Upper-Level 10 - College of Law

795: Professional Responsibility in the Criminal Law Context

This course examines the law that governs the activities of lawyers and shapes the legal profession. We will study the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, statutory and common law, the law of legal malpractice, and some procedural and evidence rules. We will spend time on problems that affect real lawyers, with special attention to those problems that affect lawyers who are interested in the criminal law.

This course is eligible to satisfy the Professional Responsibility and Ethics course requirement for graduation.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None

Evaluation: Grades will be based on final examination and class participation.

694: Advanced Trial Team

Advanced Trial Team is a graded experiential trial advocacy course conducted in the fall (three hours) and spring (three hours) semesters for a total of six credit hours. Enrollment is by audition only. Per ABA Standard 310, in order to earn two credit hours per semester, each student must account for 135 hours of time. Eligibility for the Advanced Trial Team requires the prerequisites or co-requisites of three College of Law courses: Evidence (682), Trial Team (694B), and Professional Responsibility in Advocacy.

Students who accept the invitation to join Advanced Trial Team will undergo rigorous training with a practitioner coach and periodic bonus critiques from College of Law faculty, Illinois alumni, and additional seasoned practicing attorney volunteers as competition weekends approach. Students enrolled in the course will also be required to attend a six-day trial immersive experience (held in-person at the College of Law) prior to the beginning of the fall semester taught by College of Law faculty and practicing attorneys. The Anderson Center for Advocacy and Professionalism will also provide additional workshops and programs to help with overall development as well as individual optimization.

Advanced Trial Team competitions provide hands-on experiential training for future lawyers. It also offers student development in prevailing over practical challenges that lawyers typically face in a modern legal practice. In addition to polishing their basic advocacy skills, team members learn to analyze and master a case file, navigate a courtroom environment, neutralize hostile or aggressive witnesses, and effectively employ the laws of evidence.

Each Advanced Trial Team participates in two interscholastic tournaments each academic year at both the national and regional level. Advanced Trial Team members try at least one case during each semester of membership and, in doing so, they transfer knowledge gained in the classroom domain into firsthand practical experiences in the courtroom. Moreover, members have exceptional opportunities at trial advocacy tournaments to make valuable networking connections within the legal community with sitting judges, practicing attorneys, and peers from law schools across the country.

Students are selected for Advanced Trial Team through their performance on Trial Team and/or an audition process which is traditionally held in May following final examinations.

Course Sequence/Corequisite/Prerequisites: Eligibility for the Advanced Trial Team requires the prerequisites or co-requisites of four College of Law courses: Trial Advocacy (Fall), Evidence (Fall), Trial Team (Fall and Spring), and Professionalism in Advocacy (Spring).

Evaluation: Advanced Trial Team is a three-hour graded course. Grades will be based on participation and performance in the trial advocacy immersive held before the fall semester, completion of either a written or verbal preparation assignment prior to a competition, performance in a final mock trial before the Advocacy Director prior to the competition trial, and finally based on performance in the trial competition participation, inclusive of professionalism throughout the semester.

Course Classification: Experiential

792: Technical Literacy for Lawyers

This course is intended for students with a limited technical background and will examine various concepts relating to technology, including: practical computing skills, privacy and security, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, net neutrality, and other current events relating to technology.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None.

Evaluation: This is a pass/fail course. Evaluation will take place through in-class exercises and a final paper.

679: Criminal Procedure: Adjudication

This course deals with problems in the administration of criminal justice, with emphasis upon (1) bail; (2) prosecutorial discretion; (3) the grand jury (the requirement of an indictment; the grand jury as a shield); (4) the preliminary hearing (when required; as a screening process); (5) location of the prosecution (venue); (6) the scope of the prosecution (joinder and severance of offenses; joinder and severance of defendants); (7) the right to speedy trial and to speedy disposition at other steps in the criminal process; (8) coerced, induced, and negotiated guilty pleas (negotiated pleas; the kept bargain, the broken bargain, and the unrealized expectation; professional responsibility, the role of prosecutor and defense counsel; receiving the defendant’s plea, plea withdrawal); (9) notice, discovery, and disclosure (notice through pleadings; pretrial discovery; the prosecutor’s constitutional duty to disclose); (10) trial by jury (jury selection; deliberations and verdict); (11) appeals.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None. Students may take one or both Criminal Procedure courses; enrollment may be separate or concurrent.

Evaluation: Administered final examination

668: Decedents’ Estates and Trusts

This course addresses transfers of money and property at death. Topics addressed include intestate succession; execution, revocation, and construction of wills; and non-probate means of transfer including inter vivos trusts, life insurance policies, and retirement plans. Because the law of succession varies by state, the course’s primary focus will be on model code and restatement rules.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None.

Evaluation: Administered final examination, plus online discussion participation and one or two homework assignments

501: Professional Responsibility (Graduate Students)

This course concerns itself with the laws, regulations, and customs that govern the legal profession and its service to the public. Students are confronted by a series of problem situations involving ethical issues and asked to resolve them in class discussion. The course analyzes the ABA Model Code of Professional Responsibility, the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct, and other sources of ethical guidance. Subjects considered are litigation, conflicts of interest, advertising, financing of legal services, acquisition of clients, unauthorized practice, judicial ethics, government service, public interest practice, corporate practice, and legal discipline and malpractice.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None. This course will meet with Law 680: Professional Responsibility.

Evaluation: Final examination

792: Election Law

This course will concentrate on the “nuts and bolts” of election laws, including an examination of the right to participate, the Voting Rights Act, election challenges, redistricting, election funding, political parties and their roles, bribery and corruption laws, and impeachments.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None

Evaluation: Final administered examination.

792: Advanced Legal Analysis

In this course, students in the second semester of their third year will revisit and refine the analytical skills they acquired in their first-year course on Legal Writing and Analysis. The focus will be on mastering a systematic, stepped process for analyzing legal problems, which will prove useful to students both in the daily practice of law and in their preparation for the state bar examination. Students will practice bringing this stepped methodology to bear on problems resembling those used on the Multistate Performance Test (MPT) component of the bar examination. The students also will receive individualized feedback on these practice exercises in both group and individual settings. This is a pass/fail course.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None

Evaluation: Students will be evaluated on a pass/fail method, based on writing assignments throughout the course.

794: Applied Contracts: The Anatomy of Corporate Finance Transactions and Documentation

This course builds on and reinforces the concepts and principles that students learned in their first-year contracts course. Using basic contracts from banking and corporate finance, the course (1) introduces students to the basics of corporate finance transactions and documentation and (2) emphasizes how contracts principles are applied in real-world financing transactions. Coursework will include preparing drafts of various financing documents, providing students with both drafting experience and in-depth instruction as to the background and purpose of each section of each document. These real-world exercises will provide students with the opportunity better to understand many of the practical aspects of practicing law in the banking and corporate finance area as well as the legal principles underlying the documents governing financing transactions.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None

Evaluation: Small papers and a final project.