The law governing access to health care has been in flux and in legal dispute in recent years. This course will examine America's programs for health care access and finance, including employment-based private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and VA. The course will also examine the enactment, implementation, and litigation of the Affordable Care Act. In addition to these payment systems, the course will also at laws affecting non-comprehensive systems such as emergency rooms, public hospitals, and community health centers. No previous knowledge of health law is required.

Beginning in the 20^th Century, various approaches have arisen in the United States to improve access to civil justice and use the law to empower marginalized people and communities. This course critically examines the role of lawyers in these efforts. In particular, it considers what roles lawyers play to further access to justice, empower people through the law, and work alongside social movements. After exploring studies of peoples’ experiences of the justice system, we consider the function of courts in entrenching poverty and inequality, the potential and limits of technologies in increasing access to justice; and the challenges of rural access to justice. We then turn to global and national legal empowerment initiatives to consider bottom-up approaches to making legal rights and protections available to marginalized people. In the last part of the semester, we will explore the opportunities and challenges in social movement lawyering and consider the synergies and disjunctions between these lawyering practices and efforts to enhance access to justice.

Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course, we hope you will be able to:

• describe and discuss the different dimensions of the access to justice crisis in the United States and the various approaches being pursued to address it;
• gain an understanding of marginalized people and communities’ experiences of the justice system;
• understand what role state and local court processes and procedures play in exacerbating the justice gap;
• articulate and critique the theories of change underlying traditional and more expansive approaches to access to justice, legal empowerment, and social movement lawyering;
• understand the role of the regulatory framework in facilitating or inhibiting new models to increase access to justice.

The course will look at the treatment of reproductive rights in early America through the mid-1800’s and to the legalization of abortion. We will examine how we got from Roe v. Wade to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Care and discuss the legal and practical impact of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe, as well as state attempts to ban or restrict abortion. The course will directly address Institutional Learning Objective 8 by requiring students to think critically about the law’s claim to neutrality and its differential effects on subordinated groups, including those identified by race, gender, indigeneity, and class and consider whether one person’s moral or ethical position should prevail when that position has disparate negative impacts on marginalized communities. We will look at how the law is intersecting with issues of race, sex, class, religion, sexual orientation, and politics to shape the culture of the country and our individual lives. The course will conclude with a review of the current legal battles relating to abortion, emergency contraception, assisted reproduction and gender affirming care, and discuss the legal theories at play, which are being used by both sides of the debate in competing iterations.

According to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) 2021 survey, nearly 1 in 3 adults had either a substance use disorder or a mental illness in the prior year, and 46 percent of young adults 18-25 had either a substance use disorder or a mental illness.  Due to the increased prevalence of these chronic disorders, and their nexus to the public health crisis of suicide, opioid addiction, and homelessness, it is critically important for lawyers and advocates to have a strong understanding of behavioral health law from the constitutional to local regulatory level. 

This course is a practice-based seminar that is designed to improve the students’ practical legal skills – writing, analysis, oral communication, issue spotting, and attention to detail – while examining key laws, legal decisions, and policies in Addiction and Mental Health Law.  This seminar will explore the framework of laws and policies promoting human rights, dignity, and recovery for people with substance use disorders and mental health conditions. It will highlight systemic and community responses to addiction, mental health, and related social issues as well as the use of litigation, legislation, advocacy, grants and financial incentives as tools for prevention and reform.

Discussions will include: 

• Institution-based issues such as the involuntary detention and civil commitments of individuals with a serious mental illness, restraint and seclusion, the right to appropriate treatment under Youngberg v. Romeo, institutional reform under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, and the Department of Justice’s authority under the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act;
• Forensic issues such as pretrial competency, Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity, and forced medication for competency purposes under Sell v. United States;
• Community-based issues such as deinstitutionalization, rights of an individual to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs, housing discrimination, Medicaid, rulemaking and administrative adjudications under the Administrative Procedure Act, behavioral health provider licensure and regulation, and the False Claims Act; 
• Federal and state/local initiatives such as 911 diversion programs and co-responder law enforcement teams, mental health courts and diversion, harm reduction strategies, e.g. decriminalization of fentanyl testing paraphernalia, federal State Opioid Response grants, rapid rehousing initiations, and liberalization of 42 CFR Part 2 to facilitate increased information sharing for Substance Use Disorder treatment records; 
• Understanding the Triple Aim in healthcare, data, outcome measures, and healthcare finance structures for behavioral health, including Medicaid and commercial insurance; 
• Role of the health care and criminal justice systems and trends in reforms; and
• Cultural competence in legal advocacy and practice.

Guest lectures and discussion will provide real world case studies on laws and policy reforms impacting addiction and mental health.

Addiction and mental health have increasingly become an integral part of the broader policy landscape. This shift has been accelerated by the impact of social issues such as the overdose epidemic, suicide and homelessness.  This seminar will explore the framework of laws and policies promoting human rights, dignity, and recovery for people with substance use disorders and mental health conditions. It will highlight systemic and community responses to addiction, mental health, and related social issues as well as the use of litigation, legislation, advocacy and financial incentives as tools for reform.

Discussion will include: 

• Evolution of responses to addiction, mental health, and related social issues;
• Human rights, deinstitutionalization and the rights of an individual to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs;
• Statutory and regulatory frameworks promoting access to treatment, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act;
• Understanding data, outcome measures, and healthcare finance structures for behavioral health, including Medicaid and commercial insurance; 
• The role of litigation to promote accountability and protect civil rights;
• The impact of stigma, the dignity of risk, and harm reduction philosophy; 
• Role of the health care and criminal justice systems and trends in reforms;
• The impact of globalization and comparative analysis of international drug policy;
• Cultural competence in legal advocacy and practice.

Guest lectures and discussion will provide real world case studies on laws and policy reforms impacting addiction and mental health.

This course considers the constitutional, statutory, and other legal limitations on what government agencies can do and how they can do it. What constraints govern the power of agencies to make law, decide cases involving private parties, and investigate citizens? How much "due process" must government agencies give citizens whose lives they affect; what limits has Congress imposed on the procedures for agency decision making; and to what extent can people call on courts to check what they regard as abuses of governmental power? These are among the questions addressed in the course, which draws together problems ranging from the legitimacy of New Deal institutions to the dramatic procedural innovations of recent federal administrations and problems created by renewed Congressional interest in the details of agency decision making.

This course is designed to introduce you to the core institutions and processes of the modern administrative state.  You will come to understand the tremendous power exercised by administrative agencies as well as the significant constraints under which they operate.  You will learn the procedures governing the key categories of administrative action; the doctrine governing judicial review of administrative action; and non-judicial mechanisms of agency control within the Constitution’s separation-of-powers framework.

Learning Goals: By the end of the semester, you should be able to:

(1)  Identify the legal framework (statutory, constitutional, doctrinal) that applies to a particular issue of administrative action;

(2)  Apply the relevant legal framework to a given set of facts; and

(3)  Evaluate the merits of the legal framework against a variety of normative goals.

You should also (4) be conversant in contemporary debates about the administrative state and be able to articulate and justify your views.  

Virtually all areas of law today involve a substantial element of administrative law.  This course introduces you to the role of administrative agencies and how law and political factors shape their powers and work.  This includes materials on how they are empowered and constrained by the Constitution, Congress, presidents, and the courts.  We also study ways in which agencies generate law and develop policies.  This class coverage includes, among other topics, materials on citizens’ abilities to petition, shape, and litigate over agency actions; changing views of presidents’ roles and powers over agencies; and statutory factors and doctrine shaping judicial review of agency law interpretation, reasoning, responsiveness, policy shifts, and engagement with science and facts.   

There is no more fundamental course in law school than administrative law. This course introduces you to the modern administrative and regulatory state. You will come to understand both the tremendous power exercised by administrative agencies and the significant constraints (legal and political) under which they operate. You will learn to identify the design features that might make an agency constitutionally problematic, the factors that make one type of decision-making framework more appropriate than another, the prerogatives and limits of agencies in interpreting the statutes they are charged with administering, and agencies’ prerogatives and limits in adjudicating facts and exercising policymaking discretion. You will also learn to identify the factors that affect the availability and timing of judicial review of agency action.

Advanced Criminal Procedure picks up where Criminal Justice leaves off and is primarily interested in the decisions that lawyers (as opposed to the police) confront in the criminal justice system. This course will cover topics that criminal defendants face from “bail to jail”, including charging decisions/prosecutorial discretion, bail and pre-trial detention, plea bargaining, effective assistance of counsel, and sentencing. This course will examine the responsibilities and the power allocated to each of the players in the criminal justice system, including judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, law enforcement, and defendants. At each stage, we will ask whether the system is working optimally, how the process may be improved and the pressure points where the system may be changed. Throughout the course, students will step into the shoes of the prosecution and defense to evaluate the strategic choices made during the trial. Readings will include a review of the relevant Rules of Criminal Procedure, United States Supreme Court caselaw, pleadings from assorted topical cases, and late-breaking newspaper articles.

The stages of the criminal process beginning with the filing of charges through the sentencing stage are analyzed. Legal issues arising at each stage will be examined. How the legal and administrative obligations of the participants in the process -- the court, prosecutor and defense counsel -- influence decision-making at various stages is explored. The prosecutor’s paramount role is to advocate aggressively on behalf of the government. However it cannot be unmindful of its administrative responsibility to process cases expeditiously. Protecting the rights of the accused is a defense attorney’s foremost obligation but not without a regard for the attorney’s duties as an officer of the court. Arbitrating matters is a core judicial activity in the criminal process; influenced by the court's desire to move cases to conclusion. Burdens of proof to resolve procedural issues are studied in the context of how the allocations of burdens of proof are allocated to achieve philosophical interests to be accommodated by the system.

Prosecutorial discretion in the charging function, the constitutional basis therefore and limitation thereon are explored. Preliminary procedural steps as well as grand jury process, joinder and severance of defendants and charges, the right to a speedy trial, discovery, trial issues arising in complex multi-defendant trials, the evolving federal constitution law on the right to confrontation, the presentation of evidence, jury instructions and sentencing issues are all studied.

This course is designed for students embarking on careers in public interest law or policy and explores the many necessary techniques to become highly effective advocates for social change. The purpose of the class is to help class participants develop creative advocacy approaches and learn to think beyond litigation and other traditional legal strategies to meet key client and societal goals. In particular, the course will: 1) explore how coalition building, grassroots organizing, and public policy advocacy can be used to enhance legal strategies; 2) teach basic public interest advocacy skills, including media relations, fundraising basics, legislative advocacy and lobbying, leveraging data and research, social marketing and public opinion, and cutting-edge digital strategies; and 3) introduce students to dynamic experts in relevant issue areas, from lobbyists to communications experts. Using compelling case studies and background reading materials, students will have the opportunity to use multiple advocacy tools to tackle real-life social problems on the local and national levels. Grades will be based on the extent and quality of class participation and written assignments.

The goal of this seminar is to expose you to the policy, law and practice concerning the prevision and preservation of affordable housing and its relationship to personhood, to community, and to society as a whole.  Specifically, we will examine the problems caused by the absence of a sufficient number of safe, sanitary, decent, and affordable units for households of low and moderate income. We will look at aspects of federal and local housing policy from both a current and an historical viewpoint.  We will place particular emphasis on issues of poverty and race.    Your paper can examine any element of affordable housing regardless of whether it is covered in class.

This seminar explores, through lecture, discussion, role playing, and problem solving, the range of legal challenges and public policy issues affecting older adults. Subject areas include health care benefits (Medicare, Medicaid); long-term services and supports (nursing homes, home and community-based services, long-term care insurance, state-based programs); income security programs (Social Security, SSI); aging and autonomy, including elder abuse, neglect and exploitation and advance planning related to incapacity (powers of attorney, guardianship and its alternatives, choices regarding life-sustaining medical treatment); housing and consumer issues affecting older adults; and ethical issues in representing older adults. Coursework will address systemic inequities faced by older adults of color, older women, LGBTQ older adults, older adults with disabilities, and older adults who are immigrants or have limited English proficiency. The seminar is both practice- and policy-oriented and integrative with respect to other coursework and related disciplines.

Alternative, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine ("non-traditional medicine") ("CAM") is the fastest-growing sector of American Health Care and is one of the fastest growing fields in the United States. Presently, at least 50 percent of Americans are using some form of alternative and complementary therapy such as acupuncture, nutritional supplementation, herbs, massage, yoga, chiropractic or homeopathy. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1997, visits to alternative health care practitioners exceeded total visits to all conventional primary care physicians. The number of clinics and hospitals that integrate some modalities of CAM alongside conventional medicine is growing rapidly. The Institute of Medicine, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, has held recent conferences on the values of both CAM and Integrative Medicine. The NIH is using significant resources to fund research in this area.

This development, of course, is raising legal issues. There is a growing but still unsettled body of law on this subject. Some but not all CAM modalities are now licensed and regulated by at least some states. Federal regulatory bodies, such as the FDA and FTC are trying, within the limits of their statutory authority, to protect what they perceive to be the interests of the public. Yet, they come at the problem through conventional, rather than alternative, eyes. Conventional law is based upon protecting the public from purveyors of the proverbial "snake oil" frauds. And to an extent this law is being used to keep out alternatives to the established health-care modalities. This seminar studies the tensions, legal, economic, and social, of this struggle as it unfolds. This seminar covers several areas of law including administrative law, medical malpractice, informed consent, FDA/FTC law, licensure, among others. This seminar discusses the balancing of paternalism vs. individual rights. A paper meeting the upperclass legal writing requirement is required.

Lawyers in every type of practice (corporate, litigation, government, public interest, etc.) routinely deal with problems that require a basic understanding of concepts and methods from economics and statistics. This course provides an introduction to these subjects and their application and relevance to law and legal practice. Topics covered include decision analysis, game theory, probability, and statistics. Grades will be based on a graded problem set and a take-home final examination. No prior background in economics or statistics is required; however, we will regularly use elementary algebra and geometry. Students with strong backgrounds in economics, mathematics, or statistics should consult with the professor before enrolling in the course.

Course Objective and Learning Outcomes: The objective of the course is to enhance students' ability to give sound legal advice and make effective legal arguments by introducing them to selected concepts and methods from economics and statistics that are relevant to numerous areas of law and legal practice. These concepts and methods include: decision trees, expected value, sensitivity analysis, risk aversion, present value; Nash equilibrium, game trees, backward induction, subgame perfection, moral hazard, adverse selection; probability, conditional probability, independence, Bayes' rule; descriptive statistics (including measures of central tendency and variability), hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, statistical significance, type I and type II errors, and regression analysis.

By the end of the course, I expect students to have a good understanding of these concepts and methods and to be able demonstrate a basic proficiency in applying them to: (i) unpack complex decisions of the kind that lawyers and their clients often encounter in litigation and transactions; (ii) analyze situations involving strategic interactions (i.e., situations where the outcome depends on the strategies and actions of multiple parties) of the kind that lawyers and their clients often encounter in litigation and transactions; and (iii) engage in probabilistic and statistical reasoning and evaluate probabilistic and statistical evidence of the kind that courts and lawyers often encounter in litigation.

An exploration and discussion of the treatment of animals under state, federal, and international law, as well as current policy reform efforts.  The course will address the historical status of animals in the law; legislative and regulatory efforts and citizen initiatives to strengthen animal protection laws; the application of federal laws concerning captive animals, wildlife, and farm animals; the role of international conventions concerning trade in animals and in animal products; the limitations on state laws addressing anti-cruelty, hunting, trapping, and animal fighting; and the effect of free speech, religious expression, and other Constitutional principles on animal protection statutes.

Please see the Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic PDF.

For more information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

Please see the Appellate Litigation Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Appellate Litigation Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

The law of consumer markets and consumer products permeates our lives, shaping much of what we buy and how we buy it. In areas as varied as healthcare, education, banking, and housing, consumer markets pose recurring challenges for the law, and the law often uses similar tools to try and address those challenges. This seminar will explore different approaches to consumer protection, focusing on the recurring types of arguments that are used to promote or critique consumer markets and to justify legal interventions in those markets. Some consumer protection laws, for instance, are justified by the desire to improve market competition; others are justified by the desire to protect consumers from market forces. Still other justifications are grounded in concerns for social and economic justice, such as preventing or repairing racial discrimination.

The class will ground these conversations in examples of specific cases and regulatory regimes from a variety of consumer contexts, including products liability, consumer finance, housing, and more. Through this comparative lens, the seminar aims to cultivate a facility with the different types of arguments that recur in the world of consumer protection, as well as an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.

Learning Objectives: This course is designed for you to develop your understanding of the common justifications for legal interventions in consumer markets, as well as to refine your own views regarding those justifications. My hope is that by the end of the semester, you will be familiar with problems of consumer protection in numerous commercial areas; be able to identify and describe the common structures that these problems have across different areas; understand the ways that the law responds to these problems, including the strengths and weaknesses of those responses; and be able to extrapolate from this knowledge to critique new policies or come up with novel proposals.

This course is a general basic introduction to bankruptcy law, addressing both corporate bankruptcy law as the focus, but also individual consumer bankruptcy law issues.   

The class begins with an overview of debt, the need for bankruptcy law, and the bankruptcy process, and jurisdiction.This will be followed by basic concepts like the automatic stay, types and priority of claims, executory contracts, avoiding powers, estate management, and the reorganization process.  The class will progress to cover priorities in distribution, individual bankruptcy concepts and principles including fresh start, and conclude with a thorough review of the corporate bankruptcy reorganization process.  We will also cover current events and address current issues and problems, perceived and real, in the restructuring and insolvency system.

This seminar explores legal, ethical, and social issues raised by developments in health, medicine, and the biological sciences at the U.S. and global levels. It first provides an overview of the normative theories that inform the development of the field of bioethics, as well as connects these theories to legal and social dynamics that continue to shape discussions of equity and justice. It then considers a spectrum of priority topics and themes, through both a theoretical and practical lens, such as end-of-life issues, reproductive rights, human subjects research, access to medicines, and vaccines. Students will develop an in-depth perspective on how law and ethics overlap and shape the discourse on these priority topics. This seminar will be especially informative for students looking to obtain a practical view into how the law interacts with ethical dilemmas in health, medicine, and science.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the normative theories that inform the development of the field of bioethics and the role that the law has played in this evolution
• Describe practical examples of legal and ethical dilemmas that arise across multi-disciplinary topics in health, medicine, and the biological sciences
• Articulate the ethical arguments on often opposing sides of priority bioethical issues, understanding the varied levels of nuance involved
• Analyze the role of legal institutions and law and in creating a framework to address the ethical, legal, and social issues that arise in the fields of health, medicine, and the biological sciences

This seminar explores legal, ethical, and social issues raised by developments in health, medicine, and the biological sciences at the U.S. and global levels. It first provides an overview of the normative theories that inform the development of the field of bioethics, as well as connects these theories to legal and social dynamics that continue to shape discussions of equity and justice, including on the global stage. It then uses several in-class simulations to explore the practical challenges—both legal and ethical—that arise for counsel practicing in this field. The simulations are designed for students to “step into the shoes,” as it were, of different actors, from in-house counsel at an academic medical center to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, to gain practical insight into real-world situations. This seminar will be especially informative for students looking to obtain a practical view into how the law interacts with ethical dilemmas in health, medicine, science, and politics.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the normative theories that inform the development of the field of bioethics and the role that the law has played in this evolution
• Describe practical examples of legal and ethical dilemmas that arise across multi-disciplinary topics in health, medicine, and the biological sciences
• Articulate the ethical arguments on often opposing sides of priority bioethical issues, understanding the varied levels of nuance involved
• Analyze the role of legal institutions and law and in creating a framework to address the ethical, legal, and social issues that arise in the fields of health, medicine, and the biological sciences

This course is required for 2L/3E Blume Public Interest Scholars. This 1-credit course concerns the process of becoming a public-interest leader. Most classes will feature a public-interest practitioner from the Blume Leaders in Residence program. Students must complete background readings assigned by the Leaders in Residence and participate in class discussions. Students will write a final reflection paper of 3,000 to 4,000 words, which will be reviewed by Prof. Brian Wolfman. The final reflection paper should take either of the following approaches:

• A focus on insights and ideas generated through the class conversations with the Leaders in Residence, including how those insights and ideas inform their understanding of public-interest practice.
• Students may draft a paper concerning their own public-interest career trajectories. This paper will include the student’s  description of an organization or law practice that the student would start, the work that the organization or practice would entail, the organization or practice’s structure and operations, and funding sources, and reflections on how law school can enable pursuit of the student’s proposed career path.

