary authorities; 2. Solve legal problems; 3. Investigate facts, including developing and questioning inferences; 4. Make legal arguments; 5. Understand how to access and information related to remedies; 6. Think critically about law, policy and alternatives to legal remedies; 7. Draft legal documents that communicate clearly, are persuasive, and comply with applicable rules; 8. Learn the basic law and policy of remedies: damages, injunctions, and restitution; 9. Evaluate the advantages of pursuing different remedies to achieve clients' objectives; and 10. Participate professionally in class. This course is recommended for taking the bar exam.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 956 - Pro Sports Law: Unique Relationship, Leagues, Team and Players
Credits: 2
This course examines various legal issues affecting professional sports industries and the relationship between leagues, teams, players and affected third-parties. Topics include related issues in antitrust, labor, work stoppages, contracts, intellectual property, advertising/brand management, torts, franchise relocation, immigration, disability and pension systems, anti-discrimination, regulation of private associations, regulation of athlete agents and their ethical duties, sports broadcasting and esports. Pursuit of careers in sports law, especially becoming attorneys for teams or leagues or becoming sports agents, is also covered.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 958 - Sports Law
Credits: 2
This course will explore the unique set of legal and social structures that intersect with sports in the United States. It will challenge students to debate underlying principles and rethink the legal, policy and ethical boundaries that surround the sports industry. To that end, students will learn key concepts related to the law of private associations, antitrust law, labor law, torts, intellectual property, broadcasting and communications laws, and technology and privacy laws.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 960 - Torts
Credits: 3
This course exposes students to the fundamentals of the major tort doctrines, focusing primarily on negligence and introducing intentional torts, strict liability, and products liability. Through reading primary authorities - cases and statutes - and secondary authorities such as the Restatement of Torts, jury instructions, and related materials, students learn legal principles. Working on skills-based exercises, students practice analyzing and applying torts principles to factual scenarios. During the course students show in writing and orally how lawyers solve problems in the area of torts - what laws they use, how they apply them to new facts, and how they use those facts to make arguments to judges or juries. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 963 - Law and Mental Health
Credits: 2
This course equips students to manage all phases of legal proceedings in which mental health evidence and testimony are utilized. Students will review theories of law and mental health; assessment, treatment, credentialing, ethics, and practice standards; competency, sanity, and commitment proceedings; mental injury, antidiscrimination, and educational entitlements; delinquency, abuse/neglect, and child custody determinations; and practical aspects of forensic consultation, expert witness retention, and the lawyer’s own mental health.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 964 - Drug Law
Credits: 3
Students will learn how the US regulates the development, marketing, sale, and consumption of legal and illegal drugs. They will explore the history of the FDA and DEA, the regulation of prescription medicines, the history and implications of the war on drugs, and the challenges of implementing harm-reduction strategies. The course will be useful to students interested in a variety of fields including health law, criminal law, mental health law, pharmaceutical regulation, and cannabis law.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 969 - Article II Sales
Credits: 2
The Sales course is a continuation of contract doctrine from your first semester Contract Law course. While Contract Law focused on the common law's approach to contracts, Sales will focus on statutory approaches. U.C.C. Article 2 (sale of goods) will be the main focus of the course, but we will also explore other code approaches to sales. We will explore international sales and the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (the CISG). We will also look at electronic commerce through the Uniform Electronics Transactions Act (UETA) and Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-Sign). This course is recommended for taking the bar exam. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 970 - Preliminary Bar Exam
Credits: 0
The preliminary bar exam is a requirement for all 1L students, as set forth in the Student Handbook p.53 The prelim will assess students' substantive knowledge of Torts, Contracts, Property, and Civil Procedure, as well as the essential skills necessary for success on the bar exam. Students will not receive course credit for the prelim, and it will not be used to calculate GPA or class rank.
Grade Mode: Law Satisfactory/Unsatisfactry
LGP 971 - BioInnovation Research Collaboration and the Law
Credits: 2-3
This course will explore the legal, regulatory and business issues that arise from the research, development, manufacturing and sale of innovative bio-medical products. Students will work through a case study to simulate the collaborative development of a product, learning in a dynamic and multi-disciplinary classroom. The curriculum will track key areas of the law that impact the development of innovative products, specifically cutting edge issues that arise when bringing together industry, academia and government collaboration around bio generation. Students will emerge from this pilot program ready for the challenge of identifying the issues facing companies working in bioinnovation space and specifically those companies seeking services from ARMI, Inc.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 972 - Valuation and the Law
Credits: 1-2
Valuation is a prerequisite for thoughtful decision-making. The old management adage—you can’t manage what you don’t measure—remains true today. In business, sound decision-making involves placing reasonable values on assets and strategies to identify the best decisions among competing, but uncertain, choices. While valuation has long been used by businesses to improve decisions, it has been slow to develop as a wide-ranging decision tool in the legal setting. As a result, valuation principles are too often ignored or poorly implemented in legal settings. Valuation should be a fundamental skill possessed by most lawyers. Consider just a few of the legal settings that require valuation to make properly informed decisions: • Developing remedies in the litigation context. • Making sue-or-settle decisions. • Crafting effective laws and regulations. • Determining how much to spend on legal services. • Developing and executing business strategies that are based on legal rights (such as intellectual property strategies). • Evaluating the success or failure of negotiations. In each of these contexts, the decision-maker must make a value judgment (the option chosen is better than options not chosen), whether the decision-maker appreciates it or not. For example, when a client decides to settle a lawsuit, she has valued the settlement alternative higher than the litigation alternative. Therefore, the choice is not whether to employ a valuation analysis. Rather, the choice is whether to employ an intelligent valuation analysis that helps inform the decision or to employ a jumbled process that ignores such valuable information. One reason (and probably the most powerful reason) for the slow development of valuation analysis in the legal setting is the common misperception that valuation is too difficult. This course will seek to disprove that notion. This course will teach students how to apply valuation principles in their future legal practice and become more effective lawyers. Strong math skills are not required. We will not employ any mathematical concepts beyond what is required in a 6th grade math class.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 973 - Extended Bar Review
