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Criminal Law
LAWS 30311
- 01
(3)
1L
This course, offered over two sequential quarters, addresses the doctrines of criminal liability and the moral and social problems of crime. The definitions of crimes and defenses are considered in light of the purposes of punishment and the role of the criminal justice system, including police and correctional agencies.
The student's grade is based on class participation and a single final examination.
Winter 2014
Jonathan Masur
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Criminal Law
LAWS 30311
- 02
(3)
1L
This course, offered over two sequential quarters, addresses the doctrines of criminal liability and the moral and social problems of crime. The definitions of crimes and defenses are considered in light of the purposes of punishment and the role of the criminal justice system, including police and correctional agencies.
The student's grade is based on class participation and a single final examination.
Winter 2014
Kimberly Ferzan
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Criminal Law
LAWS 30311
- 02
(3)
1L
This course, offered over two sequential quarters, addresses the doctrines of criminal liability and the moral and social problems of crime. The definitions of crimes and defenses are considered in light of the purposes of punishment and the role of the criminal justice system, including police and correctional agencies.
The student's grade is based on class participation and a single final examination.
Spring 2014
Richard H. McAdams
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Criminal Procedure I: The Investigative Process
LAWS 47201
- 01
(3)
e, x
The course focuses on the constitutional law that governs searches, seizures, and confessions. The course considers in detail the evolution of the exclusionary rule and the development and administration of the probable cause and warrant requirements. It also examines stop and frisk, administrative searches, searches incident to arrest, vehicle searches, consent searches, and the admissibility of confessions.
The student's grade is based on class participation a final in-class examination.
Spring 2014
Richard A. Epstein
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Criminal Procedure I: The Investigative Process
LAWS 47201
- 01
(3)
x
The course focuses on the constitutional law regulating searches, seizures, and confessions. It considers both physical searches and seizures and also searches and seizures of data.
Grades are based on a final examination and class participation.
Autumn 2013
Aziz Huq
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Criminal Procedure III: Further Issues In Criminal Adjudication
LAWS 49701
- 01
(3)
+
We will cover a variety of criminal procedure topics not addressed elsewhere including: double jeopardy and criminal collateral estoppel, appellate review standards, and joinder. We will also cover in depth post-conviction review and federal habeas corpus proceedings, which is especially beneficial to those students with or interested in judicial clerkships.
The student's grade is based on a final in-class examination.
Students must be available for potential make-up meetings Wednesdays 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Autumn 2013
Adam Mortara
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Cross-Border Transactions: Lending
LAWS 71406
- 01
(3)
m, x
The worlds of corporate finance and secured transactions law reform interact to make cross-border lending a dynamic and rapidly evolving area of law. Due to the rapid globalization of U.S. business, U.S. banks are increasingly being asked to finance the international business activities of U.S. middle-market companies, often in countries that have laws incompatible with U.S. secured transactions law. At the same time, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the World Bank and other international organizations are actively encouraging developing countries, where access to capital is scarce, to modernize their secured transactions laws to promote the availability of low-cost secured credit for small and medium-sized enterprises as a way of creating jobs, raising standards of living and contributing to a country's overall economic growth and political stability.
This seminar explores both worlds. Students will examine the broad array of legal and practical issues encountered by U.S. lenders as they make loans to foreign companies, obtain security interests in foreign collateral and finance foreign corporate acquisitions. They will also study recent initiatives in secured transactions law reform, and consider how they are exerting a profound influence on cross-border corporate finance in developed as well as developing countries.
There are no prerequisites.
Grades will be based on a team project involving interaction with lawyers in other countries, a number of short papers and a take-home exam.
Richard Kohn, a founder of the Chicago law firm Goldberg Kohn Ltd., specializes in representing banks in cross-border lending transactions and has been active for over a decade as a member of the Expert Group in the development of various UNCITRAL instruments. Because cross-border lending touches upon many areas of law, the seminar provides a useful introduction to international commercial transactions in general.
Winter 2014
Richard Kohn
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Cross-Border Transactions: Securities, M&A, and Joint Ventures
LAWS 71408
- 01
(3)
m, w, x
In this seminar we will examine M&A, securities and financing transactions from a comparative perspective looking at how cross-border transactions vary from purely domestic transactions. We will also look at joint ventures and related concerns for bribery and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The class will focus on recent transactions such as Instagram/Facebook (domestic); Skype/Microsoft (US/Luxembourg), the D.E. Masterblenders spin-off from Sara Lee and subsequent IPO (US/Netherlands), and various multijurisdictional transactions. We will also look at cultural negotiations including cultural faux pas and peculiarities common across borders.
Autumn 2013
Tarek Sultani
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Current Controversies in Corporate and Securities Law
LAWS 52202
- 01
(3)
m, w, x
This seminar deals with the most important developments in U.S. (and to some extent global) corporate and securities practice during the preceding year. The seminar and discussions provide analysis of the legal, political, and economic implications of these Developments.