Course Goals / Student Learning Outcomes

• Expand self-reflection and critical thinking
• Gain exposure to a variety of lawyering approaches

This simulation course will provide students with the fundamentals of organizing, managing, and executing an effective campaign for political office, within a bipartisan context grounded in ethical public service. Each enrolled student must identify a local, state, or federal public office that they plan to run for (plans to run for this office can be tentative and prospective). Students will then learn campaign basics, message development and delivery, fundraising strategies, communication and media strategies, applicable campaign finance and election laws, and debate preparation. Students will prepare and give “stump” speeches and participate in a simulated candidate forum. Students will also develop policy platforms and learn how to assess and respond to the needs of a constituency and the public.

This seminar focuses on the substantive law of capital punishment and on the procedural aspects of post-conviction proceedings. The course will include an examination of the history of death penalty jurisprudence, habeas corpus, recent U.S. Supreme Court cases, public policy issues, and state and federal death penalty statutes. The writing requirement offers students an opportunity to write on a topic of their choice pertaining to the death penalty.

See the Center for Applied Legal Studies website for more detailed information about the clinic.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Center for Applied Legal Studies PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

For more information about clinic registration, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

Please see the Civil Litigation Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For more information about clinic registration, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

This practicum aims to finalize and publish research on civil remedies for sexual assault, harassment and battering.  The issue has become more timely given recent Supreme Court opinions suggesting that state tort law (the subject of two of our memos) may be the only viable remedy for survivors. Three prior practicums have produced three memos, with important empirical findings on the limited availability of civil remedies, in the federal and state systems, for our partner organization, Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund). This evidence was cited in testimony before the House of Representatives in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment, but has yet to be finalized or published.       Students seeking to learn how to publish academic work may find this practicum course particularly useful, as we will seek to  publish our end product. Advance approval of the instructor is required:  please send the instructor a resume, a transcript, and a paragraph explaining why the student seeks to take this class. Students should not take this practicum if they do not want to do significant research, writing, and blue-booking. 

Please see the Civil Rights Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Civil Rights PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

This seminar will examine recent litigation in the Supreme Court involving the modern civil rights statutes: Title VII, Title IX, RFRA, the ADEA, the ADA, the Fair Housing Act, and Sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Toward that end, we will read recent cases decided by the Court interpreting theses statutes, and the cases that form the backdrop for those decisions. We will also examine briefs and oral arguments in some of these cases. Finally, we will examine civil rights cases that are scheduled to be heard in the upcoming term, or that may make their way to the Court in the near future. There will be one writing assignment, a paper of approximately 25 pages in length. Two-thirds of the grade will be based on the paper, and one-third will be based on class participation.

By providing a rich historical introduction to the histories of various groups of color in the United States and their encounters with white Europeans and their descendants, we will explore the themes of race and racism in a variety of doctrinal contexts. We will examine federal and state cases and legislation, which have defined the scope and limitations historically faced by minorities over time from the point of slavery to modern day. We will also examine how early social and economic realities have shaped society’s and thus the court’s view of the role of minorities in America.  Finally, we will study major cases leading to systemic change and the advancement of equal justice and at times retrenchment.
The overall themes and reading assignments for this course are directly related to Georgetown’s Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILO). Specifically, this course provides students the ability to think critically about the connections between race, history, and legal doctrine or law, and the differential effects that has on minority groups. 

Learning Objectives:

This course will enable students to enhance their critical thinking skills, examine and analyze legal precedents, and develop or improve their advocacy skills and legal writing.

We will examine throughout the semester why and how the law uses racial identifications in theory and in practice, which will require students to think critically about the powerful and ingrained modes of thinking about race and the impact that has on the law’s claim to neutrality. We will begin with a discussion on implicit bias and how it provides a background for understanding the twists and turns over the years of the notions of race in America. Students will then use this understanding throughout the remainder of the course to think critically about the role of implicit bias in the law as it pertains to race, ethnicity, and culture.

Please see the Communications and Technology Law Clinic (IPR) website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Communications and Technology Law Clinic (IPR) PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

This course provides a unique opportunity for students to integrate critical theory and community development practice into a praxis of community development that reflects on the power dynamics legitimated and sometimes disrupted by the histories and current practices of the field.

This praxis of community development centers a community wealth building, reparative, and sustainable economy approach to the challenges and opportunities experienced by practitioners working in or with marginalized and divested communities impacted by apartheid, colonial, and neo-colonial practices. This emerging praxis is part of a Next Systems movement rooted in what is often called the Solidarity Economy. The latter centers racial equity and community-owned, democratically accountable, organizations and enterprises in reducing the disparities in wealth, health, and wellbeing.

This course will focus on complex procedural issues that arise in modern litigation. The overall focus of the course is on multi-party, multi-jurisdictional disputes and the increased regulatory role that courts play in the system of dispute resolution. The first part of the course will focus class actions, including the requirements for class certification, judicial review of class settlements, the impact of the Class Action Fairness Act on class action practice (CAFA), and the intersection of class actions and contracts for arbitration of disputes. Considerable time will also be spent on multi-district litigation (MDL) practice including the modern development of bellwether trials; the unique aggregation problems that arise in the context of international disputes; the strategic choices available to lawyers handling complex cases, and the strategic and economic dynamics of settlement.

Since the 1970s, environmental law has provided an important context for the development of constitutional doctrines. These developments have accelerated in recent years as environmental issues have risen to the forefront of the political debate and received increased attention from parties across the political spectrum. This course focuses on recent jurisprudence, and current developments in environmental law that relate to constitutional issues. To that end, students will examine recent agency rules, appellate briefs, and court decisions. At the outset we will discuss constitutional limits on  Congress’s power to enact statutes addressing environmental harm. We will then turn to how courts interpret Congressional delegations of authority to administrative agencies including separation of powers issues. Finally, we will address constitutional limits on judicial review. The course will also include conversations with guest speakers from the federal government, state government, and private sector who have worked directly on developing the challenged actions and litigating the cases we will discuss.

The course materials will include agency regulations and guidance documents, excerpts of merits briefs and oral argument transcripts, as well as published opinions.

This course will explore constitutional limits on legislative and prosecutive efforts to prohibit corrupt conduct involving payments to public officials, excessive or prohibited campaign contributions and independent expenditures, fraudulent fundraising by SuperPACs, and false statements by government employees. Students will review the historical evolution of relevant statutes, applicable constitutional principles, and Supreme Court and lower court decisions addressing constitutional limits on legislative and enforcement efforts.

The course will be organized chronologically within specified topics. The primary topics will include: Constitutional Principles; Bribery & Extortion; Fraud & Misapplication; Election Crimes; and Constitutional Privileges. The topics will span several consecutive classes with relevant case law assigned as the primary reading material.

This course focuses primarily on the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments (free speech, due process, and equal protection) and the role of the Supreme Court as ultimate interpreter and guardian of the Bill of Rights.

Note for Professor Barnett's Fall section: As a way to understand the structure of current doctrines, Professor Barnett’s course will stress how and why the doctrines evolved from the Founding through the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Warren and Rehnquist Courts to the Roberts Court today. The course will also stress the effect that slavery had on the original Constitution and the Reconstruction Amendments. Coverage will include the Second and Ninth Amendments. Professor Barnett's section will consist of a 3-hour unit consisting of two 85 minute class sessions and a 1-hour unit consisting of video presentations on the theory and practice of originalism that students can view at their convenience at any time before or during the semester.  Internet access on any device is not allowed during class; all laptop use is disallowed in Professor Barnett's course (unless necessary to conduct Zoom instruction).  

Learning goals for Professor Spann's section

The primary goal of the course is to teach students how to manipulate the doctri­nal rules and underlying policy consid­era­tions that govern the topics in the course, and to get students to confront the norma­tive implications raised by such vast amounts of doctrinal indetermi­nacy, especially for the law’s claim of neutrality toward subordinated groups. 

This course will provide students the opportunity for intense and detailed study of cutting-edge issues arising under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. Students will be required to read foundational Supreme Court cases in full (including concurrences and dissents) to enable them to discuss and debate the decisions and the analytical approaches used to reach them.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the week, I hope you will have learned to:

1. Understand more deeply First and Second Amendment jurisprudence;
2. Appreciate how difficult it is for the Supreme Court to decide close cases;
3. Express your thoughts clearly and concisely and to disagree with colleagues without being disagreeable;
4. See virtue in reading cases in their entirety, rather than in excerpt form;
5. Recognize different judicial philosophies in Supreme Court opinions;
6. Identify premises justices use as starting points for their analyses; and
7. Write an exam that reflects command of First and Second Amendment cases.

This seminar will explore the practice and strategy of constitutional litigation through a close study of recent constitutional challenges to Executive Branch action.

We will begin with a brief overview of major trends in constitutional litigation against the Executive Branch. We will then address specific cases, examining the course of each litigation and exploring key strategic judgments made by parties, amici, and judges. Students will leave the course familiar with every stage of a constitutional case, from the initial announcement of an Executive Branch policy, to the decision to file suit and the drafting of a complaint, to litigation at every level of the Judiciary and in the court of public opinion, to the varied challenges that may follow a successful lawsuit. Along the way, we will consider the strategy and incentives of different litigants—including civil rights groups, private parties, cities, states, and legislators. We will also study the goals and strategies of lawyers charged with defending Executive Branch action.

Although this list is subject to change in light of ongoing developments, we likely will cover many of the following topics:

• President Trump’s "travel ban"
• The exclusion of transgender persons from military service
• Don't Ask, Don't Tell
• The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
• DACA and DAPA
• Threats to revoke federal funds from sanctuary cities
• The (unsuccessful) addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 Census
• Requests by juvenile undocumented migrants to exercise abortion rights
• The challenge to President Trump’s policy of blocking critics on Twitter
• President Trump's compliance (or lack thereof) with the Emoluments Clauses
• Efforts by the House of Representatives to compel testimony by former officials
• Efforts by cities, states, and the House to obtain President Trump’s tax returns
• The impeachments of President Trump

Each week, students will study relevant court filings and opinions (from district courts all the way to the Supreme Court), complemented by contemporaneous legal commentary. We will expect all students to prepare for—and participate in—classroom discussion.

Consumer protection law seeks to address a wide (and ever-evolving) list of deceptive, fraudulent and unfair practices. In this course, we will survey the laws, players, and industries that are affected by consumer protection law. Among other subjects, we will cover advertising practices (including native advertising), mortgage fraud, privacy, identity theft, payday lending, and higher education.

In this course, we will draw from social and behavioral science to analyze how contemporary bias (structural, implicit, explicit) shapes outcomes for marginalized groups and the role of law in protecting individuals from such bias.  We will critically analyze the effect of various legal and policy reforms, examining whether the reforms are likely to reduce or exacerbate existing inequalities. We will discuss inequality in several domains (e.g. policing, voting rights, housing, education, and employment) with a focus on intersectional identities (e.g. race, gender, class, citizenship, sexuality). The final project will give students the opportunity to build on what they’ve learned to propose their own legal, policy, or organizational reform, along with an activism strategy designed to persuade key decision makers to take action.

Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech,” commands the First Amendment. This course explores how that charge has played out in practice by analyzing some of the most challenging free speech issues of our day. Topics include: incitement, threats, hate speech, protests, boycotts, aiding and abetting, suppression and retaliation by public officials, anonymous speech, compelled speech, the speech rights of social media platforms, algorithms, facial recognition, artificial intelligence, and speech about abortion post-Dobbs. Students will delve into the relevant legal doctrine, as well as its theoretical and analytical underpinnings, while also developing skills as advocates by applying that doctrine to actual cases. Students will be expected to make meaningful contributions to class discussion.

Learning Outcomes:

(1) Students will develop a deep understanding of the core First Amendment/free speech case law relevant to the problems we study as well as the theory undergirding the protections for free speech.

(2) Students will develop skills as advocates in applying that body of case law and underlying theoretical principles to current complex problems, including actual cases I have handled as a practitioner.

This seminar will focus on current issues in corporate governance in the context of seminar requiring a substantial written paper. We will consider how these developments relate to current theories of corporate governance and to the development of corporate governance laws and best practices in the United States and several other jurisdictions. The seminar will meet weekly to discuss assigned readings; students will be expected to produce topic outlines and a draft of their final papers during the term as well.

Among the subjects to be considered are: (1) the need – in the context of large public corporations - for corporate governance rules due to the separation of corporate control from ownership; (2) the governance-related duties and responsibilities of corporate directors, officers and controlling shareholders; (3) competing theories of ‘shareholder primacy’ and ‘director primacy’; (4) the changing roles of institutional investors seeking improvements in corporate governance; (5) activist investors and the competing governance theories of short term vs. long term investment strategies; (6) “shareholder democracy” and “shareholder primacy,” including such issues as majority voting, say-on-pay, proxy access, shareholder engagement and controlled or dual-class share structures for corporations; (7) corporate social responsibility, diversity in the boardroom and the role of non-shareholder stakeholders (local communities, environmental advocates, employees, creditors, consumers, etc.); (8) the role of corporate lawyers in corporate governance (including who is the “client” – the board, management or shareholders); (9) the interactions between state corporate law and federal securities law and various regulators; and (10) new international perspectives on corporate governance.

Please see the Criminal Defense & Prisoner Advocacy Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

Please see the Criminal Justice Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Criminal Justice Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

This course traces the litigation of criminal cases from the time the police hand the case off to the prosecutor through final judgment, sentencing, and post-trial relief.  Among the topics covered:  pretrial release and bail; prosecutorial discretion in charging; venue; defendant’s right to counsel and the role of defense counsel; grand jury and preliminary hearing; joinder and severance; gag orders; discovery; right to speedy trial; privilege against self-incrimination and grants of immunity; plea bargaining and guilty pleas; jury selection; sentencing; double jeopardy; and post-trial processes to correct erroneous judgments (appeal and habeas corpus).  The course focuses principally on Supreme Court decisions, but also visits where appropriate the rules of criminal procedure.  This course includes all the topics covered in the two-credit Advanced Criminal Procedure course, but uses the extra credit hour to dig deeper on the most interesting issues and includes post-trial procedures not usually covered in Advanced Criminal Procedure.  

Historically, legal opinions, and the law that they establish, have been shaped from a perspective that is largely white, male, and privileged. At the same time, legal opinions and the law have largely ignored the perspectives of racial minorities, women, and other marginalized groups. This course will focus on these missing perspectives and ask what the law would be like if the experiences and needs of these citizens were given equal consideration in criminal law and procedure.

Through an exploration of judicial writing and attorney advocacy in key cases, I will invite students to consider the analytical and writing choices judges have made in key criminal judicial decisions by looking beyond the page. After learning about critical race and feminist perspectives of law, and the use of rhetoric, storytelling, and metaphor in judicial writing, students will assess how race and gender are handled and whose perspectives are and are not discussed in key legal opinions. They will also read and critique published rewritten feminist and critical race opinions in many of these cases. Ultimately, students will rewrite legal opinions of their own with a better understanding of the judicial audience.

This course examines society's control of unwanted behavior through criminal law. The particular focus is on the general elements of a criminal offense cutting across all criminal codes rather than on the elements of individual crimes. Some attention is given to the basic theories of punishment and criminal culpability as contrasted with civil forms--e.g., tort law or civil commitment--for controlling deviant behavior.

This introductory course involves the jurisprudence of substantive criminal law. Among the topics we will discuss are the general elements of a criminal offense, the structure of criminal justice administration, the exercise of discretion throughout the criminal justice system, and justifications and excuses. Certain substantive offenses may also be covered. Some attention will be given to the basic theories of punishment and sentencing.

This course examines the body of public law that is designed to punish blameworthy or antisocial behavior. The course begins by introducing the general principles governing all criminal offenses–the general part of the criminal law–and then examines how these principles apply to a variety of specific offenses as well as the exculpatory defenses. Attention is paid to the basic theories of punishment which provide the students with the theoretical tools they need to construct cogent arguments for how far the criminal law should be extended to suppressed the undesirable behavior.

This seminar will introduce students to contemporary theoretical thinking about substantive criminal law. We will explore some of the most pressing problems in criminal jurisprudence, as well as some perennial ones, through the lens of the tension between morality and context.

Philosophers of the criminal law have traditionally turned to moral reasoning when trying to justify or critique penal laws. Morality purports to dictate how individuals ought to act toward one another as a matter of universal truth, and therefore views social context as detrimental to analytical clarity. Sociolegal and critical scholars, on the other hand, highlight the relevance of contingent factors, such as material conditions, historical narratives, and political power relations, for proper understanding of the criminal law. However, they generally stop short of offering compelling normative theories to guide our way forward. The seminar will examine the prospects and perils of both views, explore whether they can be reconciled, and consider prominent alternative frameworks that are gaining traction in recent scholarship.

Students will become familiar with the central philosophical puzzles underlying the criminal law as well as with cutting edge theoretical approaches for tackling them. We will pay attention to both general issues, like criminalization (what to impose liability for), defenses (when to relieve of liability), and punishment (what form liability ought to take), and pertinent issues at this historical moment, like hate crimes, gun violence, and prison abolition.

There are no prerequisites. For JD students, prior or concurrent enrollment in Criminal Law is recommended, though not required.

This is a project-based practicum that will involve students in ongoing death penalty cases and teach them the legal framework for death penalty litigation. Professor Sloan has been active in death penalty litigation and representation, including two recent Supreme Court victories on behalf of a death row inmate in Texas: Moore v. Texas, 137 S. Ct. 1039 (2017) and Moore v. Texas, 139 S. Ct. 666 (2019).

In their project work, students will work on legal research related to ongoing death penalty litigation on behalf of death penalty defendants and inmates. Students also may have the opportunity to draft, or contribute to, briefs and motions related to ongoing death penalty litigation. Students will work with organizations and practitioners litigating death penalty cases. Among the organizations and individuals that have partnered with this practicum are the Southern Center for Human Rights, the Miami-Dade Public Defender, the Federal Public Defender, and individual death penalty litigation practitioners. Other organizations and individuals are likely partners as well.

In the seminar, students will develop an understanding and appreciation of the ongoing debates on death penalty issues – both broad jurisprudential issues (such as the meaning of the Eighth Amendment and relevant state constitutional provisions) and specific doctrinal topics (such as intellectual disability, insanity, and mitigating evidence in the death penalty litigation context). It also will be helpful to students to understand the experiences of death penalty litigators. Readings on these subjects will be woven into the seminar.

Derivatives, including virtual currencies, are a large, dynamic and rapidly evolving part of the world's financial markets.  The size and importance of these markets alone would make derivatives regulation a worthy part of law school study, particularly for those interested in financial markets.  Add to that a significant change in the regulatory framework on a scale unseen since the 1930's and it is clear that there has never been a better time to study the legal issues and operational challenges for market participants.  This course will focus on the regulation of derivatives under the Commodity Exchange Act, as amended by Dodd-Frank, and as implemented by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.  This course is designed as a “Derivatives 101” equivalent, providing a broad overview of the regulation of derivatives.  No prior knowledge of derivatives is required to succeed in this course.  The course will include an in-depth look at the new regulatory requirements and issues with respect to (i) market transparency and integrity, such as preventing market manipulation, disruptive trading practices, and so-called excessive speculation; (ii) the increasing use of automated trading systems and high-frequency trading in commodity markets; and (iii) the interplay between Congress, the federal market regulators, and the entities subject to financial market regulation. Students will be presented with the same questions of law confronting attorneys advising entities trading in derivatives markets, regulators, and the courts.

This course covers the Americans with Disabilities Act, its amendments, regulations, and interpretive guidance as they relate to discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, the programs, services, or activities provided by government entities, and public accommodations. The course will take a pragmatic approach to exploring the rights and responsibilities arising from this law and will focus on such issues as defining disability, the concept of qualified persons with a disability, reasonable accommodations, medical exams and disability-related inquiries, program access, and public accommodations.

