Upper-Level 11 - College of Law

638: White Collar Crime

This course will focus on the federal statutes commonly invoked in corporate and white collar prosecutions, including those used in prosecutions for conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, RICO, extortion, bribery, tax offenses, obstruction of justice, and false statements. The class will investigate the theoretical and policy framework for individual and institutional responsibility in our criminal justice system and will also explore emerging theories of corporate criminal liability and the principles undergirding the sanctions imposed for white collar crime.

Sequence and Prerequisites: Law 604: Criminal Law. Some students have found it helpful to complete the course in Business Associations (Law 633) and one or both of the Criminal Procedure courses. However, they are not prerequisites.

Evaluation: Take-home exam

792: Ethics, Law, and the Environment

In this course, we will explore significant sources of environmental degradation and ask into promising means of reversing environmental trends that are likely to prove catastrophic if allowed to continue. We will talk about such topics as how today’s food systems impact the health of our soils, rivers, and oceans and raise serious questions about the morality of our animal husbandry; how our on-going dependence on fossil fuels is impacting our lands and contributing to the warming of the planet; how contemporary water-management practices threaten future water wars; and how permissive land use and urban development has increased the species extinction rate by as much as 1,000 times background rates. As we canvass these problems, we will pause to ask into the economic, cultural, religious, legal, and philosophical underpinnings of our unsustainable relationship with the natural world, and we will take up solutions that capitalize on these powerful forces of social change.

IN-CLASS FILMS, GUEST SPEAKERS, AND DISCUSSIONS. Each week, our early-evening class will be devoted to viewing a documentary film or hearing from a guest-speaker whose expertise and research concerns an environmental topic of significance to the course. Our Friday class will then engage with readings that expand on the lessons learned on Thursday. In addition to discussing excerpts from books and articles written by journalists, scientists, urban planners, environmental activists, lawyers, economists, and philosophers, we will have opportunities for active, in-class exercises that allow for creative thinking and engaging small group activities. We may also be able to enjoy one or more local field trips to relevant places of interest (organic farms, waste treatment facilities, the local dairy, a prairie restoration project, etc.).

IN THE EVENT THAT THIS BECOMES AN ON-LINE CLASS: We will regularly meet by Zoom only on Friday from 3:00-4:20 pm. When a guest speaker is scheduled during a Thursday evening 5-7:00 pm time slot, we will also have a class during that designated time–and the guest lecture and subsequent discussion will proceed via Zoom. As often as possible (technology and viewing rights permitting), the films that would otherwise have been shown on a Thursday evening will be made available during the previous week so that students will be at liberty to watch it at their own pace. Students will be asked to do a very short assignment about that film that will be due on the Thursday evening before the Friday class that engages the film’s topic (when we would otherwise have gathered together for the film). These will not be onerous assignments; they will simply reward the careful viewing of each film. They will consist of such things as very short reflection pieces, the compilation of a few discussion questions, and other very short but responsive submissions that will be efficient and straightforward once the film has been viewed.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None. Please note that this is an expanded version of Law 798, Environmental Policy Seminar offered in Spring 2024. Students are not allowed to take both courses.

Evaluation: Three short (750-word) Op Ed’s (worth 60%); in-class participation and other individual and group projects assigned and submitted during class times (worth 40%; 20% will go to film responses if the class is on-line and films are viewed privately, rather than as in-class as a group).

792: Writing About Law for a Lay Audience

Clear writing is an essential part of law practice, particularly when your audience is, as it sometimes will be, a general one. Lawyers need to be able to explain legal concepts, circumstances, or opinions to a lay audience in a way that is interesting, accurate, and jargon-free. In this class you will read a great deal of clear and concise narrative writing that is also faithful to the law. You will also do independent research and construct your own longform narrative involving a particular case. Good writing requires a willingness to critically and constantly revise your work. With that in mind, your writing will be critiqued often throughout the semester, both by your peers and the professor. Your grade will be based on class participation and this long paper. Satisfies upper level writing requirement.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None

Evaluation: Your grade will be based on class participation and this long paper. This course is eligible to satisfy the upper level writing requirement.

792: Health Law Practice

This upper level seminar course will provide an introduction and overview to aspects of the U.S. health care system and the laws that impact that system. The course will explore topics such as: health care cost and access; promoting quality and risk management, federal and state regulation of private health insurance and managed care; the structure of the health care enterprise; and legal issues related to the organization and reform of the delivery of health care including corporate compliance, including anti-trust and fraud and abuse.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None

Evaluation: Students will be evaluated upon a series of short written assignments and a final project and presentation.