Each student submits one paper and gives an oral presentation and analysis of another student's paper.
Winter 2014
Richard Shepro
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Current Issues in Criminal and National Security Law
LAWS 70708
- 01
(3)
+, m, w, x
This seminar covers a series of current issues in criminal and national security law, often comparing and contrasting the two approaches, with a particular focus on challenges arising from acts of terrorism and other national security prosecutions (including a focus on substantive terrorism offenses, espionage offenses as well as the leaking of classified information), a discussion of criminal and intelligence investigative tools (comparing Title III electronic surveillance with Foreign Intelligence Act surveillance), application of constitutional principles to terrorism investigations and prosecutions (particularly the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments and the application of Miranda, Quarles and Corley decisions), the President's war powers and congressional oversight (including discussions of drone strikes, law of war detention, and Presidential and Congressional authority to use military force), and in other select areas, including the Classified Information Procedures Act, as well as cyber security and data privacy.
Each class will focus on a different topic, with advance reading assigned around each topic, and grading on the basis of two short reflection papers (3-5 pages each) and a final paper or legal brief (20-25 pages) on a select issue in criminal and national security law.
Guest speakers will help facilitate discussion on certain topics.
Winter 2014
Patrick Fitzgerald, Michael Scudder
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Current Topics in Criminal Law & Procedure
LAWS 60703
- 01
(1)
a, m, w
This year-long seminar will focus on recent books addressing topics in criminal law and criminal procedure. The books selected will primarily be authored by law professors, but we may also read books written by prosecutors, defense lawyers, social scientists, philosophers, or journalists. Topics will include some but not all of the following: punishment theory, the police, searches and electronic surveillance, interrogation, plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, victim’s rights, drug crimes, sexual assault, theft crimes, race inequality, prisons, or the death penalty.
We will meet three times per quarter, discussing one book per meeting, as follows:
FALL
Oct 3
Oct 24
Nov 14
WINTER
Jan 9
Jan 30
Feb 20
SPRING
March 27
Apr 17
May 8
Grades will be based on class participation and a short research paper on each book.
Spring 2014
Richard H. McAdams
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Current Topics in Criminal Law & Procedure
LAWS 60703
- 01
(1)
a, m, w, x
This year-long seminar will focus on recent books addressing topics in criminal law and criminal procedure. The books selected will primarily be authored by law professors, but we may also read books written by prosecutors, defense lawyers, social scientists, philosophers, or journalists. Topics will include some but not all of the following: punishment theory, the police, searches and electronic surveillance, interrogation, plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, victim’s rights, drug crimes, sexual assault, theft crimes, race inequality, prisons, or the death penalty.
We will meet three times per quarter, discussing one book per meeting, as follows:
FALL
Oct 3
Oct 24
Nov 14
WINTER
Jan 9
Jan 30
Feb 20
SPRING
March 27
Apr 17
May 8
Grades will be based on class participation and a short research paper on each book.
Autumn 2013
Richard H. McAdams
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Current Topics in Criminal Law & Procedure
LAWS 60703
- 01
(1)
a, m, w
This year-long seminar will focus on recent books addressing topics in criminal law and criminal procedure. The books selected will primarily be authored by law professors, but we may also read books written by prosecutors, defense lawyers, social scientists, philosophers, or journalists. Topics will include some but not all of the following: punishment theory, the police, searches and electronic surveillance, interrogation, plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, victim’s rights, drug crimes, sexual assault, theft crimes, race inequality, prisons, or the death penalty.
We will meet three times per quarter, discussing one book per meeting, as follows:
FALL
Oct 3
Oct 24
Nov 14
WINTER
Jan 9
Jan 30
Feb 20
SPRING
March 27
Apr 17
May 8
Grades will be based on class participation and a short research paper on each book.
Winter 2014
Richard H. McAdams
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Developing Law Practice Skills through the Study of National Security Issues
LAWS 70703
- 01
(3)
+, m, s, x
My purpose is to help students improve the skills required for successful law practice (regardless of setting) through the analysis and oral and written presentation of current national security issues (such as Presidential power, indefinite incarceration, assassination, electronic surveillance and cyberwarfare).
Students will form teams of 2-4 persons.
Each team will present its analysis of a topic to the class, which will be expected to participate on an informed basis.
Substantial out of classroom work is required. Each student team will prepare a 2 hour presentation/discussion of its selected topic, and prepare to help lead the class discussion. Each team will also jointly prepare a short research paper (10-12 pp.) summarizing its analysis of the selected topic.
Prerequisite: Constitutional Law or equivalent.
Spring 2014
Robert A. Helman
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Development of Legal Institutions
LAWS 54904
- 01
(3)
e
History of the development of the basic institutions of the Common Law.