Please see the Domestic Violence Clinic website for more information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Domestic Violence Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

In a project-based practicum course, students participate in a weekly seminar and work on a project under the supervision of their professors. This project-based practicum course will focus on election law. Students will participate in a two hour/week seminar and carry out 10 hours/week of project work under the direction of the course professors.

SEMINAR: The seminar portion of this course will focus on voting rights law--including the Voting Rights Act, constitutional protections on the right to vote and redistricting law--and will also cover some related areas of law, including regulation of campaign finance. In the area of voting rights, the course will specifically examine the state of voting rights law and litigation in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County V. Holder. The course will cover issues such as voter ID laws and other burdens on the right to vote, felon disenfranchisement, racial and partisan gerrymandering, and other voting-related topics based on current events. In the area of campaign finance, the focus will be on the law governing limits on contributions to candidates and the disclosure of funds contributed or spent to influence elections. Cases challenging these regulations as violative of the First Amendment have proliferated in the post-Citizens United world. Throughout the semester, students will be assigned several writing assignments that may include: complaints for potential federal lawsuits alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act and/or the United States Constitution; briefs or motions in pending voting rights cases; and other legal documents directly related to ongoing work in the voting rights and campaign finance fields. This practicum course will give students the opportunity, among other things to explore and weigh the governmental interests involved in voting and campaign finance restrictions against the rights those laws may infringe.

PROJECT WORK: Students in this practicum will have the opportunity to draft legal memos related to current election law matters. Assignments will be based on pending cases and matters, but will involve a wide range of election law issues raising important questions of constitutional and statutory interpretation.

This course examines federal and state law regulating the conduct of elections and the financing of campaigns. Included are aspects of federal and state constitutional law on speech, association, and equal protection; and particularly problems of apportionment, gerrymandering, race-conscious districting under the Voting Rights Act, and barriers to voting. With respect to campaign finance, we consider how much and what kinds of legal regulation are constitutionally appropriate regarding parties, candidates, independents, political action committees, corporations, unions, and individuals.

This course explores the legal mandate for equal employment opportunity in relation to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability and other traits. The focus is principally upon Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also includes the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Post Civil War Civil Rights Acts, and state analogues to Title VII, such as the District of Columbia Human Rights Act. The course also discusses the evolution of employment discrimination law to address such traits as sexual orientation and transgender status. The course examines the doctrinal and theoretical aspects of employment discrimination law through a rigorous analysis of court decisions, statutes and regulations; explores the public policy issues underlying the law of employment discrimination; and discusses the strategic and tactical approaches a practicing attorney will consider in actually utilizing these laws to represent clients.

This course explores the legal mandate for equal employment opportunity in relation to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, and other traits. The focus is principally upon Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also includes the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and related state analogues. The course examines the doctrinal and theoretical aspects of employment discrimination law through a rigorous analysis of court decisions, statutes and regulations. Legal readings will be supplemented with perspectives from psychology, sociology, and economics. We will also discuss the strategic and tactical approaches a practicing attorney will consider in actually utilizing these laws to represent clients.

This course surveys the law regulating the fundamentals of the employee-employer relationship and examines a variety of public policy questions relating to employment standards regulation. The subjects covered may include: the common law doctrine of at-will employment and the development of contract and tort exceptions to that doctrine; statutory efforts to protect employees from wrongful discharge; the law of work-related invasions of privacy (e.g., drug-testing, genetic screening, polygraphs, etc.); the National Labor Relations Act; the regulation of employment compensation (e.g., Fair Labor Standards Act, prevailing wage laws); the regulation of workplace health and safety (e.g., Occupational Safety and Health Act). This course may also cover the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, and workers compensation.

Energy markets are transitioning rapidly toward a lower carbon future in response to federal and state initiatives and the sentiments of activists, consumers and investors.  This transition is creating business opportunities and legal challenges not only for new entrants, such as the providers of renewable energy, energy storage and distributed energy resources, but also for incumbent market participants, such as utilities, pipelines, natural gas producers, independent power producers and large energy consumers. The course will focus on the economic regulation of physical energy markets by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), along with the interplay involving the Congress, federal and state regulators, market participants and other stakeholders.  We will examine five main areas: (i) the foundational laws (the Federal Power Act and Natural Gas Act) and legal doctrines governing FERC’s regulation of physical energy markets and the non-discriminatory transmission of electricity and natural gas by wire and pipe; (ii) the impact of restructuring wholesale electric power and natural gas markets pursuant to those laws; (iii) energy market enforcement and compliance policies, derived in large part from securities market regulation; (iv) what generation, transmission and pipeline infrastructure will be needed to ensure reliability and resilience as we transition to a lower carbon future; and (v) “hot topics” such as carbon pricing in organized wholesale electricity markets, the shale gas revolution, federal-state conflicts, pipeline and electric transmission infrastructure development and cost allocation, and integrating distributed resources and renewables  Students will gain an appreciation for the legal and market challenges confronted by market participants during this transition. One or more sessions will feature guest lecturers. There will be no final examination. Instead, each student’s grade will be based on a final paper that takes a position on a key legal or policy issue and defends that position persuasively, several short quizzes during the semester, and class participation.

This discussion seminar will explore topics in environmental justice from a range of perspectives, including historical accounts of the environmental justice movement, contemporary proposals as to how to respond to unfolding ecological crises, relevant case law and litigation, proposed legislation, domestic and international advocacy efforts, as well as imaginative literature and creative nonfiction. Our goals will be to arrive at a deeper understanding of pressing environmental problems, and, most important, to generate an array of compelling answers to the question, “what is to be done?”

We will begin by exploring accounts of our current environmental crises, their causes and impending consequences, and studying the beginnings of the environmental justice movement, which has sought for several decades to confront the racial and economic inequity of ecological harm. Our second meeting will explore several compelling contemporary proposals to address our current circumstances, ranging from domestic legislation and international diplomacy to organizing for a Global Green New Deal. In our third meeting we will focus on obstacles that impede meaningful change, both economic and political frameworks as well as legal efforts to preserve the status quo. Next, we will turn to creative nonfiction that explores various ways to think and work against these barriers towards a more sustainable and just future. Our fifth meeting will consider imaginative literature and art addressing the climate crisis to further expand our own imaginative horizons. Following our efforts to understand the potential and limits of past efforts to realize greater environmental justice, our sixth meeting will examine recent work addressing future possibilities for social movement advocacy, domestic and international organizing, litigation and legislation, and pushing for more fundamental changes to structures of collective governance and social life. In this penultimate week, we will read work associated with ecofeminist movements, indigenous environmental justice formations, the Black Hive of the Movement for Black Lives, the Sunrise Movement and other contemporary movement formations. In our final meeting, each seminar participant will share with the group a brief account of one additional idea and course of action they believe to offer an especially powerful response to our shared question, “what is to be done, now?”

This course will introduce the concept of Environmental Justice in a variety of contexts, along with the specific legal challenges and remedies that arise from constitutional rights, statutory requirements, or executive actions. It will explore the frameworks that inform the analysis of environmental justice issues, including how an environmental justice lens can be applied to a wide range of areas to ensure access and equity focus efforts to resolve these complex issues.

Learning Objectives:

The primary learning objective for this course is to introduce to students how to incorporate environmental justice principles into their perspective and analyses of legal and policy issues. The course will seek to accomplish this through developing the following skills/competencies: (1) developing frameworks for answering fundamental environmental law questions and how environmental justice law can be used to enhance problem-solving to answer those questions; (2) identifying and applying existing laws and remedies to resolve environmental justice issues; and (3) developing creative environmental legal problem solving that addresses inadequacies of current law and its enforcement.

This course covers the key laws developed to control pollution. The main focus of the course is on current statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Superfund Act (CERCLA and SARA), and the Clean Air Act. Other statutes, such as the Oil Pollution Act, as well as climate change, are addressed briefly. Common law and pre-1970s efforts to develop law to obtain control are also reviewed. Relying on their practical experience, the instructors address application and interpretation of the statutes, Congressional actions to extend and modify the statutes, regulatory implementation of the statutes by executive agencies, enforcement policy and practice, the role of states, citizens' groups and industry, and private efforts at clean-up. The professors use problems to help students understand the practical application of the statutes in real-world contexts.

This course focuses on legal strategies to regulate and remedy environmental harms. The course is designed to prepare transactional lawyers, regulatory lawyers, government counsel and litigators, as well as students interested in specializing in environmental law. A major goal of the course is to introduce students to the analytical skills necessary to understand and work in this and other predominantly statutory and regulatory fields. The course starts by reviewing economic, ecological and historical perspectives on protection of the environment. We also briefly cover common law environmental claims. We then turn to several cross-cutting public environmental law issues, namely discussion of regulatory design choices, federalism issues, a brief introduction to important administrative law concepts, cases, and doctrine, and analysis of the role of citizens as enforcers under US environmental laws. We then turn to in-depth analysis of key portions of several of the most significant federal environmental laws, including hazardous waste cleanup laws, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. We will also look at the developing body of law regarding climate change.

Between New Year’s Day in 1970 and December of 1980, Congress enacted virtually all of our major federal environmental statutes. To this day, these laws form the core of this country’s approach to addressing environmental problems. All of the laws aim to achieve cleaner water, air, and land, while at the same time taking very different approaches to doing so. This course will introduce you to the major federal statutes on environmental protection, including but not limited to the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Superfund law. You will come to understand the basic regulatory goals and mechanisms of these laws. You will also learn how one might choose among these goals and mechanisms in fashioning environmental policy. Ideally, you will come away with an informed judgment about how far we have come in protecting the environment and how far we still have to go.

Please see the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

Students in this class will have an opportunity to study, comment on, and develop scholarship of their own regarding environmental law and policy. The class will include introductory materials and discussion about attributes and methods of environmental scholarship.  Then the workshop will introduce you to some of the best academic scholars in environmental law who will present a work-in-progress.  In both advance written comments and through workshop discussion, students will engage presenting scholars regarding their scholarship.  Depending on the presenters’ paper subjects and others’ availability, the workshop might also include a few classes with responsive comments from an outside visitor from government, not-for-profits, law firms, businesses, or legal academe.

Students can fulfill their Georgetown Law upper level writing requirement with an opportunity to produce substantial, publishable legal scholarship on a topic related to environmental, energy, or natural resource law, broadly defined, and receive three credits for their efforts.  All students will provide all speakers and the professor with at least brief (no more than one page) of advance comments and questions.  Two credit students will provide more in-depth comments to three speakers and the professor, with such comments expected to be five pages in length and reflect careful reading of both the paper and, as necessary to provide knowledgeable comments, draw on selective delving into other scholarly or primary materials relevant to, or referenced in, the presented paper.  Our last session together will include a bit of debriefing, but will mainly be a session for three credit students to present their drafts and receive comments.

In the J.D. Externship Program, students work under the supervision of a field supervisor attorney to gain substantial lawyering experience that is reasonably similar to the experience of a lawyer advising or representing a client or engaging in other lawyering tasks outside of the law school. Working in collaboration with their field supervisors, students establish individualized learning goals for their experience and receive ongoing feedback in a real-world practice setting. At the Law Center, students participate in a companion seminar to reinforce their field placement experiences. Through the seminar, students consider essential topics involving professionalism, ethics, cultural competency, professional identity, legal problem-solving, work-life balance, and the role of a lawyer. Through regular classroom engagement, students enhance their learning at the field placement and develop critical reflective practices that they will use throughout their careers.

Please refer to the J.D. Externship Program website for detailed program information.

Identifying a Placement:

Students are responsible for securing their own judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placements. The Office of Public Interest and Community Service (OPICS) is available, by appointment, to discuss potential externship opportunities. In addition, the J.D. Externship Program has resources to help students identify an externship placement.

FIELDWORK: Students work for 11 or 16.5 hours per week of fieldwork for at least 10 weeks (110 or 165 hours total) in a judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placement. Students must be supervised by a licensed attorney or an individual otherwise qualified to supervise a legal extern at the field placement. Georgetown Law defines "an individual otherwise qualified to supervise" as someone qualified to assign, review, and give substantive feedback on a student's legal or policy work. Students are responsible for finding their own placements. Students may be compensated for the work at their qualifying government, judicial, or nonprofit placement. Students may not work on pro bono matters at a for-profit entity. Students earn 2 pass/fail credits for 11 hours of fieldwork/week or 3 pass/fail credits for 16.5 hours of fieldwork/week for at least 10 weeks during the semester.

Note: Students can begin working toward the hours/week requirement (110 or 165 hours total) from the first day of regular, semester-long classes. Students must complete the total hours requirement by the last business day of classes.

Note: Students must be fully eligible to start working at their field placement (i.e., security clearances and/or background checks complete) by the last business day before the Law Center’s Add/Drop deadline, or able to confirm that they are eligible to start work no later than Friday, September 15 for the fall semester. Students unable to start work by then will be withdrawn from the J.D. Externship Program - including the companion seminar.

SEMINAR: In addition to their fieldwork, students participate in a biweekly (approximately), interactive, one-credit, letter-graded seminar, incorporating multiple opportunities for students' performance of various professional lawyering skills and development of professional competencies that are universal to numerous legal settings.

ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY AT ALL SIX CLASS SESSIONS. All enrolled students must be in attendance at the start of the first class session in order to be eligible for a seat in the class and must timely attend each class session in its entirety. Failure to attend any class session in its entirety will result in a withdrawal.

To receive academic credit, students must, at a minimum: (i) fulfill their applicable fieldwork hours requirement by the last business day of classes; (ii) attend, participate in, and timely complete all assignments for the six externship seminar classes; (iii) receive a satisfactory Field Supervisor End-of-Semester Evaluation; and (iv) complete and submit all administrative assignments in a timely manner, including but not limited to:

• The Rule 304(d) Agreement;
• Weekly time sheets; and
• The Student End-of-Semester Placement Evaluation.

Additional, detailed course mechanics and requirements will be outlined in the seminar syllabus.

Grading:

The fieldwork components of externships are mandatory pass/fail offerings and do not count towards the seven-credit limit on pass/fail courses. The one-credit seminar is letter-graded.

Registration:

To participate in the Fall 2023 J.D. Externship Program, students must first successfully complete the externship application, after they have secured a qualifying field placement. Upon application approval, students must then enroll and/or waitlist themselves, via MyAccess, for an applicable externship seminar.

The Fall 2023 Guaranteed Externship Application opens on Thursday, June 1, 2023 and will close at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, August 13, 2023. Any eligible J.D. students who apply during this period with a qualifying externship placement will receive a seat in the fall externship program, although we cannot guarantee that the proffered seat will be in the student's top seminar choice. Once the fall externship application opens, the application link will be available on the J.D. Externship Program website.

To the extent that there are still available seats in the fall externship program after the guaranteed application period closes, the Fall 2023 Waitlist Externship Application will open on Monday, August 14, 2023. Registration for the Fall 2023 J.D. Externship Program will remain open until there are no seats left in the program or until 5:00 p.m. on Monday, August 28, 2023, whichever occurs first.

For additional information on the fall externship enrollment process and deadlines, please see the Fall 2023-Spring 2024 Student Extern Manual.

Canvas:

The J.D. Externship Program uses Canvas to administer this course. All course materials will be posted to your seminar's Canvas page. You will upload all assignments through Canvas, using the "Assignments" drop box for your seminar. If you encounter difficulty navigating Canvas and/or need a refresher on using the site, please contact IST at lawhelp@georgetown.edu.

Prerequisite:

Students must complete the required Georgetown Law first-year program (or seek and receive a waiver of this prerequisite) prior to enrolling in this course (part-time and interdivisional transfer students may enroll prior to completing Criminal Justice, Property, and their first-year elective.)

Notes:

The seminar is only open to J.D. students participating in the J.D. Externship Seminar for the first time. If you have previously received academic credit for an externship through the J.D. Externship Program, you must enroll in the Externship II Seminar.

Students who enroll in this course will be automatically enrolled in both the seminar and fieldwork components and may not take either component separately. A student wishing to withdraw from the course will be withdrawn from both the seminar and fieldwork components.

In the J.D. Externship Program, students work under the supervision of a field supervisor attorney to gain substantial lawyering experience that is reasonably similar to the experience of a lawyer advising or representing a client or engaging in other lawyering tasks outside of the law school. Working in collaboration with their field supervisors, students establish individualized learning goals for their experience and receive ongoing feedback in a real-world practice setting. At the Law Center, students participate in a companion seminar to reinforce their field placement experiences. Through the seminar, students consider essential topics involving professionalism, ethics, cultural competency, professional identity, legal problem-solving, work-life balance, and the role of a lawyer. Through regular classroom engagement, students enhance their learning at the field placement and develop critical reflective practices that they will use throughout their careers.

Please refer to the J.D. Externship Program website for detailed program information.

Identifying a Placement:

Students are responsible for securing their own judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placements. The Office of Public Interest and Community Service (OPICS) is available, by appointment, to discuss potential externship opportunities. In addition, the J.D. Externship Program has resources to help students identify an externship placement.

FIELDWORK: Students work for 11 or 16.5 hours per week for at least 10 weeks (110 or 165 hours total) in a judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placement. Students must be supervised by a licensed attorney or an individual otherwise qualified to supervise a legal extern at the field placement. Georgetown Law defines "an individual otherwise qualified to supervise" as someone qualified to assign, review, and give substantive feedback on a student's legal or policy work. Students are responsible for finding their own placements. Students may be compensated for the work at their qualifying government, judicial, or nonprofit placement. Students may not work on pro bono matters at a for-profit entity. Students earn 2 pass/fail credits for 10 hours of fieldwork/week or 3 pass/fail credits for 15 hours of fieldwork/week.

Note: Students can begin working toward the hours/week requirement (110 or 165 hours total) from the first day of regular, semester-long classes. Students must complete the total hours requirement by the last business day of classes.

Note: Students must be fully eligible to start working at their field placement (i.e., security clearances and/or background checks complete) by the last business day before the Law Center’s Add/Drop deadline, or able to confirm that they are eligible to start work no later than Friday, February 2 for the spring semester. Students unable to start work by then will be withdrawn from the J.D. Externship Program - including the companion seminar.

SEMINAR: In addition to their fieldwork, students participate in a biweekly (approximately), interactive, one-credit, letter-graded seminar, incorporating multiple opportunities for students' performance of various professional lawyering skills and development of professional competencies that are universal to numerous legal settings.

ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY AT ALL SIX CLASS SESSIONS. All enrolled students must be in attendance at the start of the first class session in order to be eligible for a seat in the class and must timely attend each class session in its entirety. Failure to attend any class session in its entirety will result in a withdrawal.

To receive academic credit, students must, at a minimum: (i) fulfill their applicable fieldwork hours requirement by the last business day of classes; (ii) attend, participate in, and timely complete all assignments for the six externship seminar classes; (iii) receive a satisfactory Field Supervisor End-of-Semester Evaluation; and (iv) complete and submit all administrative assignments in a timely manner, including but not limited to:

• The Rule 304(d) Agreement;
• Weekly time sheets; and
• The Student End-of-Semester Placement Evaluation.

Additional, detailed course mechanics and requirements will be outlined in the seminar syllabus.

Grading:

The fieldwork components of externships are mandatory pass/fail offerings and do not count towards the seven-credit limit on pass/fail courses. The one-credit seminar is letter-graded.

Registration:

To participate in the Spring 2024 J.D. Externship Program, students must first successfully complete the externship application, after they have secured a qualifying field placement. Upon application approval, students must then enroll and/or waitlist themselves, via MyAccess, for an applicable externship seminar.

The Spring 2024 Guaranteed Externship Application will open on Monday, October 23, 2023 and will close at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, January 8, 2024. Any eligible J.D. students who apply during this period with a qualifying externship placement will receive a seat in the spring externship program, although we cannot guarantee that the proffered seat will be in the student's top seminar choice. Once the spring externship application opens, the application link will be available on the J.D. Externship Program website.

To the extent that there are still available seats in the spring externship program after the guaranteed application period closes, the Spring 2024 Waitlist Externship Application will open on Tuesday, January 9, 2024. Registration for the Spring 2024 J.D. Externship Program will remain open until 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 16, 2024.