797: Traditional Knowledge and Folklore in Intellectual Property

This course identifies linkages between Intellectual Property, Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Folklore (otherwise referred to as Traditional Cultural Expressions – TCEs). The course addresses the relationship between TK/TCEs and the law of intellectual property, and explores the extent to which intellectual property law can be used to protect TK and TCEs. It defines the terms involved; highlights how TK/TCEs are of value to different nations or regions; and proceeds to show how they are protected in those jurisdictions. The course also provides a broad coverage of international legal instruments for the protection of TK and TCEs. It then evaluates the arguments for and against protection of TCEs, bringing in case studies that have involved a clash between Intellectual Property, Traditional Knowledge, and Traditional Folklore.

Sequence and Prerequisite: Prior completion of, or concurrent enrollment in, one of the following courses: Copyright Law (Law 644); Patent Law (Law 645); Trademark, Unfair Competition and Consumer Protection Law (Law 643); or Introduction to Intellectual Property (Law 797).

Evaluation: Students will be evaluated on response papers and participation.

692: Corporate Counsel – Field Placement (Summer)

This field placement is to be taken in the summer term, immediately following with the Law 798: Corporate Counsel Seminar which is being offered during the summer semester. The field placement complements the classroom seminar component by providing students with the opportunity to work in a general counsel’s office. Students will be assigned to a supervising attorney and will complete 60 (1 credit), 120 (2 credits), 180 (3 credits), or 240 (4 credits) hours of field work over the summer. As part of their placement students may be asked to conduct legal research, write memoranda, review and/or draft contracts, sit in on meetings or negotiations. Hands on experience and the opportunity to observe a general counsel’s office in action affords students with a unique educational opportunity that provides a context for the legal concepts taught in the classroom.

Students may also provide their own placement subject to professor approval and the following criteria:

The placement should be in the general counsel’s office for a corporation or LLC.
A supervising attorney must agree to oversee the student’s externship and provide an enriching educational experience for the student. The attorney will be required to fill out a form before and after the field placement is complete.
The corporation or LLC must commit to affording the student with 60, 120, 180, or 240 hour opportunity.
The student should not be related to anyone in the general counsel’s office.

Sequence & Prerequisites: Current enrollment in the Corporate Counsel Seminar is a prerequisite for this course. In addition, students must have successfully completed the first year curriculum.

Evaluation: In addition to meeting the hourly work requirements, the student must timely submit all required periodic time reports, a mid-term self-evaluation, participation in periodic discussion sessions with faculty, as well as a final evaluation of his or her experience. Students will be evaluated on the mid-term, self-evaluation, participation in discussion sessions, and the final evaluation of his or her experience.

Course Classification: Experiential

794: Hedge Funds

This seminar is an examination of the law and regulations governing hedge funds and the financial instruments that many of these funds use to effect their trading strategies. Hedge funds are increasingly important actors in the global financial system, but the regulations governing them are poorly understood and constantly evolving. The seminar is designed to provide an overview of the types of activities these entities undertake, the types of regulatory reform efforts that have targeted these entities in recent years, especially in the wake of Dodd-Frank, and the policy issues that hedge funds will face in the years to come. Because it is difficult to understand hedge funds without understanding the types of trading activities they perform, this course will also give an overview of some of the complex financial transactions which allow many hedge funds to pursue their strategies. This will involve studying the economic and regulatory issues surrounding a variety of swaps and derivatives transactions. The course will also cover securitization, counterparty credit risk in OTC derivatives, the mutualization of risk among participants in clearinghouses and the rise of OTC clearing.

Prerequisites and Sequence: Business Associations I

Evaluation: Paper

792: Meaning of Tolerance

This course will explore significant questions of tolerance facing a diverse nation, as people who are different on all kinds of metrics (ethnicity, faith, race, national origin, geographic location, relative wealth, education) navigate questions about how best to live together.

For example, watching the news, it may seem that advocates for marriage equality for LGBT individuals and proponents for protections for the religious convictions of people of faith live in different worlds and could never find common ground. But is that necessarily the case? What might tolerance mean in this context?

This course will also consider what tolerance might mean in the context of child welfare and our respect for one another’s faith. When, for example, is a parent’s choice not to treat or vaccinate a child—or to discipline a child—an act of faith and when is it an abhorrent crime? When is a teen’s marriage an act to be celebrated and when is it an act for concern? These questions sit at cross currents in the law—challenging notions of religious liberty and equal protection under the law. They also test the limits of the law’s ability to affect behavior and the state’s parens patraie role as the protector of children.

These questions increasingly arise around religion as fewer people self-identify as part of an organized faith tradition. But they also implicate rights for LGBT people, immigrants, racial minorities, and other vulnerable populations—challenging legislators and policymakers to find new, creative ways to respect all people in a plural society.

It will canvas some of these debates using readings from The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law, which examines the contested place of religion in the legal landscape of the family after Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores, Obergefell v Hodges, and Zubik v Burwell.

Sequence and Prerequisites: This course requires no pre-requisites, only an open and creative mind.

Evaluation: Final examination. This is a pass/fail course.