Spring 2014
R. H. Helmholz
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Developments in Fourth and Fifth Amendment Jurisprudence: Effects of Emerging Technologies
LAWS 68303
- 01
(2)
m, x
This seminar focuses on the evolution of Fourth and Fifth Amendment jurisprudence in response to a world of rapidly changing technologies. Topics covered include changes in expectations of privacy effected by changes in technology, searching and monitoring of email, use of geolocation information, GPS tracking, collection of historical and prospective cell-site location information and records and real-time cell phone tracking, the act-of-production doctrine and compelled production of computer passwords, and routine collection of DNA from arrestees. The seminar also considers related policy considerations and how these considerations are addressed by statutes, such as the Stored Communications Act, and by proposed legislation.
The student's grade is based on a final examination and class participation.
Winter 2014
Michael Sher
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Divorce Practice and Procedure
LAWS 93202
- 01
(3)
+, s, u, w, x
This class provides an exposure to the dynamic process of representing clients in a dissolution of marriage case. The class will familiarize you with the complexities that arise when a family is divided and the parties are dissolving their marriage. Topics are covered in the sequence of an evolving case from the perspective of a practicing lawyer and include determination of jurisdiction, interstate and international parental kidnapping, domestic violence and property injunctions, temporary and permanent child custody and visitation, temporary and permanent maintenance for spouse and support for children, awards of attorneys’ fees and costs, exploration of property rights and factors for determining division of assets and liabilities, the valuation issues when dividing certain types of property, premarital agreements, common ethical issues, federal tax aspects of marital dissolution, effects of bankruptcy and civil unions/same-sex marriage.
Significant reading, writing and preparation for in-class discussions is required.
Forty percent of the student’s grade is based on class participation, and sixty percent on the drafting of legal memoranda.
Writing for this class may be used as partial fulfillment of the JD writing requirement (WP).
Completion of a basic Family Law class is recommended but not required.
Autumn 2013
Erika N. Chen-Walsh
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Drafting Contacts: The Problem of Ambiguity
LAWS 79910
- 01
(2)
m, s, x
This seminar is unique. It is a very interesting, very intellectual, and very practical learning experience. The main features are: 1. Students will learn some extremely useful tools for analyzing and drafting contracts. They will acquire them by an inductive process of reviewing many examples of ambiguity from case law, eminent legal scholars, and the lecturer’s practice. They will learn to identify and eliminate ambiguity in drafting contracts. These tools are the creation of the lecturer and will give students unique practical skills that no other American law students (except the lecturer’s prior students) have. 2. The course materials come from the in-house seminars for the firm’s China Practice lawyers that the lecturer conducted for many years as a partner at Baker & McKenzie and that established the profession’s best practices for China-related contracts. 3. The historical examples of ambiguity in the seminar are of human, as well as intellectual, interest. They show that ambiguity can lead to the hanging of an individual for piracy or treason, a damages award of more than U.S. $10 billion, and even a change in the course of World War II. 4. The seminar facilitates student learning. At the beginning of each class, an audience response system (called “clickers”) provides students immediate, comparative, and anonymous feedback on their understanding of the reading assignment. The seminar also allows each student to see what he or she has learned in the seminar by comparing his or her analysis of a specific contract for the first class and for the last class. This contract analysis, like the final exam, gives each student the experience of a practicing lawyer reviewing a contract.
Grades will be based on a proctored final exam.
Winter 2014
Preston Torbert
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Early Stage Ventures: The Legal Challenges for Lawyers and Entrepreneurs
LAWS 61611
- 01
(2)
m, x
The seminar will explore the legal challenges that arise in taking a business concept and growing it into a sustainable entity. Tapping a number of legal disciplines, the seminar will examine how to identify a concept’s value proposition along with its risks. The seminar will further explore securing funding with an emphasis on raising money under safe-harbor provisions of current securities regulations.
Students will identify, negotiate and document potential new business concepts.
A student’s grade is based upon 3-4 short writing assignments and class participation.
Winter 2014
Michael Kennedy
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East Asian Law and Society
LAWS 80901
- 01
(3)
r, w
This course will cover the East Asian legal tradition, primarily but not exclusively focusing on China and Japan. East Asia is well-known for its remarkable economic development in recent decades, but has also been the home of a long tradition of thinking about law in a way that differs from the assumptions of Western liberal democracy. The course begins by exploring this tradition, and then traces the history of legal institutions in the region, focusing on the encounter with Western legal systems beginning in the 19th century. We will then analyze the major institutions of criminal, civil and administrative law in postwar East Asia and their recent transformations. The focus of this course is not on particular areas of doctrine, but on the ideas and institutions that make East Asia distinctive.
Grading will be on the basis of a take-home exam or research paper, at the students’ discretion.
Autumn 2013
Tom Ginsburg