For additional information on the spring externship enrollment process and deadlines, please see the Fall 2023-Spring 2024 Student Extern Manual.

Canvas:

The J.D. Externship Program uses Canvas to administer this course. All course materials will be posted to your seminar's Canvas page. You will upload all assignments through Canvas, using the "Assignments" drop box for your seminar. If you encounter difficulty navigating Canvas and/or need a refresher on using the site, please contact IST at lawhelp@georgetown.edu.

Prerequisite:

J.D. students must complete the required first-year program (or seek and receive a waiver of this prerequisite) prior to enrolling in this course (part-time and interdivisional transfer students may enroll prior to completing Criminal Justice, Property, and their first-year elective).

Notes:

The seminar is only open to J.D. students participating in the J.D. Externship Seminar for the first time. If you have previously received academic credit for an externship through the J.D. Externship Program, you must enroll in the Externship II Seminar.

Students who enroll in this course will be automatically enrolled in both the seminar and fieldwork components and may not take either component separately. A student wishing to withdraw from the course will be withdrawn from both the seminar and fieldwork components.

In the J.D. Externship Program, students work under the supervision of a field supervisor attorney to gain substantial lawyering experience that is reasonably similar to the experience of a lawyer advising or representing a client or engaging in other lawyering tasks outside of the law school. Working in collaboration with their field supervisors, students establish individualized learning goals for their experience and receive ongoing feedback in a real-world practice setting. At the Law Center, students participate in a companion seminar to reinforce their field placement experiences. Through the seminar, students consider essential topics involving professionalism, ethics, cultural competency, professional identity, legal problem-solving, work-life balance, and the role of a lawyer. Through regular classroom engagement, students enhance their learning at the field placement and develop critical reflective practices that they will use throughout their careers.

Please refer to the J.D. Externship Program website for detailed program information.

Identifying a Placement:

Students are responsible for securing their own judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placement. The Office of Public Interest and Community Service (OPICS) is available, by appointment, to discuss potential externship opportunities. In addition, the J.D. Externship Program has resources to help you identify an externship placement.

FIELDWORK: Students work for 11 or 16.5 hours per week of fieldwork for at least 10 weeks (110 or 165 hours total) in a judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placement. Students must be supervised by a licensed attorney or an individual otherwise qualified to supervise a legal extern at the field placement. Georgetown Law defines “an individual otherwise qualified to supervise” as someone qualified to assign, review, and give substantive feedback on a student’s legal or policy work. Students are responsible for finding their own placements. Students may be compensated for the work at their qualifying government, judicial, or nonprofit placement. Students may not work on pro bono matters at a for-profit entity. Students earn 2 pass/fail credits for 11 hours of fieldwork/week or 3 pass/fail credits for 16.5 hours of fieldwork/week for at least 10 weeks during the semester.

Note: Students can begin working toward the hours/week requirement (110 or 165 hours total) from the first day of regular, semester-long classes. Students must complete the total hours requirement by the last business day of classes.

Note: Students must be fully eligible to start working at their field placement (i.e., security clearances and/or background checks complete) by the last business day before the Law Center’s Add/Drop deadline, or able to confirm that they are eligible to start work no later than Friday, September 15 for the fall semester. Students unable to start work by then will be withdrawn from the J.D. Externship Program - including the companion seminar.

SEMINAR: In addition to their fieldwork, students participate in a biweekly (approximately), interactive, one-credit, letter-graded seminar, incorporating multiple opportunities for students' performance of various professional lawyering skills and development of professional competencies that are universal to numerous legal settings.

ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY AT ALL SIX CLASS SESSIONS. All enrolled students must be in attendance at the start of the first class session in order to be eligible for a seat in the class and must timely attend each class session in its entirety. Failure to attend any class session in its entirety will result in a withdrawal.

To receive academic credit, students must, at a minimum: (i) fulfill their applicable fieldwork hours requirement by the last business day of classes; (ii) attend, participate in, and timely complete all assignments for the six externship seminar classes; (iii) receive a satisfactory Field Supervisor End-of-Semester Evaluation; and (iv) complete and submit all administrative assignments in a timely manner, including but not limited to:

• The Rule 304(d) Agreement;
• Weekly time sheets; and
• The Student End-of-Semester Placement Evaluation.

Additional, detailed course mechanics and requirements will be outlined in the seminar syllabus.

Grading:

The fieldwork components of externships are mandatory pass/fail offerings and do not count towards the seven-credit limit on pass/fail courses. The one-credit seminar is letter-graded.

Registration:

To participate in the Fall 2023 J.D. Externship Program, students must first successfully complete the externship application, after they have secured a qualifying field placement. Upon application approval, students must then enroll and/or waitlist themselves, via MyAccess, for an applicable externship seminar.

The Fall 2023 Guaranteed Externship Application opens on Thursday, June 1, 2023 and will close at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, August 13, 2023. Any eligible J.D. students who apply during this period with a qualifying externship placement will receive a seat in the fall externship program, although we cannot guarantee that the proffered seat will be in the student's top seminar choice. Once the fall externship application opens, the application link will be available on the J.D. Externship Program website.

To the extent that there are still available seats in the fall externship program after the guaranteed application period closes, the Fall 2023 Waitlist Externship Application will open on Monday, August 14, 2023. Registration for the Fall 2023 J.D. Externship Program will remain open until there are no seats left in the program or until 5:00 p.m. on Monday, August 28, 2023, whichever occurs first.

For additional information on the fall externship enrollment process and deadlines, please see the Fall 2023-Spring 2024 Extern Manual.

Canvas:

The J.D. Externship Program uses Canvas to administer this course. All course materials will be posted to your seminar's Canvas page. You will upload all assignments through Canvas, using the "Assignments" drop box for your seminar. If you encounter difficulty navigating Canvas and/or need a refresher on using the site, please contact IST at lawhelp@georgetown.edu.

Prerequisite:

Students must have completed the required Georgetown Law first-year program (or seek and receive a waiver of this prerequisite) prior to enrolling in this course (part-time and interdivisional transfer students may enroll prior to completing Criminal Justice, Property, and their first-year elective.)

Notes:

The seminar is only open to J.D. students participating in the J.D. Externship Seminar for the second time. If you are participating in the J.D. Externship Program for the first time, you must enroll in the Externship I Seminar.

Students who enroll in this course will be automatically enrolled in both the seminar and fieldwork components and may not take either component separately. A student wishing to withdraw from the course will be withdrawn from both the seminar and fieldwork components.

In the J.D. Externship Program, students work under the supervision of a field supervisor attorney to gain substantial lawyering experience that is reasonably similar to the experience of a lawyer advising or representing a client or engaging in other lawyering tasks outside of the law school. Working in collaboration with their field supervisors, students establish individualized learning goals for their experience and receive ongoing feedback in a real-world practice setting. At the Law Center, students participate in a companion seminar to reinforce their field placement experiences. Through the seminar, students consider essential topics involving professionalism, ethics, cultural competency, professional identity, legal problem-solving, work-life balance, and the role of a lawyer. Through regular classroom engagement, students enhance their learning at the field placement and develop critical reflective practices that they will use throughout their careers.

Please refer to the J.D. Externship Program website for detailed program information.

Identifying a Placement:

Students are responsible for securing their own judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placements. The Office of Public Interest and Community Service (OPICS) is available, by appointment, to discuss potential externship opportunities. In addition, the J.D. Externship Program has resources to help students identify an externship placement.

FIELDWORK: Students work for 11 or 16.5 hours per week for at least 10 weeks (110 or 165 hours total) in a judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placement. Students must be supervised by a licensed attorney or an individual otherwise qualified to supervise a legal extern at the field placement. Georgetown Law defines “an individual otherwise qualified to supervise” as someone qualified to assign, review, and give substantive feedback on a student’s legal or policy work. Students are responsible for finding their own placements. Students may be compensated for the work at their qualifying government, judicial, or nonprofit placement. Students may not work on pro bono matters at a for-profit entity. Students earn 2 pass/fail credits for 10 hours of fieldwork/week or 3 pass/fail credits for 15 hours of fieldwork/week.

Note: Students can begin working toward the hours/week requirement (110 or 165 hours total) from the first day of regular, semester-long classes. Students must complete the total hours requirement by the last business day of classes.

Note: Students must be fully eligible to start working at their field placement (i.e., security clearances and/or background checks complete) by the last business day before the Law Center’s Add/Drop deadline, or able to confirm that they are eligible to start work no later than Friday, February 2 for the spring semester. Students unable to start work by then will be withdrawn from the J.D. Externship Program - including the companion seminar.

SEMINAR: In addition to their fieldwork, students participate in a biweekly (approximately), interactive, one-credit, letter-graded seminar, incorporating multiple opportunities for students' performance of various professional lawyering skills and development of professional competencies that are universal to numerous legal settings.

ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY AT ALL SIX CLASS SESSIONS. All enrolled students must be in attendance at the start of the first class session in order to be eligible for a seat in the class and must timely attend each class session in its entirety. Failure to attend any class session in its entirety will result in a withdrawal.

To receive academic credit, students must, at a minimum: (i) fulfill their applicable fieldwork hours requirement by the last business day of classes; (ii) attend, participate in, and timely complete all assignments for the six externship seminar classes; (iii) receive a satisfactory Field Supervisor End-of-Semester Evaluation; and (iv) complete and submit all administrative assignments in a timely manner, including but not limited to:

• The Rule 304(d) Agreement;
• Weekly time sheets; and
• The Student End-of-Semester Placement Evaluation.

Additional, detailed course mechanics and requirements will be outlined in the seminar syllabus.

Grading:

The fieldwork components of externships are mandatory pass/fail offerings and do not count towards the seven-credit limit on pass/fail courses. The one-credit seminar is letter-graded.

Registration:

To participate in the Spring 2024 J.D. Externship Program, students must first successfully complete the externship application, after they have secured a qualifying field placement. Upon application approval, students must then enroll and/or waitlist themselves, via MyAccess, for an applicable externship seminar.

The Spring 2024 Guaranteed Externship Application will open on Monday, October 23, 2023 and will close at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, January 8, 2024. Any eligible J.D. students who apply during this period with a qualifying externship placement will receive a seat in the spring externship program, although we cannot guarantee that the proffered seat will be in the student's top seminar choice. Once the spring externship application opens, the application link will be available on the J.D. Externship Program website.

To the extent that there are still available seats in the spring externship program after the guaranteed application period closes, the Spring 2024 Waitlist Externship Application will open on Tuesday, January 9, 2024. Registration for the Spring 2024 J.D. Externship Program will remain open until 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 16, 2024.

For additional information on the spring externship enrollment process and deadlines, please see the Fall 2023-Spring 2024 Student Extern Manual.

Canvas:

The J.D. Externship Program uses Canvas to administer this course. All course materials will be posted to your seminar's Canvas page. You will upload all assignments through Canvas, using the "Assignments" drop box for your seminar. If you encounter difficulty navigating Canvas and/or need a refresher on using the site, please contact IST at lawhelp@georgetown.edu.

Prerequisite:

Students must have completed the required Georgetown Law first-year program (or seek and receive a waiver of this prerequisite) prior to enrolling in this course (part-time and interdivisional transfer students may enroll prior to completing Criminal Justice, Property, and their first-year elective.)

Note: This seminar is only open to J.D. students participating in the J.D. Externship Program for the second time. If you are participating in the J.D. Externship Program for the first time, you must enroll in the Externship I Seminar.

Note: Students who enroll in this course will be automatically enrolled in both the seminar and fieldwork components and may not take either component separately. A student wishing to withdraw from the course will be withdrawn from both the seminar and fieldwork components.

This course is designed to complement the rest of the 1L curriculum in several ways.  First, it will expose you to selected elements of international and foreign law, beyond the usual concentration on the U.S. domestic law system.  Second, our focus will be principally upon treaty texts, rather than judicial decisions, within a system that does not rely upon binding precedents in the same ways you have already encountered.  Third, we hope to nurture your sensitivity to facts, as much as to law, as key elements in legal practice.  Finally, through a series of collaborative simulation exercises, we intend to engage you in active, experiential learning in a direct, powerful way.

The four-day simulation is based upon a hypothetical attempt by the United States to secure the extradition of two accused terrorists, who have been indicted in federal court for participating in terrorist acts on U.S. soil, but who are currently resident in Russia and in France.  The leaders in those countries appear willing to return the two suspects to the United States, but the effort may be blocked by those countries’ membership in the European Convention on Human Rights, which may bar extradition in cases where the accused would face the prospect of capital punishment or indefinite detention in harsh conditions.

Students will be assigned the role of counsel for one of the defendants or one of the governments, and will work in small teams on two primary tasks.  The first exercise is to prepare for and conduct a fact-gathering interview of one of the clients.  The second exercise is to plan, practice, and conduct a simulated hearing before the European Court of Human Rights.  Throughout, students will be guided by the instructor and by a team of teaching fellows in the development of essential lawyering skills, including fact development and analysis, problem solving, strategic planning, and effective oral advocacy.

Students who take this course will better understand stakeholder politics; federal legislative, regulatory, and enforcement processes; and the advocacy skills needed to achieve policy outcomes in the interrelated fields of technology, telecommunications, and media (“TTM”). Students will gain hands-on experience practicing technology advocacy. The course first reviews key issues in technology policy and advocacy, such as competition, content moderation, net neutrality, privacy, AI & bias, and cybersecurity.

Armed with the basics of current technology policy issues, students then learn advocacy tools to “make” technology policy. Students will review and draft collateral materials used for technology policy advocacy, including white papers, talking points, comments, “op/eds,” earned media coverage, and more, gaining an appreciation for the differences from, and complementary relationship with, traditional legal materials and legal practice. Students will be introduced to the legislative process (committee hearings and markups, bicameral action, budget procedure); independent agency rulemaking and adjudication (comments, ex parte presentations, Administration and congressional input); relevant enforcement proceedings (Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission merger review); and related advocacy in the courts (amicus briefs).

This is a skill-intensive course with writing assignments, workshops, presentations, peer support, and simulations. It will have a final assessment with a written and oral component. There are no prerequisite courses required. Classes will incorporate pre-class preparations and in-class skill-building exercises.

Please see the Federal Legislation Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Federal Legislation Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

The federal budget is where the nation’s priorities are expressed.  It allows the federal government to operate and shapes what the government will do.  It is also an important source of revenue for state and local governments and thus affects their own policy choices.  This course provides an introduction to the laws, rules, and practices that govern how the federal budget is put together and how the budget is executed.  We will study both traditional “regular order” and contemporary realities.  We will pay particular attention to sites of contestation and control with respect to the key institutional players of the legislative branch (including different committees within both the House and Senate, party leadership, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Government Accountability Office) and the executive branch (including the President, the Office of Management and Budget, agencies, and inspectors general).  We will also study the role of the courts in appropriations law. 

This seminar provides an overview of the principal legal issues impacting the commercialization, sale and marketing of biopharmaceutical products. It:

• Provides an overview of the structure and operation of the biopharmaceutical industry, including manufacturers of innovator and generic products;

• Explores the principal laws governing the sale and marketing of biopharmaceuticals, including relevant portions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, the False Claims Act, and the Federal Anti‐Kickback Statute;

• Explores how these laws create liability for both biopharmaceutical companies and their executives for the manner in which such companies price, report prices on, communicate about, and interact with regulators and health care providers about their products;

• Addresses industry‐specific government investigations, risk assessment, and compliance efforts; and

• Concludes with a table‐top exercise in which students role play a government investigation.

“Fintech” often refers to the use of modern technologies and novel methods in offering financial services. This bourgeoning sector has significantly disrupted the financial marketplace, challenging the conventional roles of banks, other financial institutions, regulators, and policymakers. Legal scholars often evaluate how the novelties of Fintech fit or do not fit within existing legal regimes, and how such regimes should be modernized in response. Fewer scholars examine what might be the most transformative promise of Fintech – whether it does or can democratize the financial marketplace and how the law might facilitate (or frustrate) that aim. This seminar examines just this.

Seminar readings will illuminate the relationship between the financial marketplace and oft-marginalized communities and allow students to assess whether effective solutions to certain inequities lie in Fintech, fundamental policy reforms, or both. This course covers topics such as payment systems, credit markets, financial advising, savings, and security investing. It focuses on the U.S. marketplace, but will occasionally reference trends in international markets for comparative analysis. Readings are primarily drawn from legal, economic and sociological research, regulatory and legislative reports, cases, and popular news media.

The goal of this seminar is for students to develop views on the purpose and role of Fintech, the objectivity of financial markets and regulation, and whether financial democratization is a necessary or achievable aim for market providers. Students will further hone their critical analysis, research and writing, and public speaking skills.

Technology-driven disruption has upended many industries – retail, entertainment, transportation, to name just a few – and now we are seeing it redefine financial services. The rise of Fintech is perhaps the most interesting industry transformation to study from a legal perspective because of the way it impacts complex financial services regulations. Regulatory frameworks that were created decades ago are being challenged by the rise of Internet and mobile-driven financial services providers. This course will hone in on a few areas where the US financial regulatory structure is being challenged by technological innovation and may require fresh thinking.

Financial services can be broken down into three distinct subsectors: 1) Insurance; 2) Retail Banking; and 3) Investment/Advisory Banking. This course will focus on how technology is transforming both retail and investment/advisory banking. Retail banking law was designed for a world of brick and mortar banks that accepted deposits and leveraged those deposits to provide commercial and personal loans. Investment/advisory banking law was designed for a world of a relatively small number of sophisticated investors. This traditional schema is being transformed, rapidly.

The smartphone is replacing the retail bank as the method by which a small business or consumer conducts their day-to-day banking activity. A 2015 report by Goldman Sachs found that 33% of millennials do not think they will need a traditional bank in the next five years. In fact, 73% of millennials reported that they are more excited about new offerings in the financial services space from the likes of Google, Apple and Amazon.

Moreover, in the financial services industry lines are blurring – financial tech companies are expanding financial services ecosystems and traditional financial services companies are expanding their digital capabilities. New business models are being created that leverage the data and capabilities afforded by the Internet, and seemingly diverse industries ranging from telecom to traditional banks are competing over similar financial services activities.

Crowdfunding, mobile payments, online lending, robo-advisors, and Bitcoin are new phenomenon that challenge existing regulatory structures. The SEC, Treasury Department, Office of Comptroller of Currency, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, Federal Reserve Bank, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Federal Trade Commission are just a few of the regulatory bodies that are increasingly exploring Fintech developments. Moreover, the courts have been faced with challenges to several federal and state laws that were written before modern technological innovations took hold and challenged existing concepts of Federalism. This class will focus in on these particular challenges, will question existing regulatory bodies, approaches and standards, as well as discuss the practicalities of alternative regulatory structures and rules.

The class will proceed in 4 parts. Part 1 will be an introduction to retail banking law and disruptions that are occurring due to Fintech. Part 2 will be an introduction to investment/advisory banking law and disruptions that are occurring due to Fintech. Part 3 will address cross-cutting horizontal disruptions. And, finally Part 4 will involve a high-level assessment of regulatory structures and approaches for Fintech. After this course, students should have a strong baseline knowledge of the myriad of legal and policy issues that exist in the Fintech arena.

Rules governing food and agriculture can have a dramatic impact on the welfare of farmers, food and farm workers as well as the price of food, access to healthy food, the fate of rural communities, the environment, and animal welfare. This is a fieldwork practicum course that has both 1) a two-credit graded seminar exploring food justice and policy issues and 2) a two- credit fieldwork placement. The fieldwork credits are mandatory pass-fail. 

SEMINAR: This seminar portion of the course will advance the Law Center’s institutional learning outcomes by covering the policies, rules, and laws that govern food and agriculture, including laws and regulations related to farm subsidies, farm stewardship, pesticide safety, food safety, food labeling, food and farm labor, and animal welfare. The extent to which these policies have discriminated against farmers of color and food and farm workers and limited access to healthy food choices will be a major theme of this practicum. Students will have pervasive opportunities to think critically about the law’s claim to neutrality and its differential effects on subordinated groups.