Credits: 2-3
This course is designed to jumpstart your bar exam preparation by developing your substantive knowledge and sharpening your critical bar exam success skills. Specifically, you will receive in-depth review of highly tested topics in Contracts, Evidence, Torts and Real Property. You will then put that knowledge to use working through practice MBE and essay questions. You will learn how to develop a strong but flexible framework to resolve bar exam problems, sharpen your reading comprehension, issue identification, rule mastery, critical thinking and legal analysis skills.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 979 - Animal Law
Credits: 3
Animal law is the fastest developing field of law in the nation. It is an interdisciplinary practice, encompassing several areas of the law such as property, contracts, torts, constitutional law, criminal law, and even intellectual property. In addition, there are federal and state laws specific to animals, such as trusts and cruelty statutes. This class will focus upon both areas. There will be a strong emphasis on your communication skills: thoughtful and consistent class participation is required. Each week we will address a new area of law, and how it applies to animal law. Class one will be a review of the common law as it relates to animals; class two will be a case file or in class exercise based upon class one.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 981 - Consumer Law
Credits: 3
Consumer Law examines contemporary consumer law, situating its statutes in the common law of tort and contract. The class is organized around a consumer transaction, including how businesses attract consumers, the terms of the products or services purchased, and the remedies or enforcement tools available if the deal goes awry. In addition to longstanding important topics such as unfair or deceptive acts and practices, warranties, and consumer credit law, the class examines how the consumer law landscape is changing. Issues include technological advances that raise privacy concerns; the increase in automobile debt and student loans; and the work of the newest federal agency, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This class will not be exclusively about "consumer protection" but instead will consider consumer law from multiple viewpoints, including those of businesses that are regulated by consumer law and those of policymakers who are charged with protecting the public interest in a fair marketplace.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP #982 - Corporate Finance
Credits: 3
Corporate Finance is designed to provide students with an understanding of the funding sources and the structure of corporate financial transactions. The course will focus on the tools necessary for a lawyer to render legal opinions in the financial sector; and will help students understand the finances behind negotiating a merger, taking a client private (LBO) or public (IPO) and litigation of complex class actions and derivative suites. Topics covered include: time value of money, workings of capital markets, valuation, basic accounting, and basic corporate securities.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP #983 - Economics for Lawyers
Credits: 3
Economics for lawyers exposes students to a broad survey of economic, statistical, financial and accounting concepts which play a crucial role in determining the outcome of legal disputes. Students will not become expert in these technical areas but will be exposed to both the mechanics and subtleties of these tools. The goal is to educate and train students so that they will be better prepared to understand a dispute, craft an argument, or prepare a witness.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP #984 - Intl Sales & Comm. Arbitration
Credits: 3
International Sales and Commercial Arbitration provides an overview of the law governing international sales of goods and international commercial arbitration, focusing primarily on the U.N. Convention on the International Sale of Goods, the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, and the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 985 - Natl Security:Counterterrorism
Credits: 3
National Security: Counterterrorism is an in-depth look at counterterrorism in the United States. Examines the competing conceptions and definitions of terrorism at the national level and the institutions and processes designed to execute the national security on terrorism. Includes the study of the balance between national security interests and civil liberties found in the following topical areas: relevant Supreme Court decisions, legislative provisions in response to acts of terrorism, operational counter-terrorism considerations (including targeted killing), intelligence gathering (including interrogations), policy recommendations, the use of military tribunals or civil courts in trying suspected terrorists, the emerging law regarding enemy combatants and their detention, and the arguable need for new self-defense doctrines at the global level.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP #987 - Int'l Business Transactions
Credits: 3
International Business Transactions is a general course covering the fundamental issues that affect business in today’s global marketplace. Topics covered include legal issues associated with financing commercial transactions, transnational contracts, and foreign direct investment in countries abroad. The course will emphasize the role of international trade institutions, GATT treaties, and federal trade law.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 989 - Civil Rights Litigation
Credits: 2
This course focuses on litigation under 42 U.S.C. 1983 - the principal vehicle for civil rights claims prosecuted in the federal courts. The primary emphasis of the course is on the practical and procedural aspects of civil rights litigation, including matters such as standing, immunities, various issues relating to pleading and proof, the availability and choice of remedies, and the recovery of attorneys' fees. The course is designed to give students the practical knowledge required to effectively litigate civil rights claims in the federal courts while providing insight into the larger jurisprudential debate that has shaped the law in this area.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading
LGP 990 - Law Special Topics
Credits: 1-3
Special topics courses explore emerging developments in the law or take advantage of special expertise provided by visitors and guest faculty. Courses offered under this title are approved by the Associate Dean and may be designated to meet skills or advanced writing requirements. Special topics classes may only satisfy elective credit and are available only to law students after their first year of study and graduate students by permission.
Repeat Rule: May be repeated for a maximum of 15 credits.
Grade Mode: Letter Grading