Jacob Gersen
Assistant Professor of Law
1111 East 60th Street, Room 417
Chicago, IL 60637
phone: 773 834-7469
email: jgersen@uchicago.edu

Current Year Courses

• 30611 2 Torts
  The focus of this course, offered over two sequential quarters, is on the Anglo-American system (mainly judge-created) of liability for personal injury to person or property. Special stress is laid on the legal doctrines governing accidental injury, such as negligence and strict liability, assumption of risk, and the duty requirement. The rules for determining damages in personal-injury cases are discussed. Alternative theories of tort liability, e.g., moral and economic, are compared. The student s grade is based on a single final examination.
  Winter (3) 1L
  
  
• 44201 1 Legislation
  An understanding of legislative process and statutory interpretation is increasingly necessary as the influence of statutory law broadens to affect a wide range of legal issues. Solutions to many problems facing today's lawyer involve knowledge of how legislation develops in Congress and understanding how laws will be interpreted by the judicial and executive branches. Students examine the contemporary legislative process, including the procedural rules that govern Congress and state legislatures; the role of interest groups; and the major methodological and doctrinal issues of statutory interpretation by courts and agencies. These issues are discussed from legal, economic, and political perspectives. The student's grade is based on a proctored final examination.
  Spring (3) e
  
  
• 49901 12 Independent Research
  Second- and third-year students may earn course credit by independent research under the supervision of a member of the faculty. Such projects are arranged by consultation between the student and the particular member of the faculty in whose field the proposed topic falls.
  Autumn (3)
  
  
• 63712 1 Workshop: Law and Politics
  This workshop, conducted over two sequential quarters, is devoted to the intensive examination of selected problems arising at the intersection of law and politics. Workshop sessions will be devoted to the presentation and discussion of papers by members of the faculty of the University of Chicago and of other institutions. The substance and methodological orientation of the papers will both be diverse, but may include issues concerning legislative process, electoral structures, and the constitutional constraints on political institutions. Grading is based on class participation and the completion of 3 to 5 page papers that respond to the paper being presented. Workshop participants must enroll in both quarters of the workshop.
  Winter (2) +