FIELDWORK: In the fieldwork component of this course, students will be assigned to projects with the Environmental Working Group, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Earthjustice, or other food, farm, worker, environmental justice, and animal justice organizations working on these issues. They will have an opportunity to learn how such institutions play a role in advancing food justice issues being debated in both the administrative and legislative processes, and in matters subject to litigation. Students must work 10 hours per week for 11 weeks for two credits.

This seminar is designed to encourage students to think critically and creatively about the appropriate constitutional role for the principles of equality and liberty and, more broadly, about the manner in which Supreme Court functions as an institution. These goals will be accomplished by "reinventing" fourteenth amendment jurisprudence, free from the constraints imposed by the actual decisions of the Court. At the beginning of the semester, students will be assigned to individual "courts," which will meet to decide cases assigned every other week throughout the semester. The "courts" will be expected to vote on how the cases should be decided and to prepare written majority, dissenting, and concurring opinions as appropriate. Each student will be graded in part on the basis of the quality of any opinion that the student agrees to sign. By citing as authority only those cases previously decided by that court, each court will develop a body of hypothetical case law over the semester that must be distinguished, amplified, or, if necessary, overruled in dealing with the next set of cases. Students will be encouraged to remain in role and to attempt to develop a consistent judicial philosophy. Every two weeks, two of the “courts” will become “law firms,” which will analyze the case law developed by a third court, write briefs, and conduct an oral argument before the third court. Although little reading will be required for this seminar, students will be expected to produce a substantial amount of written work and to devote a substantial amount of time to meeting with other members of their court.

"Congress shall make no law . . .," the First Amendment commands, "abridging the freedom . . . of the press." But Congress, the Executive Branch, and the courts have promulgated a host of laws governing both print and electronic media. This survey of mass media law explores such current topics as prior restraints on publication, defamation, privacy, newsgathering liability, media liability for unlawful conduct of third parties, compelled disclosure of sources, and access to information. Practical aspects of representing media clients are examined along with public policy implications of existing legal doctrines and proposals for change. Much of the course is discussion-based, and students will be expected to make meaningful contributions to that discussion, with class participation forming the basis for one-fourth of the grade for the semester.

Our society’s intense polarization has had serious consequences for our campuses, in no arena more significant than freedom of expression. In today’s toxic environment, how can students and faculty, and the numerous other stakeholders, pursue liberal, rational, open learning? How can they speak up without fear? How can campus administrators ensure safety and maintain civility? What speech is protected and what speech is deemed to be hateful? What legal redress can there be for threatening speech? What are the effects on all of us of a lack of free inquiry and civility on campus?

This course seeks to answer those questions as it considers the contours of free expression on campus. We will cover the distinctions between public and private colleges and universities, religion and free expression, and the relationship among free expression, academic freedom, shared governance, and freedom of association. We will consider the limits on expression, and where behavior crosses over the line from being protected to become the proper subject of disciplinary action or removal from the institution. We will also address the way in which the boundaries of free expression are foundational to institutions of higher learning. To say that expression is protected is a threshold issue, not the end of the discussion, bringing us to a compelling topic for the nation generally, and academia particularly: the relationship between free expression and civility in the public square.

Learning Objectives:

Our goal throughout the course will be to understand the breadth of issues faced by higher education institutions in their mission to further free and open debate and discussion, and also maintain a safe and appropriate learning environment for all members of the community. We will focus on applicable legal doctrines as well as the philosophical underpinning of free inquiry and academic freedom. Whether or not students seek to serve as a University Counsel, all need to understand the laws underpinning the fundamental freedom of expression. Our campuses are the places where knowledge is created and transmitted, and therefore what happens on campus matters beyond its confines.

There is also a skill-oriented aim of this course. Students will often be in the position of the college or university’s general counsel, or other members of the administration, having to articulate the standards that apply to the institution, making or recommending decisions in particular cases, or formulate campus policy. Students taking the course for 3 credits, who will write a significant research paper, will have the opportunity to develop their skills in legal research and writing as applied to a particular issue and will present their papers at the final class meeting.

Global Health Law is the flagship course offered by Georgetown University Law Center’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. This course is open to both Georgetown JD and LLM students and is compulsory for students in the National and Global Health Law LLM and the Global Health Law and Governance LLM.

The survey course explores the roles that the law, lawyers, and legal institutions play in public health across the globe. Global health law encompasses international law and policy that directly or indirectly affects health, including treaties, regulations, strategies, and expert guidelines. This course provides a strong foundation in these instruments, laws and policies, including topics such as governance of the World Health Organization, Universal Health Coverage, the International Health Regulations, the role of the UN Special Rapporteur on Health, and the proposed accord on  global pandemic preparedness. The course also explores comparative national approaches to health governance, law, and policy.

The course is divided into three modules. Module 1 covers the foundations of global health law, providing overviews of public international law, international human rights law, international trade law, and the intersections between intellectual property law and health. Module 2 covers health systems and governance, including the World Health Organization, and public health ethics and principles. Module 3 addresses the human right to health and other key emerging topics in health law such as environmental law and health, the global campaign for Universal Health coverage, and the use of litigation to advance the right to health. The course culminates in students presenting proposals to reform international law to better protect and promote global and public health outcomes.

Students will hear from leading voices in global health law and benefit from the expertise of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, as well as other resources at Georgetown University and in the broader Washington, DC community.

Course Goals/Student Learning Outcomes

1. Knowledge of the substantive foundations of global health law, including public international law; human rights law; global health governance; the interface between international trade and intellectual property law and health; and principles of public health law.
2. Knowledge of the legal issues related to a range of global health challenges, including access to health care and prevention and control of non-communicable diseases and infectious diseases.
3. Knowledge of the various roles that lawyers can play in advancing global health, including legal drafting, negotiating, litigation, and advocacy for law reform.
4. Ability to use various skills relied upon by global health lawyers, including legal research, analysis and writing, strategic thinking, and communication. 

This course explores the potential of using the law, and specifically, the human rights legal framework, to improve health. Students will be exposed to real life projects at the domestic level in a number of different jurisdictions, especially but not exclusively from Latin-America and Africa; as well as at the regional and international level, including the Inter-American Human Rights System and the United Nations Human Rights System. With this approach, students will strengthen not only their knowledge of the human rights framework within their familiar jurisdictions, but will also have the opportunity to develop comparative legal research skills.

The human rights framework that students will learn in depth in this practicum is not limited to the right to health but involves other related human rights that are also social determinants of health or that are instrumental to the effective realization of the right to health. Therefore, students will be exposed to the substantive expertise needed to successfully practice the strategic use of the integrality of the human rights framework in the specific context of health. Students will also be required to consider the use of other legal frameworks that have the potential of having a positive impact on health outcomes.

The variety of projects will take into consideration the complexity and different dimensions of the right to health as well as the nature of the legal obligations that it imposes in different contexts. We will offer projects that respond to current and pressing global challenges with respect to health, for example, projects exploring the right to health and other rights in the context of public health emergencies, the link between health and the environment, the structural disadvantage that specific groups face with respect to their health and the role of private actors, to name a few.

For the execution of their projects, students will work with external partners of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, in particular, the Health and Human Rights Initiative. (“HHRI”).

This course is Georgetown Law’s introduction to the law and policy of health care provision and financing. No single course can serve as a comprehensive introduction, and this class won’t try. Rather, we’ll consider central themes and selected topics, with an eye toward the larger questions that drive legal, political, and ethical conflict in the health sphere. We’ll begin with some context – the non-medical determinants of health, which have much greater influence on population-wide health than does clinical care. We’ll then turn to the idea of a right to health care, then to the roles of markets and government in making care available and containing medical costs. Next up will be an introduction to the Affordable Care Act, with an eye toward its conceptual framework, its critics’ core objections, and the main problems that it has left unresolved. We’ll examine some of the legal conflicts that have arisen over the ACA, then turn to brief introductions to several other areas of health care law, including medical malpractice, antitrust, and the role of for-profit v. non-profit institutions. We’ll finish with consideration of racial disparities in health care and tension between medicine’s clinical and social roles.

COVID-19 has put a spotlight on our medical care system’s shortcomings, as well as the social inequities that shape Americans’ health and well-being. Our nation’s response to COVID will thus play a substantial role in this year’s edition of the course – as both a matter of national urgency and a window onto these shortcomings.

This course will examine the social, legal, and economic systems in the United States that have precipitated health inequities for different populations throughout history. Students will develop an intense understanding of U.S. public health law and policy constructs and the varied social determinants of health that affect public health outcomes by exploring how past and current U.S. law and policy perpetuate disparities. This course will also explore how legal and policy reform can be utilized to promote health equity and eliminate injustices across populations. Topics covered in the course include health disparities in the U.S. among LGBTQ, immigrant, rural, and minority populations; substance use policy; maternal and child health; and environmental health. The course will utilize various learning modalities such as research review, discussion, case studies, and guest lecturers. By the conclusion of the semester, students will be equipped with tools to leverage the law to improve health outcomes and the skills necessary to become successful practitioners working at the intersection of public health administration and law.

Please see the Health Justice Alliance Law Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Health Justice Alliance Law Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

Higher education plays a singular role in our society. Colleges and universities are complex organizations and institutions with unique missions to discover, create and transmit knowledge, and to further social mobility. Higher education intersects with the law in a myriad of ways. This course examines the legal issues that shape higher education, particularly in the United States. The course covers the distinctions between public and private colleges and universities, religion and higher education, accessibility to and financing of higher education, academic freedom, shared governance, admissions, free expression, privacy and freedom of association, campus safety with a particular focus on sexual assault, and issues of race, disability, gender and sexual orientation. We will consider student rights and responsibilities, faculty issues concerning research ethics and the classroom, and the roles of presidents, governing boards, and university general counsels. Materials include relevant statutes and cases as well as readings from related fields. Our goal throughout the course will be to understand the breadth of issues faced by higher education in the United States in pursuing its mission, and the ways in which legal rules and norms relate to these issues.

This seminar will explore the many facets of homelessness and poverty and the role of legal and community advocacy in addressing its causes and alleviating its consequences. Students will be introduced to the myriad societal problems and individual challenges that intersect in homelessness and will work on developing solutions to those problems and challenges. Throughout the semester, the class will be building towards developing a strategic advocacy plan to address one of these problems/issues. Students will develop the skills needed to lay the groundwork for such plan to become a reality. The course will be very skills focused, exploring the variety of tools in a public interest lawyer's tool box that stretch beyond traditional notions of legal practice.

Throughout the semester, students will engage in a number of in-class problem solving exercises which will require students to identify a client's problem(s) or issue(s); define the client's goals; and develop advocacy strategies to help the client attain those goals.

Each student is required to participate in or observe an advocacy-related activity (e.g., attending a Council hearing or community meeting or training) on an issue relevant to the course.

In lieu of one research paper, students will develop a portfolio of written materials to advance an advocacy strategy centered around a substantive topic of the student's choosing. The portfolio will include: strategic advocacy plan; sign-on or "dear colleague" letter; advocacy letter; fact sheet; testimony; social media materials; outreach materials and a plan for a community meeting.

Learning Objectives:

Our objective is for students to gain an understanding of the complex legal and social issues that intersect in homelessness, as well as the different ways lawyers can address such issues. We want students to think "outside the box" of a traditional law practice and become familiar with other tools that can help clients achieve their goals. Students will learn about the considerations that go into developing an advocacy strategy and how to prepare the materials needed to implement that strategy, crafting advocacy messages for varied audiences and decision-makers.

Please see the Rising for Justice (Housing Advocacy and Litigation Clinic) website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Rising for Justice (Housing Advocacy and Litigation Clinic) PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

In 1949, Congress enacted a broad Housing Act with the goal of providing “a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family.” In this course we will examine the laws and policies that have both advanced and impeded the United States’ achievement of this goal.  While the course focuses on the effects of housing laws and policies on low-income households and communities of color, we examine these effects with sharp attention paid to the ways in which housing laws and policies have privileged higher income households and white communities.  Through historical, sociological, political, and legal lenses, we examine housing law and policy holistically from Reconstruction to the present. Throughout the course, we will consider the role of affected communities in advocating for and/or resisting the laws and policies adopted.

Three broad themes animate this course.  First, we consider the question of a “right to housing,” including the extent to which such a right has been recognized, and the ways in which the absence or recognition of such a right has influenced law and policy.  Second, we discuss and debate the relative roles of the free market, regulation, and subsidization in expanding access to safe and affordable housing.  Third, we study the centrality of race to housing law and policy in the United States, including the historical and present role of racism in shaping housing outcomes.  Specific class topics include, among others, federal public housing and housing subsidies, exclusionary and inclusionary zoning, federal fair housing/antidiscrimination law, homeownership, homelessness, eviction, and substandard housing condition regulation. Across this range of topics, we will engage in both doctrinal and policy analysis.

Learning Objectives: By the end of this course, I hope you will be able to describe and discuss the major federal laws and policies that have shaped housing outcomes in the United States. I further hope that you will gain an understanding of the socio-political context in which such housing laws and policies developed, and that you will be able to describe the role of grassroots advocacy in pushing forward and/or resisting particular policies. Throughout this course, you will also gain a critical understanding of the role of race and racism in shaping housing law and policy.

Slavery has been a phenomenon that has existed since before written history, yet it is only in the last 200 years that efforts to abolish it have gained traction. Today, increasing mobility, global supply chains, and continued social discrimination have created the environment for ongoing human exploitation, even though the formal practice of chattel slavery, or the legal ownership of one human being by another, is illegal virtually everywhere. Indeed, some estimate that there are more slaves today than at any other time in human history. Most recently, efforts to eliminate severe forms of human exploitation are being made under the banner of ending human trafficking (or more formally, trafficking in persons).

This course will provide students an overview of the multiple legal perspectives on combating human trafficking and modern slavery. This will include the definitional tensions between different perspectives, alternative approaches to addressing severe human exploitation, and an overview of the current U.S. legal framework for eradicating human trafficking and modern slavery and its weaknesses. Attention will be paid to commonly recognized principles in human rights, criminal and labor law, but also in such areas as corporate responsibility and immigration law. The class will use a range of materials, including international treaties, decisions of international and foreign tribunals, and more familiar U.S. statutory materials and legislative history (such as committee reports).

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the class, students should be able to

• recognize many of the forms of and pervasive nature of human trafficking and modern slavery;
• identify risks of human trafficking and modern slavery in most areas of practice they may choose in the future; and
• have familiarity with emerging issues in the area of human trafficking and modern slavery.

This course will examine the U.S. immigration system through legal and policy perspectives. We will explore the source, scope and constitutional limits of congressional power to regulate immigration; the executive branch implementation of immigration legislation, particularly procedures for entry and removal, and the extent of, as well as constitutional constraints on, Presidential power; and the administrative and judicial review of executive branch action. Close attention will be paid to how membership laws and policies are established and implemented: What laws and policies govern U.S. citizenship? Who is eligible to become a legal immigrant? How are annual admissions numbers set? How and why are family and employment priorities created? How does the U.S. protect refugees? With respect to the arrival of unaccompanied children from abroad, we will consider the laws and policies that govern how the U.S. government treats them. Unauthorized migration will also be examined to understand why some migrants do not use the legal route into the U.S. and what laws and policies the U.S. has in place to deter such unlawful movements at the border and control unlawful presence in the interior. We will analyze the impact of the major 1996 immigration control legislation and its implementation, with particular attention to detention and removal. We will closely examine the role of the Justice Department’s Immigration Courts, with special attention to access to justice issues. We will explore the extraordinary need for, and challenges of, immigration law reform, as well as the particular situation of the Dreamers, children without lawful immigration status brought to and raised in the United States by their parents. Finally, we will assess the various changes implemented by the Trump and Biden Administrations, particularly in connection with the treatment of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, the resettlement of refugees from abroad, and the removal of unauthorized immigrants.

This class will cover the constitutional and political framework for the U.S. Immigration System, enforcement and adjudication agencies, immigrants, nonimmigrants, removals and deportations, detention and bond, immigration hearings, judicial review, grounds for removal and inadmissibility, “crimmigration,” immigration reform, “Chevron” deference, refugee and asylum status and other international protections. It will also include reading and analyzing major immigration cases like INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987) (well-founded fear) and Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996) (female genital mutilation).

Who can enter the United States as a visitor or an immigrant? Who will get asylum? Who will wait in a detention center? And when, according to immigration laws passed by Congress, over ten million migrants in the United States are unauthorized, who will actually be deported? American immigration law is the product of presidential policy, Congressional command, and various discretionary decisions made by executive officials including immigration judges and Border Patrol officers. This course will examine the relationships between these various decision-makers. We draw on examples from immigration policy throughout the years--from the Chinese Exclusion Act to former president Trump’s travel ban--to illustrate these issues. We also use case law from the Supreme Court, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and various federal circuits to understand how courts have evaluated these issues. Finally, secondary sources from historians and legal scholars help illustrate how various players the immigration system interact in practice. We will use this information to assess critiques of the immigration system and proposals for reform. These readings also introduce students to immigration related legal concepts including asylum, mandatory detention, and the use of the categorical approach to determining the significance of a migrant’s criminal history. Students will develop a familiarity with immigration practice as well as a more nuanced understanding of the legal and political issues that vex immigration law scholars.

Learning Objectives:

• Develop a better understanding of the historic development of immigration law and policy.

• Become familiar with legal concepts concerning asylum, immigration detention, and executive power over admissions and removal.

• Understand different policy-making options and the tension between discretionary decision-making and compulsory enforcement.

• Appreciate the choices and limitations facing various decision-makers in the immigration context, as well as the experience of migrants and asylum seekers in the immigration system.

• Assess separation of powers concerns using examples from the immigration field.

• Make a nuanced assessment of popular news stories and debates about immigration law, paying special attention to the role of various decision-makers at play.

• Summarize and critically analyze various proposals for reform of the immigration adjudications, deportation proceedings, and the asylum process.

• Master a substantive legal issue related immigration by producing a paper and/or presentation on a legal debate in the area. Develop writing and presentation skills by participating in this exercise.

• Practice critical reading of law review articles and cases.

Few areas of law define a society’s values more clearly than public benefits for low-income people.  Policy judgments in this area connect closely to issues about the distribution of wealth and income, race, gender, and immigration, and personal autonomy, and they will be in mind throughout the course.

Policymakers, advocates, and researchers tend to look at these issues separately instead of viewing them in the intersection which represents the real world.   The 1996 welfare law represents dramatically the consequences of making policy decisions without connecting them to a broader framework.  American public benefits for low-income people have always been fragmentary, but the 1996 law was a watershed event that hurt millions of the poorest Americans more than any poverty policy decision since the New Deal. 

The question now is whether we can heal the injury and build from there.  The challenge is to build a more comprehensive understanding and consequently go toward a future that goes in the right direction.  To that end, we will read a mix of historical materials, basic social science research and theory, policy analysis, and cases.  The course will cover the history of the basic structure of the relevant programs, their current configurations, and ideas for the future.

The heart of ending poverty consists of intersecting policies that include good jobs, job supports, in-kind income, and cash assistance, along with other items including child development, education, health, community development and housing, justice both criminal and civil, support for people with disabilities, many kinds of human services, and more.  We will not be able to look in depth of all of that, but it is imperative to know that they are all crucial, and they will be framed in issues of distribution, race, gender, and immigration throughout.

Internationally the United Nations recognizes indigenous peoples and their special rights associated with identity and culture. Many countries have formal systems intended to support indigenous peoples with instruments of law, policy, and custom. This course will examine those international instruments, treaties, court cases, and Congressional acts to explore what it means for the Right to Health to exist, the ways that right is recognized among indigenous peoples, and major shortfalls in achieving equity through these paths. American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) experience serious health disparities in key morbidity/mortality indicators. AIANs are also a bell-weather subgroup in the US for unusual disease such as bubonic plague or the rapid dissemination of novel infectious disease such as happened among tribes in the covid-19 pandemic. In addition to risk and vulnerability that contribute to health disparities, sovereign nation status of the 573 federally recognized tribes in the US and the Indian Health Service that serves them are particular structures shown to mitigate despair and promote future well-being in remarkably difficult circumstances. There are unique laws, operations, and tensions that undergird these structures. Recent actions to strengthen treaty obligations and extend equity movements to indigenous peoples are gathering energy to address health and justice disparities.

This course focuses on the laws and systems foundational to access to care and health services for Indigenous peoples in the US. The course will include discussions on self-determination, sovereignty, funding, social determinants of health, inter-generational trauma and additional elements of Indigenous health law in the US and compare these to other Indigenous health systems particularly those in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The course is designed to provide practical skills for students interested in health equity and justice,  Indigenous access to care, Indigenous health law, and policy implementation. The course illuminates, in particular, outcomes of shared American history and distinctive obligations, systems, and opportunities to address ethnic disparities.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Identify and interpret relevant authorities and limitations that underpin Indigenous access to health care
• Identify and understand specific regulations, guidance, and laws applicable to providing health care to US tribal governments
• Gain knowledge on the right to self-determination
• Master vocabulary and terminology associated with Indigenous rights and health law
• Understand the linkage of national health systems to the United Nations including the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues; and UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Compare and analyze legal instruments and structures from other countries, including New Zealand, Australia, and Canada with the United States

This seminar will examine the role of law and policy in addressing modifiable risk factors that contribute to the rising prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Risk factors to be addressed include: tobacco use, unhealthy diets, and the harmful use of alcohol. Materials and discussions will probe questions such as: What are the best regulatory practices to deal with NCDs risk factors? How do transnational corporations contribute to the spread of non-communicable diseases? How different international legal regimes come into play in addressing risk factors? What are the opportunities and challenges of using law & policy to address NCDs’ commercial risk factors? Throughout this course we will have opportunities to consider how law and policy shape contemporary legal discussions related to NCDs, such as tobacco plain packaging, alcohol sponsorship, childhood obesity, commercial speech and food labelling, and targeted marketing strategies.

The course will take a global approach grounded in constitutional law and different international legal regimes (WTO, Human Rights Systems –Regional & Universal—, among others). The course will explore how the rise in NCDs prevalence in both developed and developing countries is mainly driven by transnational corporations, globalization and foreign direct investment. Additionally, case studies will explore a variety of examples from jurisdictions spanning the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Latin American countries, including taxes to discourage consumption of unhealthy products, laws restricting advertising and promotion, and laws and policies to promote access to information to consumers.

Students will be equipped with an understanding of specific issues, such as the role of law compared with policy, the strengths and weaknesses of different regulatory strategies and the role and responsibilities of the relevant industries in promoting the right to health. After exploring a series of foundational themes and issues through the first half of the course, the remainder will focus on in-depth case studies and experiences in regulating the risk factors from a comparative perspective and future challenges.

This seminar requires attendance and participation in seminar discussions, preparation for class, writing response posts, and the submission of a final paper.

Course goals:

• Understanding of the various risk factors contributing to non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
• Understanding of various models of regulation of NCDs risk factors.
• Understanding of complex risk factors regulatory issues across various constitutional systems and international legal regimes.
• Understanding the interaction between regulation of NCDs risk factors and issues like gender and freedom of speech.
• Understanding the role of transnational corporations in the increased prevalence of NCDs.

This course provides an introduction to information privacy law both on the books and on the ground. Topics covered include the common law, constitutional, and statutory foundations of U.S. information privacy law; philosophical bases for privacy protection; first amendment constraints on privacy law; information privacy compliance, enforcement, and regulatory practice; the European approach to privacy and data protection; privacy constraints on law enforcement activities; cybersecurity; and cross-border data flows. Special attention will be paid to issues raised by the information economy.

Learning goals for this course: Critical mastery of the existing doctrinal, statutory, regulatory, and policy landscapes and the complex interrelationships among them; critical mastery of the privacy compliance considerations that confront both private- and public-sector organizations; introduction to European information privacy and data protection law and the relationship between privacy and global information flows.

In many parts of the world, women are discriminated against, abused, treated as property, and even murdered because they are women. But today, there is a substantial body of international and regional human rights law that can be used to change the national laws that permit these practices or fail to protect women against them. In addition, many countries have begun to give women equal rights in many fields. Thus, there is now a body of human rights and comparative law that advocates can use to advance equal human rights for women.

This course provides students with an overview of that law. It introduces them to the many forms of discrimination and violence women still face and teaches them about the major human rights treaties that can help women achieve equality with men. These include the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and the regional human rights treaties from Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Students study the work of the human rights bodies that measure state compliance with these treaties, including their guidelines and case law on issues affecting women. The course also examines comparative law on human rights issues such as sex-based discrimination in employment, inheritance, and family law rights, domestic violence and female genital mutilation, polygamy and its impact on women and children, and women’s lack of reproductive rights.

National court decisions from countries in both common law and civil law jurisdictions show how courts are using international and regional human rights law to help resolve domestic law issues. As some issues pose difficult conflicts between women’s right to equality with opposing assertions of religious and cultural rights to discriminate, the course also examines how human rights bodies resolve those conflicts and asks how they should be resolved.

International anti-corruption has become an increasingly “hot topic” among lawyers and policymakers: governments, international organizations, and technical experts all identify corruption as a serious impediment to comprehensive economic development. If left unchecked, corruption threatens to undermine the effectiveness of development initiatives in both the public and private sectors. Growing enforcement of legal instruments such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the UK Bribery Act have placed anti-corruption squarely on the agenda of a wide variety of transnational organizations. With so many variant actors invoking the importance of anti-corruption, lawyers must not only have a working knowledge of what corruption entails, but also understand how the development of an international anti-corruption legal framework is changing the way business is conducted in a global economy.

This course explores the international legal framework of anti-corruption, the scope of anti-corruption instruments, the methodologies employed by international actors enforcing these instruments, and the policy dilemmas implicated by these endeavors.

Given the dynamic nature of anti-corruption initiatives, the course presents an interdisciplinary, interactive approach to the subject matter. The class will introduce and discuss perspectives from academic texts, policy papers and media. It is hoped that this broad-based approach will provide students with a strong theoretical foundation in anti-corruption law, foster a practical understanding of international anti-corruption work, and inspire students to integrate this avenue of study into their future professional endeavors.

Students will complete a research paper 20-25 pages in length.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, students will have a working knowledge of the role anti-corruption policy and political institutions (i.e., FCPA, OECD, and UNCAC) play in the field of anti-corruption. Students will be able to engage in professional discussions on the historical context of international anti-corruption efforts, the state of the current political and international climate, and the future of anti-corruption by making connections between past policy and current events. Students will be able to articulate original views, back them up with research and defend them through strategic thinking by engaging with guest-lecturing practitioners and the final oral presentation. Students will further deepen their knowledge on a particular topic within the field by conducting a research paper in which they will need to provide insightful analysis making connections among historical and current policies, institutions, and governments.

The course focuses on international law applicable to the leading environmental and natural resource issues.  It provides a framework for identifying and addressing the legal issues, links international law with relevant national laws, and focuses on ways to strengthen compliance with international obligations.  The course covers climate change, ozone depletion, transboundary pollution and hazardous waste disposal, fresh water (both surface and ground water), marine resources, biodiversity, the links between human rights and environment and between environment and trade, and the financing of sustainable development.  Special attention is given to cutting edge issues, such as synthetic biology and ecocide as an international crime.

Learning goals for this course: To enable students to become effective counsel, litigators, negotiators, arbitrators, judges, or legal advisors on a broad range of international environmental problems; to understand international instrucments and negotiations; and to be able to apply legal concepts developed in the course within different national settings for implementing international law. 

This course examines the law, institutions, and advocacy strategies designed to protect international human rights.  We will analyze civil and political rights and economic and social rights, as well as international humanitarian law, and explore key enforcement mechanisms at the national, regional, and international levels. The evolving role of NGOs and civil society actors in advancing human rights, and the responsibility of corporations, will also be examined. Both progress and enduring challenges in making human rights real “on the ground” will be a focus of this course, together with the need for effective enactment of legal standards, enforcement of those standards, and empowerment of affected communities. Current legal issues and strategies concerning climate change and human rights will also be highlighted.  

This course provides an intensive survey of international human rights law and practice, with a principal focus on interpretation and implementation of human rights obligations, commitments, and norms in the practice of states. The course has three main components: in the first unit, we examine the development of the substantive law of human rights and its sources (including treaties, customary international law, and non-binding international instruments). In the second unit, we examine implementation of international human rights in the international, regional, and domestic systems, focusing on UN organs such as the Human Rights Council and treaty bodies as well as regional systems such as the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights.  Finally, in the third unit we look at the application of the substantive law and implementation mechanisms in the context of current issues in international human rights, including in the context of atrocities, and the refugee crisis. The course highlights selected contemporary ethical problems in international human rights law such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture; application of human rights obligations, commitments, and norms to non-state actors (including corporations); positive duties on states to protect individuals from abuses by non-state actors; universality of human rights and cultural relativism; and the need to protect human rights while countering terorism, including issues relevant to U.S. law and practice. Along the way we examine issues related to international immunities, impunity, human rights litigation under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act and Torture Victim Protection Act, and international criminal tribunals. 

This course provides an intensive survey of modern international human rights law. Tracing the historical evolution of human rights norms, we will first explore look at how and they became a dominant feature of the post-World War II, post-colonial, and post-Cold War international orders. We will cover the doctrinal and institutional mechanisms of the modern human rights system, including the core treaties and international and regional bodies, with a particular focus on how courts, both international and domestic, can give human rights the force of law--or deprive them of it. We will examine how international human rights law defines specific rights (e.g., the right to life, the prohibition of torture, freedom of expression), struggles to overcome structural and historical biases (e.g., discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, or race), and adapts to different contexts (e.g., climate change, armed conflict, social media and surveillance). Throughout the course, we will study why states and businesses respect human rights, why they don't, and how lawyers, NGOs, and other actors can work to ensure that most human rights norms are honored most of the time. Our readings will draw from case law, treaties, academic works, legal briefs, and other sources that offer a real-world sense of how 21st Century human rights law is articulated, litigated, and adjudicated.

Learning Objectives:

• Strengthen legal research, writing, and editing.
• Draft brief and bench memorandum.
• Deliver oral argument.

This course will examine the philosophical and historical underpinnings of international human rights law. Students will encounter early conceptions human rights protection, alternative visions for the modern human rights framework, the development of international human rights law, and critical perspectives on the evolution and implementation of human rights.

Students will be encouraged to critically examine the successes and failures of the normative framework for the protection of human rights, whether we have achieved the universal realization of human rights, and ways in which the system might be reimagined or strengthened. Particular attention will be paid to the legal framework applicable to the protection of the rights of non-citizens, including migrants, refugees, and stateless persons. Contemporary case studies will be used to illustrate the challenges in resolving protracted situations of statelessness or displacement, and how gaps in international legal protection may exacerbate looming human rights crises, including those related to global climate change.

There are no required prerequisites for this course. However, students may find it beneficial to have taken International Law I: Introduction to International Law and/or the introductory course to International Human Rights.

Learning Objectives:

• Students will gain an understanding of some of the historical movements in the creation of human rights and political forces driving outcomes.
• Students will learn how to assess the strengths of the international human rights regime and identify key areas and methods of critique.
• Students will gain the ability to think critically about our assumptions about the structure of international law and human rights in order to imagine ways in which international human rights can be strengthened towards the universal realization of rights.
• Students will strengthen their written and verbal communication skills through written reflections, papers, and classroom discussion.
• Students completing a paper for the writing requirement will gain mastery over their chosen topic related to international human rights law, enhance the clarity and precision of their writing, and sharpen their skills in conveying their understanding through an oral presentation.

This course will examine the connection between trade law and development, including aspects of international and regional trade agreements, comparative law, and diverse areas of market regulation at the national level. Overall, the seminar will highlight the role of law and regulation as a driver for sustainable development and inclusive growth and link broader legal frameworks and policy debates with the needs of individuals and enterprises. It will engage students in ways in which economic law can help encourage sustainable and inclusive development and will assess challenges associated with legal and regulatory capacity and the uneven implementation of laws in practice. Cross-cutting and inter-disciplinary approaches in the field, such as socio-legal approaches, human rights, food security, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and gender and trade will also be discussed throughout the seminar.

The seminar will take place in three phases. In Phase I, the seminar will explore the historical and institutional relationship between trade and development, including World Trade Organization (WTO) disciplines, regional trade agreements (RTAs), and other relevant international legal frameworks.  Phase II will focus on different issues and will cover a number of substantive aspects of trade and development in depth, all of which impact stakeholders and communities and hold greater potential to contribute to the common good.  Specific areas of focus will include domestic market regulation and investment, non-tariff measures, regulation of services, trade facilitation, agriculture, labor and environment, intellectual property rights, gender, and digital trade.  Phase III of the course will consist of an in-class exercise to apply the theory and substantive legal approaches discussed in Parts I and II in the context to practical trade and development challenges. 

Readings will be drawn from a variety of viewpoints and sources – law review articles, white papers, academic journals, newspapers and magazines, and excerpts from books – and will cut across trade and economic law, inclusive economic development, and business.  The readings will highlight different aspects of the legal and regulatory environment in the context of encouraging sustainable and inclusive development globally and at the grassroots level. Discussion questions will be provided for each session, which can be used as the basis for class preparation

The course will also incorporate short, practical case studies that illustrate how different issues in trade, development, and economic regulation can be applied from the perspective of different stakeholders (entrepreneurs, countries, and communities).  Seminar members will be asked to assume roles in discussion of these case studies, which will count towards class participation and lay the groundwork for the final paper.  Questions to guide the case study analysis will also be provided. 

In addition to the readings assigned for each session, optional background readings will be included for students wishing to explore a topic in greater depth (additional background reading is recommended for students who have not taken a trade law course, but the course does not have any prerequisites). 

Please see the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

This course provides an overview of major principles, theories, operational concerns, and public policy issues related to complex humanitarian emergencies. The course highlights selected contemporary crises, examining causes and consequences of these emergencies. Examples include Ukraine, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Myanmar and others. A particular focus is the role of humanitarian issues in foreign policy and international relations.

This seminar addresses modern military weapons – their development, acquisition, proliferation, use, control, and elimination – considering a set of problems that will raise the most difficult security concerns for the United States and the rest of the world in the post-cold-war era. In the seminar, we will explore a wide range of weapons technologies--including nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional armaments--and the political and legal mechanisms that constrain them. The seminar will address historical allegations concerning the dissemination and use of these weapons; the rise and fall of various strategic doctrines; the bureaucratic processes of government decision making; and the evaluation of relevant ethical considerations surrounding possession and use. The bulk of the seminar will focus on contemporary legal and political issues such as ongoing treaty negotiations, export controls, verification of compliance, enforcement of treaty commitments, and the dismantling of redundant weaponry. The seminar is particularly recommended for those interested in exploring careers in public international law, but will also be relevant to others interested in the role of the lawyer in influencing United States public policy more generally. Each student will prepare a substantial original research paper and participate in small exercises designed to provide some simulated experience in characteristic legal tasks, such as drafting, analyzing, briefing, etc.

Please see the Juvenile Justice Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Juvenile Justice Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

The subject of labor law deals principally with the relationship between employers and unions. This course covers union organizing campaigns, collective bargaining disputes, strikes, lockouts, grievance-arbitrations, and related litigation. The student will develop skills that can lead to a career with management-side law firms, union-side law firms, the National Labor Relations Board, and public interest organizations.

This course will focus on the National Labor Relations Act. We will cover the scope of employee rights to engage in union activities; employee rights to engage in concerted activities even in the absence of a union; the National Labor Relations Board procedures for elections and unfair labor practice charges; the collective bargaining process; the duties of successor employers; strikes and lockouts; grievance and arbitration procedures; and a union’s duty of fair representation.

We will also cover secondary boycotts, federal/state pre-emption, and discuss how the Railway Labor Act (covering the railroad and airline industries) compares with the National Labor Relations Act.

Labor law is the law governing workers’ collective action, union organizing, and collective bargaining. This course will focus on labor law in the private sector, which is governed mainly by the federal National Labor Relations Act, as amended. We will cover the legal regulation of workers’ collective action, union organizing campaigns and processes, workers’ rights to strike and their limitations, the collective bargaining process, the powers and procedures of the federal National Labor Relations Board, and the relationship between federal labor law and individual constitutional rights. The student will develop skills that can lead to a career with the National Labor Relations Board, union-side law firms and/or unions, management-side law firms, and other worker advocacy organizations.

This three-credit survey course is designed to introduce students to the different dimensions of law and development, integrating legal, historical, academic, and practical models and approaches.  The course will cover a range of issues and substantive areas of law, including economic and social development and rule of law approaches; human rights law; comparative law; peace and security; international economic law (including trade, finance, aid, and investment);  labor, environmental, and health law; market regulation; institutional models for advancing law and development; gender; and sustainable development.  It will also examine the increasing role of technology and data in law and development and the connection between law and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Throughout the semester, the course will explore how different areas of law address questions of equity, inclusiveness, vulnerability, and environmental sustainability.  There are no prerequisites for this course, and it is intended to be both an introduction to law and development and a complement to other course offerings at Georgetown Law.  

The course is divided into three parts.  The first part begins with an exploration of the foundations of law and development, including an examination of the issues, debates, and academic literature.  This portion of the course will examine the role of governments and institutions in law and development (including the World Bank, WTO, IMF, UN system, donor organizations, regional organizations, and others), as well as how rules are designed and implemented from the perspective of individual and community stakeholders.  Part I of the course will also highlight the evolution of different approaches, theories, and models within law and development, including economic approaches (structural change approaches, dependency theory, neoclassical/neoliberal approaches, endogenous growth theory, post-Washington consensus models, and others), promotion and criticism of rule of law approaches (legal pluralism, institutionalism and new institutional economics, constitutionalism, international vs. national law approaches, legal empowerment, informality, and others), and current movements such as law and political economy and TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law).   

The second part of the course will introduce students to the different substantive dimensions of law and development.  This segment will allow students to both understand the legal foundations of different aspects of law and development and explore intersections between different areas of law as they relate to development, highlighting the cross-cutting nature of law and development.  Topics will include human rights law, international economic law (finance, investment, and trade), conflict and resource control, gender and development, corruption and development, development assistance, and law and development aspects of health, environment, and climate change. 

The third part of the course will focus on issue-based and regional case studies, allowing students to apply what was covered in the first two parts of the course in different contexts and explore ways in which law has been – or could be – a driver for development.  Issue-focused case studies will include land tenure and contracts, labor, agriculture and food security, intellectual property rights, and data and development.  Regional case studies will include Africa, Asia (with some focus on China and India, among other countries), and Latin America.  In this part of the course, students will also assess which law and development approaches have been best suited to different circumstances, economies, cultures, and communities. 

Learning Objectives

The course has several interconnected learning objectives:

• Understand the legal, historical, economic, and political context of different aspects of law and development, individually and in relation to each other;
• Examine different normative approaches to law and development, globally and regionally;
• Interpret academic research, relevant excerpts from international treaties, provisions in bilateral and regional agreements, and laws and regulations, building an understanding of the inter-connected nature of different legal instruments;
• Assess law and development challenges facing governments and international institutions, identifying possible approaches and trade-offs;
• Understand how economic, social, and sustainable development can be further incorporated into soft and hard law, as well as international, regional, and national law;
• Introduce students to different roles for lawyers in the field of law and development; and
• Equip students with the knowledge and tools to approach law as a tool for promoting social, economic, and sustainable development. 

This course explores the legal, regulatory and policy issues that shape the research, development, and commercialization of drugs, biologics, and medical devices in the United States. We will consider the history and role of federal regulation of medical technologies; legal and ethical issues in the development and testing of new therapies; managing incentives for innovation, including patent, regulatory and data exclusivity; tort liability and its function in the regulation of the life sciences industry; and other issues. We will explore these issues using real-world examples, including the government and industry response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In fieldwork practicum courses, students participate in weekly seminars and conduct related fieldwork at outside organizations. This fieldwork practicum course is designed to give students familiarity with the field of law and religion. Students will participate in a two hour/week seminar and undertake 10 hours/week of fieldwork with organizations that work on issues related to religious freedom.

SEMINAR: President Obama called religious freedom "central to the ability of peoples to live together." Professor Martha Nussbaum observes, "America now contains a religious diversity unparalleled in its history."

This seminar will examine society's ability to enable those with the deepest of differences to live in community peaceably. Substantively, it will promote an understanding of the law that governs the relationship between religion and government, defines protections for the free exercise of religion, and provides the framework for civic life among people of all religions and none. Although law and religion will be the uniting theme of our work, there is a broad range of modalities that we can pursue in this field—litigation in workplace disputes, amicus briefings for the Supreme Court, researching the effect of public policy initiatives—providing a myriad of opportunities to hone professional legal skills.

Seminar participants will gain doctrinal competency in current religious freedom law, engage in a principled examination of religious freedom as an essential Constitutional and basic international human right, and gain experience interacting on a “hot topic” issue in a professional manner by focusing on common ground and building principled consensus.

Interested students who have any questions or would like more information about the seminar or field placements should feel welcomed emailing Professor Inks directly at sci2@law.georgetown.edu.

FIELDWORK: Students will perform legal work under the supervision of an attorney mentor for 10 hours/week with organizations that focus on issues related to religious freedom. Some examples include: the ACLU, the ADL, DOJ, The Interfaith Alliance, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, Congress, The Christian Legal Society, The Native American Rights Fund, and Alliance Defending Freedom.

The point of this course is to provide the tools and some of the experience of working in or with a large law firm pro bono practice. We do this through three primary means: lecture (not just from the professors, but also from law firm and legal services leaders in the community); reading current materials on pro bono and the state of the legal market; and role-playing, using our mock law firm, Rodriquez Zimmerman & Drysdale. Each student will have a specific role in that fictional law firm, and we will provide access to more firm financial information than you will likely have at any other firm when you start (and certainly more than you would ever have from the outside). Alas, it is fictional – but trust us, it is realistic.

To understand how pro bono works in a large law firm, you first need to be familiar with how a large law firm itself works, both internally and in the market. The beginning of this course focuses on what we broadly call “law firm economics,” but just as well could be called “operations” or “management” or “finance.” We want you to understand these subjects so that you can answer this question – and then argue or defend the answer in the future: how is it that the Top 100 revenue-producing law firms in the United States contribute, on average, about 60 hours of free legal services per attorney each year? What does the donation of 1½ weeks of productivity do to the firm’s bottom line?

Then we will focus on the how and why of pro bono practice. Where did this impulse to provide free legal services come from? How do law firms decide which matters to take, and which to decline? There is a vigorous debate in the law firm pro bono community about “what counts” as pro bono work – there is even a small treatise with that very name (included in the reading materials). Beyond the issue of qualification, how do law firms determine their pro bono priorities? How does pro bono fit within larger law firm management goals?

We will also explore pro bono from other points of view: public interest providers, law schools, corporate in-house counsel and the media. What role do these organizations play in the provision of pro bono legal services, and how do they interact with large law firm pro bono practices?

This course will examine the way in which U.S. law--principally the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)--treats religious belief, religious exercise, and religious institutions.  Topics will include:  defining "religion" for purposes of constitutional law; governmental burdens on, and discrimination against, religious exercise; state aid for religious activities and to religious organizations, including pursuant to school voucher and "charitable choice" programs; the constitutionality of statutory exemptions for religiously motivated conduct, including in the context of laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation; the role of religion in public education and in the public square; and religious institutions' claims to legal autonomy.

This course is a “disaster law” simulation based on the post Hurricane Katrina legal reforms, particularly the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act. That bill, along with ones passed in response to Hurricane Sandy, reorganized the United States emergency management system and highlighted the particular issues of vulnerable groups.

This simulation course will give students an in-depth experience of working on disaster law issues in the context of a legislative inquiry and hearing. Students will conduct mock interviews, review legislation and legal precedent, and then conduct a legislative hearing to determine whether further changes to the law are necessary. This course present students with the opportunity to work in an emerging area of law, honing their legal skills with a focus on disaster victims and vulnerable populations.

In this seminar, we use children’s literature and participatory methodology to explore the relationships between law and literacy simultaneously as we bring to the surface fundamental principles of law, justice, and democracy. We do this using a dynamic, experiential approach, with examples from children’s literature, children’s writing, and learner-centered teaching methodology and a combination of readings, interactive seminars, and placements involving weekly reading with emergent readers.  We examine learning theories and practices regarding emergent literacy and discuss their legal, educational, and social implications. Readings are drawn from law, educational theory and practice, and children’s literature. We explore the variety of learning approaches that now inform literacy instruction in America. Legal implications to be considered include restrictions on literacy due to historical oppression and educational disadvantage, equal protection and diversity, freedom of speech, school finance, discipline, gender, and English as a second language.  We also focus on the relationship between interactive, experiential learning, civic skills, and the democratic process. 

Students are required to spend at least one hour per week working with an emergent reader. The placement may be a literacy program at a local school or center (e.g., the Early Learning Center at Georgetown Law), or some other arrangement of a participant’s choice, approved by the instructors (e.g., siblings, relatives, or parents/grandparents). The reading sessions may be conducted in person or online. Writing requirements include both a monthly 5-page journal and a short paper. The paper may be a conventional paper or, the more frequent choice, the writing of a children’s book that integrates legal and educational issues and which is accompanied by a short analytical essay describing the book’s connections between literacy and law. Please contact the professors for more information.

In a project-based practicum course, students participate in a weekly seminar and work on a project under the supervision of their professor.

SEMINAR: Through this practicum, students will learn the legal and policy underpinnings for the U.S. military personnel system and veterans affairs system. Students will also be exposed to background materials which explain the illustration of these systems. Students in this practicum will also gain experience and expertise in policy analysis, including legal analysis, policy and programming analysis, cost analysis, and political analysis. For most weeks of the course, we will conduct a "deep dive" into one substantive issue or framework issue for the community. The objective of this course is to train students to prepare policy analyses and/or draft legislation focused on veterans and military personnel policy, with the course objective being a written policy analysis or legal analysis, delivered to the seminar with an oral briefing.

PROJECT WORK: Students will work with the professor to develop or support a policy analysis paper, draft legislative proposal, or research contribution that relates to contemporary research on veterans and military personnel issues. Students will select a project within the scope of veterans and military personnel policy (such as by writing a detailed analysis of that issue/bill, complete with detailed recommendations tied to their analysis of the issue). An illustrative example might be veterans’ access to care issues, which a student could analyze in the context of available VA population data and expenditures data, producing a recommendation for greater use of public-private partnerships and purchased care, accompanied by draft legislation that would amend Title 38, U.S. Code, to enable this recommendation. Another example (from a past class) could be a quantitative and qualitative analysis of military appeals court rulings on the issue of "unlawful command influence" and implications for policymakers and commanders seeking to address sexual assault in the ranks. Students will work directly for Prof. Carter, who previously directed research and policy work on these issues at CNAS and the RAND Corporation, and will also have the opportunity to engage with other policy analysis organizations, veterans service organizations, legislative offices, and advocacy groups throughout this course.

This course will examine society’s notions of motherhood and how various laws affect becoming and being a mother.  Specific topics include laws that affect reproduction, pregnancy, leave from work following childbirth, parenting decisions, when to legally punish mothers and lastly navigating motherhood and professional identity as a lawyer.  Some of the questions that will run through this course include: 

1. Given the importance of caring for children, how should the law construct expectations of parenthood?  
2. How does the law shape our notions of the responsibility of motherhood?  
3. Is there common ground among political opponents on issues related to law and motherhood?
4. What laws should be implemented to better support mothers in the United States?

The struggle to respect and ensure human rights while also protecting national security raises important and complex legal and policy challenges. This course will examine current issues at the intersection of human rights and national security, with a focus on the use of force.

The first half of the course will cover the legal frameworks governing the use of force, including the UN Charter and jus ad bellum, the law of armed conflict (also known as the law of war or international humanitarian law), human rights law, and the U.S. Constitution. Students will examine how the rise of transnational terrorist organizations and advancements in armed drone technology have blurred the line between wartime and peacetime legal rules and placed tremendous pressure on these legal frameworks in the decades following the 9/11 attacks. By the end of this portion of the course, students will be able to analyze uses of military force in the daily news to determine whether the use of force is lawful under domestic and international law.

The second half of the course will cover key issues at the intersection of national security and human rights including: U.S. drone strikes, indefinite detention and the use of military commissions at Guantanamo, the CIA’s torture program after 9/11, the climate crisis, and more. Where feasible, we will cover current events and have practitioners from the field join us for a discussion of the topic. In past years, we have had speakers from the State Department, Defense Department, Congress, and human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First.

Student learning objectives for the course are to use class sessions and the preparation of a paper:

• To become familiar with basic human rights standards that govern the use of force in law enforcement settings, with particular emphasis on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights;
• To become familiar with basic international law standards that govern the grounds for resort to force (jus ad bellum) and regulate the way force may be used in armed conflicts (jus in bello or law of armed conflict/international humanitarian law);
• To gain an appreciation of the complex ways in which many current security threats and responses to them have features that do not fall squarely into the categories of either crime subject to law enforcement operations or armed conflict subject to conventional military operations; and
• To become familiar with a range of complex issues at the intersection of national security and human rights and the diversity of professional opportunities in these areas.

This course will give students an experiential learning experience in the field of natural resources and energy law and policy. Students will work individually or in groups on real-world legal and/or policy problems related to natural resources or energy for clients or stakeholders currently engaged in this rapidly changing subject area. 

The seminar portion of the course covers the key elements of natural resources and energy law and policy related to the experiential learning projects. Students will study the relevant statutes, case law, and underlying policies relating to these natural resources and energy issues. The course is primarily domestic in its focus, but some topics and examples of international natural resources and energy law and policy will be included. During the course, students will draw on pertinent and practical legislative and administrative materials.

Throughout the semester, we will focus on building real-world legal and policy skills. We will discuss the successes and failures of natural resources and energy law and policy, the trade-offs between preservation and development, future prospects for effective resource management and conservation, and the skills needed to effectuate successful outcomes on behalf of clients.

This is a four-credit course, with two credits awarded for the two-hour weekly seminar and two credits for work outside of class on experiential learning projects. The class is designed to be appropriate for both law students and public policy students.

Course Goals:

1. The course is intended to help you develop your legal skills. During the experiential portion of the course, you will develop legal skills by working on a real-world legal or policy problem for a client. You will prepare a written analysis appropriate for delivery to the client. You will also prepare an oral presentation of your work, including findings and recommendations for the client. In undertaking this project, you will develop in-depth expertise on a natural resources issue as assigned. 
2. In preparing the written analysis for your client, you will have an opportunity to hone your legal writing and analytical skills. You will consider and determine how best to present your analysis and findings to the client in written form.
3. You will also develop your skills in oral communication as you prepare and deliver a formal oral presentation of your project for the class and also for your client.
4. By the end of this course, you should have a broad understanding of the overall legal framework for the administration of domestic natural resources. The focus will be on federal law and policy as it relates to the experiential projects being undertaken by the class, but you should also gain insights into selected state and international topics, particularly the interaction between federal and state law and policy. 
5. The course should provide you with a context for evaluating ongoing and fast-changing legal and policy issues and controversies relating to energy and natural resources.

This course surveys the laws governing the ownership, conservation, exploitation, and preservation of renewable and non-renewable natural resources, such as wildlife, wilderness, parks, rangeland, water, minerals, and forests. The course explores the philosophical, constitutional, historical, and economic underpinnings of natural resource law as well as the role of interest groups in natural resource policy formulation. Current issues, such as those relating to takings and federalism, are also examined.

This seminar examines the nature, formation, classification, and governance of non-profit organizations under state and federal law. Emphasis is on tax exemption and unrelated business income; powers and duties of officers and directors; tort liabilities of members, agents, officers and directors; legal issues in fiscal management; antitrust implications; and joint ventures with for-profit corporations. Issues that receive special treatment include: lobbying and political activities; First Amendment religion, speech, and association issues; and liabilities for "public interest" service providers. This seminar includes a general overview of tax considerations for non-profit organizations, but not in depth; tax matters are covered in depth in Tax Treatment of Charities and Other Nonprofit Organizations, which is offered in the Graduate Program.

This course will provide students with an understanding of the current matrix of nuclear non-proliferation treaties, multilateral arrangements, laws, regulations, initiatives, proposals, and organizations that aim to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and prevent nuclear terrorism. The goal is to examine the full array of tools employed by the United States to address nuclear proliferation, as well as how the Executive Branch brings these tools to bear through the inter-agency process and its joint efforts with Congress and international partners.  Virtually every element of the nonproliferation toolbox was deployed to address the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, so considerable time will be spent examining these critical cases.  We will also examine how the nuclear programs of India and Iraq shook and ultimately altered the nonproliferation regime.  Throughout the course, we will consider nonproliferation efforts in the context of great power strategies, alliance obligations, and regional rivalries, on how these factors influence the decision-making of proliferating countries and countries seeking to prevent proliferation.  A continuing theme in the course will be the evolution of nonproliferation tools over time and the role of and lawyers in that evolution.

In a project-based practicum course, students participate in a weekly seminar and work on a project under the supervision of their professors. This course explores the challenges and opportunities of using law to address risk factors that contribute to the rising prevalence of NCDs, such as unhealthy diets, tobacco use, and alcohol consumption. By taking an international and comparative approach, it navigates the theory behind the regulation of risk factors to NCDs in relation to concrete examples from around the world, with a particular emphasis on Latin America, where considerable progress has happened in recent years. Students will participate in a two-hour/week seminar and carry out 10 hours/week of project work under the direction of the course professors.

SEMINAR: In every class, students will learn substantive content and develop lawyering skills, leading to a comprehensive understanding of the role of law in relation to risk factors to NCDs, including in policy, advocacy, and litigation. Specifically, students will be introduced to NCDs (definition, risk factors, and global burden); understand the role of corporations as drivers of NCDs; learn about regulations to address NCDs, such as pricing and taxation, labelling and packaging, and restrictions to marketing and advertising; and explore the strengths and weaknesses of regulatory, advocacy, and litigation approaches to NCDs. In navigating these topics, students will develop a set of lawyering skills, including generating and using evidence, monitoring policy, building coalitions, conducting scenario-planning, engaging decision-makers, segmenting audiences, and framing arguments.

PROJECT WORK: On the experiential/field-work side, students will work with external partners of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law (and the newly created Global Center for Legal Innovation Food Environments) on legal and policy projects related to NCDs and the law. For example, students may draft alternative reports to UN bodies analyzing compliance with human rights obligations related to unhealthy diets, tobacco use, or alcohol consumption (e.g., “shadow reports”). Such a report could analyze the prevailing legal frameworks in a particular country and highlight strengths and weaknesses in the statutory and regulatory language. By working with the O’Neill Institute and civil society organizations, the course gives students the opportunity to use law to address critical health challenges.

Alongside newer demands to end our over-reliance on policing to keep us safe, are renewed calls for more effective mechanisms for police accountability.  This course will focus on the nuts-and-bolts of police accountability, from exploring the efficacy and costs of the exclusionary rule, prosecutions of individual police officers, and Section 1983 cases, to USDOJ’s reinvigorated pattern-or-practice investigations, civilian oversight, and “front-end” oversight in the form of state and federal regulation of police. Along the way we will consider subsidiary topics like qualified immunity, the Monell doctrine, and even the role of insurance companies in holding police accountable. We will consider how new or pending legislation at the federal, state, and local levels can be expected to improve (or undermine) police accountability, and discuss how this all fits in with efforts to reform, remake, or abolish policing.

Students may take this course to fulfill Georgetown’s Upperclass Legal Writing Requirement. If you take this class to fulfill your Writing Requirement, you should be prepared to devote a considerable amount of time in the course developing a paper proposal about a particular aspect or type of police accountability; researching your idea in depth; and both drafting and revising a substantial paper of at least six thousand words (exclusive of footnotes) that meets the elements of the Writing Requirement as set out in the Georgetown Law Student Handbook of Academic Policies.

Government agencies have broad powers to act for the public good. This includes the ability to investigate individuals and organizations and to conduct surveillance about their activities, a capacity strengthened by recent technological advances. But the ability to perform these functions is limited by various constitutional protections, including the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and various statutory laws.

This course will explore the intersection of contemporary surveillance practices with the need to safeguard civil liberties. The course will place special emphasis on the ways in which surveillance is used to control and manage populations of people, the intersection between mass incarceration and surveillance, and the communities that experience the greatest degree of scrutiny. Throughout the course, we will investigate how race, faith, national origin, immigration status, penal status, class and other categories fundamentally shape who is being watched and why.

The course will begin with an exploration of privacy law and the limits that apply to surveillance practices, both electronic and non-electronic. We will examine free speech and freedom of expression under the First Amendment, search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment, and relevant statutory and regulatory laws. We will then explore an array of surveillance and policing practices.

We will also discuss how lawmakers, advocates and local communities are pushing back against overreaching policies, and situate these calls for reform amidst broader social and political movements, including Black Lives Matter. Our texts will include a variety of sources ranging from case law, legal scholarship, government manuals, and coalition letters to podcasts, TED Talks, and investigative journalism.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Introduce some of the major issues in state surveillance, law enforcement, and privacy, and critically examine different approaches to these issues;

2. Test our approaches against current and rapidly developing surveillance practices, both electronic and nonelectronic;

3. Explore the intersection between mass incarceration and surveillance, and the war on crime and the war on terror;

4. Understand how surveillance practices are used to profile and monitor particular communities, including on account of race, faith, national origin, immigration status, penal status, class and other categories;

5. Examine different methods for challenging surveillance; 6. Anticipate the durability of these methods going forward.

Students in the Policy Clinic provide services to make democracy work several policy themes. Recent projects include:

• Community equity – Combat gentrification and displacement in low-income communities of color, develop a community support fund, develop a community resilience hub.
• Health and food – Organize a consortium to improve working conditions in university food supply chains, expand access to oral health services, reinvent a better food chain for institutions (universities, hospitals, schools, and shelters), analyze social determinants of health (housing, food security, etc.) for state health officials.
• Labor and human rights – Organize a consortium to improve working conditions in university food supply chains (same as health above), protect worker rights in global supply chains for the FIFA World Cup and other mega-sporting events.
• Trade and climate – Develop mutually supporting climate and trade policies, develop options for international cooperation on climate policies through “climate clubs,” recommend strategies to decarbonize steel production without violating WTO rules, and identify strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions while preserving manufacturing jobs.

Please see the Policy Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Policy Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

Learning outcomes for this clinic: Students are supervised, evaluated and graded on three skill sets, each of which has specific evaluation criteria in the Policy Clinic Operations Guide.

1. Management and professionalism – includes “managing up” with supervision meetings, initiating self-evaluation, managing effort and deadlines, collaborating, and expectations in a professional culture.
2. Analysis and strategy – covers legal, policy and strategic analysis.  It includes identifying issues that require analysis, learning the context efficiently, using diverse sources to avoid bias, explaining analytic methods, using a logical framework, and drawing conclusions that meet client needs.
3. Communication, writing and speaking – includes organizing documents and presentations, meeting audience needs for context and decision-making, relating analysis through stories and examples, presenting visual information, and editing for plain language, clarity, and English style.

Many of the most important and intense political disputes in American history have come before the federal courts. From the controversy about the midnight judges reflected in Marbury v. Madison, to the conflict about slavery at the core of Dred Scott, to the rise of interest group litigation by civil rights, religious, environmental, and other organizations, those opposed to prevailing laws and policies have taken their grievances to court. In recent years, a new breed of political litigation has proliferated. Increasingly, the losers in legislative and electoral battles have leapt immediately into the judicial arena, challenging the constitutionality of the laws enacted over their objection or the way elections are run. Increasingly, politicians and the entities they control have deployed litigation as another tool in the partisan arsenal. And increasingly, federal courts have become the arbiters of political disputes between the other two branches of the Federal Government, and between the Federal Government and the States, and between political candidates.

This course will use the legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act as an initial case study of how political disputes play out in litigation, from the trial courts to the Supreme Court. We will follow the pattern of political litigation into the Trump and Biden Administrations, and assess the lessons from the partisan shift in the litigation. We will consider how and why partisan disputes generate litigation and discuss the issues this litigation raises regarding the appropriate role of courts in our democratic system. In large part, the perspective will be practical, as we explore the legal, strategic, and tactical choices advocates make in bringing high profile political cases, in framing the legal issues, in harnessing the rules of procedure, and in managing the political features of the case -- both offensively and defensively, and both inside and outside the courtroom. We will discuss the hurdles litigants face in seeking to strike down federal laws, the particular challenges of representing the U.S. Government in defending those laws, and the conflicting pressures that bedevil advocates on both sides of the cases. In some of our sessions, students may be asked to strategize or to argue from the perspective of the plaintiffs or the defendant in the cases.

As a society, we strongly believe in certain myths about the adequacy and fairness of our legal system.  Among those beliefs are that our laws and policies make the American dream available to everyone and provide an adequate safety net to prevent people from falling into the type of destitution we associate with less developed nations.  We take pride in having a legal system that we believe is fair and treats people equally, regardless of income, race, and other characteristics.   

The reality is that our legal system makes promises it does not keep. We do not have the laws and policies we need to protect the poor and other vulnerable groups, and the laws and policies we do have are often inadequate at best and pernicious at worst.  The result is a system where the poor and other subordinated groups are too often left unprotected and routinely feel victimized by the government agencies charged with assisting them.  

A key goal of this course is for students to examine poverty-related laws, policies, and programs and understand how and why our system so routinely fails to protect the most vulnerable members of our society.  As part of this analysis, students will think critically about how and why those laws, policies, and programs have such detrimental impacts on vulnerable groups including people of color, women, children, individuals with disabilities, immigrants, and others. The class will explore the history of poverty policy and the evolution of safety net programs, both of which are inextricably intertwined with racism, gender discrimination, and bias toward certain groups.  It will also examine key Supreme Court cases that shaped poverty law and policy, looking in particular at how the evolution of jurisprudence in the 1960s and 1970s dashed the hopes of anti-poverty advocates that the Court would establish the legal foundation required to truly protect the indigent.  Throughout the course, we will also discuss the politics, the key leaders and thinkers, the noteworthy state and local innovations, and the data with an eye to understanding why our legal system repeatedly fails to live up to its promise, what innovations have been successful, and where we go from here.    

FIELDWORK: In the four, five, or six-credit, mandatory pass-fail, fieldwork portion of the practicum, students will work with a public interest law organization that deals with issues connected to poverty. Students may work for either 10 or 15 hours in both the fall and spring, 10 hours in the fall and 15 hours in the spring or vice versa, or 30 hours/week in one semester only. If students complete their fieldwork hours for this practicum entirely in one semester, they may be eligible to enroll in a clinic for the other semester.  The host organization may work from either a national or a local perspective on issues connected to poverty. Placements might involve a focus on poverty per se or “poverty and…” e.g., civil rights, women, education, housing, health, juvenile and criminal justice, child welfare or immigration. Depending on the organization, activities at placements could include assisting lawyers with litigation and/or policy advocacy, including governments on all levels and in either the executive branch or the legislative. Students may propose and arrange their own placements; these must be approved by Professor Edelman. Alternatively, Professor Edelman is available to assist in finding and setting up the placements. Depending on the number of hours worked, students will earn four, five, or six pass/fail credits for the fieldwork; one grade will be provided at the end of the year.

In fieldwork practicum courses, students participate in a weekly seminar and engage in related fieldwork at outside organizations. This fieldwork practicum course will focus on assisting those representing themselves in divorce, child custody, and child support matters in D.C. Superior Court. Working under the supervision of attorneys at the Family Court Self Help Center (SHC) and the Family Law Assistance Network (FLAN), students will be responsible for providing family law related information and community education services to individual D.C. residents, who largely address their legal problems without the benefit of counsel. 

Students will participate in a two-hour/week seminar and carry out up to 10 hours/week of fieldwork on site at D.C. Superior Court. Students will assist litigants onsite at the SHC and prepare information about family law and procedure for self-represented parties. If available and needed, students may conduct client intakes for FLAN, also onsite at D.C. Superior Court.

SEMINAR: In the seminar, students will learn about: (i) family law and procedure in the District; (ii) the types of information self-represented parties often need when they have to represent themselves; (iii) the best means for helping self-represented persons in crisis situations; (iv) developments nationally on involving non-lawyers, such as law students, in providing needed information and public education to self-represented parties; (v) requirements and restrictions of the District’s unauthorized practice of law rules, which govern the services students in the Practicum may provide, and (vi) other innovative access to justice projects.

FIELDWORK: In the fieldwork component of the course, students will: (i) under guidance from the Family Court Self-Help Center, provide self-represented litigants with basic information about family law and procedure; (ii) prepare easily understood family law public education materials; and (iii) participate in innovative projects.

Public interest lawyering is counter-cultural in the legal profession, but the substantive law governing lawyers is generally the same regardless of practice area. This course examines the regulation of the legal profession with a focus on the ethical issues most often encountered by public interest lawyers. Most class meetings will be devoted to applying the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and other lawyer law to problems chosen from the text and other sources. Issues will include confidentiality and publicity; allocation of decision-making authority; conflicts of interest between individual clients and the broader client community or particular social justice movement; settlement and fee shifting; and special problems in organizational, class, and mass representation. The course will also examine the history of public interest law, issues confronting the public interest movement, and career options.

This course explores the interwoven dynamics of law, ethics, and science in public health through examination of core legal theory and practice-based examples. With COVID-19 ushering law, policy, and decision-making around public health into broad public awareness, this class will draw upon current issues in society, enabling students to apply legal and ethical concepts to real-world scenarios. By spotlighting recent and historical examples of public health law in action, including COVID-19, opioids, obesity, tobacco, and the environment, this course will be valuable for students interested in health law and equity, as well as students seeking to deepen their expertise in public policy.

Students will learn the conceptual foundations of public health law in the United States, with particular attention to the statutory and regulatory powers and duties of federal and state governmental entities to protect the health and safety of the population and the judicial decisions that shape them. Sources of tension between public health goals and objectives and civil liberties will be interactively contemplated, including, among others: disease surveillance and privacy; labeling and advertising restrictions and free speech; and considerations around individual versus population-based conceptions of health. Discussions of recent major legislative developments and court decisions impacting jurisprudence, public health authority, and individual rights will be incorporated alongside primary themes. Throughout the course, students will engage with public health law through applied learning—case studies and class exercises—focused on analyzing emerging issues, comparing national and global responses, understanding ethical implications, and developing legal and policy strategies that integrate health equity and address social determinants of health. 

With such watershed events in the civil rights movement as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the civil rights acts of the 1960s, the eradication of racial subordination in America seemed an achievable goal. Yet, in America today, racial minorities continue to experience social and economic disadvantages, and race relations remain strained in many respects. Whether law has aided or impeded the cause of civil rights in the past and the extent to which law can help to resolve racial issues in the present and future are questions of considerable controversy. This course will examine the response of law to racial issues in a variety of legal contexts. Topics will likely include the meaning of race and racial discrimination, intimate relationships, child placement, employment, education and integration, policing and criminal punishment, free expression, and political participation. Classes will center on candid discussion and participatory exercises about the issues raised by the assigned material. The course will cover most of the seminal "race" cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Race and Democracy: Voting Rights in America assesses the impact of white supremacy ideology on American Democracy. The course uses the struggle for Black voting rights as the primary framework for exploring this relationship.

Over the course of the term, students 1) develop a working knowledge of how the ideology of white supremacy has impacted voter registration, participation, and representation 2) acquire critical tools to identify, analyze, and dismantle narratives, policies, and practices rooted in the history of white supremacy and 3) develop an appreciation for the role social movements have played in both reenforcing and disrupting the structural and systemic barriers to a multiracial and multicultural democracy.

Course Organization and Overview

This course explores the law’s response to the problem of economic inequality. By 2015, the political and economic conversations have recognized the stark and unacceptable wealth and economic differences that underlie growing political and social instability. We will approach the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective that includes sociology, psychology, history and cultural studies. The course offers an introduction to the work of classic economic thinkers such as Adam Smith, and contemporary economists and legal scholars including Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, Richard Posner and Ian Ayres. The primary focus of the course however will be an exploration of the limits and failures of conventional rational choice approaches to explaining the questions arising from economic inequality for members of groups who have experienced pervasive race, gender and other forms of cultural subordination.

We will explore the conceptual framework of marketplace distribution of commodities, the cultural determinants of market value, and the claims of subordinated communities for economic equality. We will develop an understanding of the silence of the Constitution on questions of economic inequality. We will draw upon the insights of a wide range of social science research to map the consequences of the lack of a coherent legal framework to govern questions of distributive justice.

This course does not require a technical background in quantitative economics. The primary material will be drawn from sociology, history, psychology, narrative economics, and critical race theory.

Theme

The case study for this seminar this year will be the economic and social conditions of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. We will explore the impact of the cumulative economic and social deficits of that city. We will take advantage of our course discussion and research to investigate this dramatic example of economic and social inequality in America. This recent example of the explosive combination of police abuse and the underlying condition of wealth and income inequality is just the most recent example of long term neglect. We will try to figure out what factors surround the anger at the criminal justice process of stop and frisk and the implementation of the “broken windows theory” of police enforcement practices that have created police estrangement from many low wealth communities of color. The Freddy Grey Riots and the long-term political, economic and sociological dynamics of Baltimore provide an important to delve more deeply into the connection between police practices and the economic death of cities such as Baltimore.

We will ask are there important counter examples to Baltimore and Ferguson.

Students in the Racial Equity in Education Law & Policy Clinic engage in legislative lawyering to address issues of educational inequality along racial lines in U.S. public education. Clinic students work on behalf of clients (that range from non-profit organizations to coalitions to youth-led groups) to devise legislative and policy interventions to address client's policy priorities. Students may engage in legislative lawyering on issues such as school resource inequities, school segregation, discriminatory school discipline policies or practices, and inclusive curricular offerings. 

Please see the Racial Equity in Education Law & Policy Clinic website for more detailed information about the program.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Racial Equity in Education Law & Policy Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

During this seminar our class will read six books about policing in the United States.  We will spend two weeks on each book.  The first week we will discuss the book with each other. The second week the author will visit the class to discuss the book. Some author visits will be in person; others will visit via video conference.

Through studying these books and speaking with their authors we will learn how theories of policing have changed over time; how policing is influenced by, and in turn influences, law, politics and culture; the role that factors like race, gender, sexual-orientation, disability, indigeneity, age and class, have played in shaping how policing happens; the connection of policing to mass incarceration and its attendant  harms; and we will probe some of the biggest challenges facing policing currently.

The six books we will read include:

• Unreasonable: Black Lives, Police Power, and the Fourth Amendment, by Devon Carbado
• We Own This city: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption, by Justin Fenton
• Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom, by Derecka Purnell
• Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable, by Joanna Schwartz
• Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom, by Sarah A. Seo
• Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, Victor M. Rios

Reflection and Summaries: All students are required to submit a 750 word reflection paper on each book after we have read the book and before we have discussed it with the author. Reflection papers will be graded and late papers will be penalized. In addition, all students will submit at least two discussion questions on Canvas before the first week’s discussion of each book. Discussion questions will be graded pass/fail. 

Grading:

Your grade for the class will be based upon: 1) attendance and the quality of your participation; 2) reflection papers for each book; and 3) discussion questions for each book.

This course examines domestic refugee law and policy, with particular focus on asylum and other refugee-related claims for protection that arise in the U.S. legal system. Students will become familiar with the key actors in the asylum and refugee law arena, including the U.S. Congress, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the federal courts, and international entities.

The course objectives are: (1) to equip students with an understanding of the principles of refugee policy, asylum law, and the United States' procedures for refugee protection, and (2) to provide students with a practical appreciation for how refugee policy is formed and a working knowledge of asylum law, which will serve as a foundation for academic research, clinical study, employment, pro bono work, and/or internship opportunities within the U.S. government and the NGO community.

In addition to focusing on the refugee definition as interpreted by U.S. courts, we will examine the processes for adjudicating asylum claims -- where the system works and where it fails. We will also seek to understand the limits of asylum law and explore the toughest issues facing asylum adjudicators and policy makers today.

Reproductive Justice is a concept developed by Black Women activists in the 1990s to provide a different framework to explore how systemic oppression impacts reproductive decision-making. Acknowledging that abortion and contraception were often not the primary reproductive concerns of many marginalized women, including women of color, young women, women with disabilities, undocumented women, and queer women, activists adopted a framework that considers the contexts in which reproductive decisions are made. This approach centers social, racial and economic justice, and focuses as much on the rights to have and raise children as it does on the right to not have them though access to safe and legal abortion care and contraceptive access.

This course will focus on the rights to not have a child, to have a child, and to raise a child. The course will not focus on abortion or contraception, but will address the impact of Dobbs and forced birth. Students are welcome to focus their writing requirement on abortion or contraception. The course will take an interdisciplinary approach to the issues, incorporating various bodies of law (family law, welfare policy, criminal law) along with an historical analysis, social science, and current events.

This course will explore the history and law of reproductive rights in the United States.  The majority of the semester will be spent analyzing the constitutional framework, jurisprudence and federal and state regulations governing forced sterilization, contraception and abortion from the 1920s until today.  We will consider the historical, social and religious context of the regulation of reproduction; gender, race and socioeconomic class issues; and the practical impact of the regulations in effect today. This course is primarily focused on reproductive rights in the United States, but we may consider comparative international perspectives.

Please note that this course will not cover regulation of parenting, adoption, foster care, assisted reproductive technologies or related reproductive health topics, or reproductive justice in any meaningful detail.

All students are expected to read the assignments, attend class, and prepare for active discussion every week. Depending on course enrollment, I may assign small groups of students to assist me in leading each week’s discussion of the assigned materials.  Short oral presentations on current events or topics of particular interest will likely be assigned during the second half of the semester.

Grading: Class participation, including oral presentations, and/or short reaction papers will represent at least 35% of the final grade.  A take-home exam will account for the remaining 65%.

The class will focus on reproductive health and the law.  Understanding and learning about the legislative process is essential to this class. Reproductive justice issues span not only constitutional law considerations, but also other aspects of law, society, and the political process.   Topics researched and/or discussed will include abortion, assisted reproduction, contraception, treatment of incarcerated pregnant individuals, pregnancy exclusion laws, rape and statutory rape laws, personhood and feticide laws, surrogacy, the use of child endangerment laws to prosecute women for their conduct during pregnant, and parenthood.

Students will learn how to perform in-depth research and analysis involving these subjects and will then learn the process of drafting legislation, understanding the legislative process, and productively working with legislators, policy makers, advocacy groups, and other interested parties to promote reproductive liberties and enact necessary changes.

All students will gain significant exposure to legal research and writing and will work closely with the instructors to develop and hone these critical skills. 

Course Goals:

The goals of this course:

• Introduce students to the study of reproductive health law, policy, and regulations
• Familiarize students with the social, medical and legal literature on the topic
• Engage students with practical as well as theoretical ideas in reproductive justice

• Stimulate intellectual curiosity about the subject matter
• Inspire thoughtful analysis
• Encourage and facilitate discussions

Restorative Justice (RJ) is a distinct form of conflict resolution – rooted in indigenous traditions – that aims to redirect society’s retributive response to harm. For example, crime, in the context of RJ, is not considered an offense against the state but rather a harm against another person with impacts that reverberate through the community. Harm represents an imbalance in the community, not just the missteps of individuals. RJ elevates the role of those involved in and affected by harm in seeking acknowledgment and understanding; restoring relationships, emotional, and material losses; and addressing root causes of the harm through dialogue and problem solving.

Across the country RJ has emerged in public systems (i.e., juvenile and criminal justice, education, child welfare) and in community-based settings. This has increasingly placed lawyers (and judges) in the role of decision makers regarding the use of restorative justice at different stages of the juvenile and criminal justice process (i.e., pre-trial diversion, deferred adjudication, sentencing, and re-entry); co-architects of restorative justice programs; policymakers implementing and integrating restorative responses into legislation; and practitioners of RJ in a variety of settings.

We will be learning about the theory and practice of Restorative Justice in criminal justice, educational and community settings, exploring is challenges, possibilities, and interface with legal systems. The course will involve advanced readings, group work, activities, guests, and simulated restorative processes to gain an experience for what readings and academic discussions cannot offer.

Course Learning Outcomes

• Identify key restorative principles and practices.
• Describe the application of RJ in criminal justice, educational, and community settings, identifying and assessing legal challenges and possibilities.
• Experience restorative processes for community building and responsive to harm.
• Practice introspection through course exercises.
• Introduce and/or enhance fundamental skills and professional ethics that restorative practitioners need to practice.

This course offers students an opportunity to learn the definitions of “rule of law” and how to reform legal and judicial systems, including measuring the impact of those reforms. The field of rule of law reform is an expanding area of practice, be it focused on strengthening the concept of ‘Rule of Law’ and its indicators or to achieve certain economic, social and/or political goals.

The course begins by reviewing various definitions of what is meant by “rule of law”, recognizing that different institutions, governments, public and private sectors want to promote reforms to legal/judicial systems perhaps seeking the same end, but through different ways. The course uses a case study methodology, including specific sessions with U.S. and foreign judges and other rule of law practitioners active in reform efforts. Topics include: Democracy and the rule of law; Access to justice; Criminal justice and Criminal procedural reform; Court administration and Case management; Commercial court reform; Alternative dispute resolution (ADR); Judicial independence and Accountability; National security and Transitional justice; Indicators to measure the rule of law; and a discussion of the role played by legal actors in addressing corruption, both within and outside the legal system.

We will consider the rationale behind rule of law reforms by examining experiences around the world, including in the United States. We will see how reforms may target more competitive market economies, stronger law enforcement, gender equality or social justice. We will learn the impact of an increase in demand from users of justice systems who want improved services, not only “formal” justice users in courts, but informal justice services like paralegals and chieftaincy also. The course will also address the often overlapping or inconsistent agendas of donors, international organizations (e.g., United Nations, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, IMF, USAID, U.S. Military, among others) in the discussion and analysis.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the course. Students will have acquired an understanding of the various definitions of ‘rule of law’ and the factors leading to and preventing successful reform efforts.

At the end of the course, students will have acquired some understanding of the differences and similarities among international organizations and their approaches to Rule of Law to be able distinguish varying objectives (e.g. democracy promotion, economic development, human rights and social justice, anti-corruption and law enforcement).

At the end of the course, students will have acquired a vocabulary and understanding of overlapping (and even inconsistent agendas) to be able to identify the “drivers” of reform and provide inputs for the design or evaluation of Rule of Law reform efforts.

The course will cover segregation in public accommodations, residences and education, historically and currently. Although the workforce, marriage, and access to citizenship and voting were segregated for centuries in the U.S., employment discrimination, anti-miscegenation, immigration and election law are beyond the scope of this course. Students will learn that the US is racially segregated in housing and education and that segregation is discriminatory. They will grapple with the fundamental question of why segregation exists and the role of law in creating and responding to segregation. Students will gain a historical perspective on the ideology of white supremacy that animates segregation. They will learn that the chief consequence of segregation is inequality, for everyone, people of color and whites. Among those consequences are mass incarceration, health and wealth disparities, wasted human capital due to lack of opportunity, racial hostility, militarized policing in certain neighborhoods (Ferguson & all its antecedents and successors), environmental degradation, and suburban sprawl. Students will also learn strategies for dismantling segregation and, hopefully, help develop innovative solutions in their research papers.

This fieldwork practicum course focuses on issues of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics from an international and national human rights law perspective. The course will provide an overview of the main human rights issues in these fields, while affording students an opportunity to work with organizations that are addressing human rights violations of people based on sexuality, gender and sex characteristics, in various ways.

As such, students participate in a two-hour weekly seminar and work for 10 hours/week for at least 11 weeks during the semester at an outside organization.

Background: Every day, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQI) people are victims of multiple human rights violations, which are directly linked to the lack of acceptance (by society and the State) of their non-normative sexualities, gender identities or gender expressions. Some of the most common human rights violations of LGBTQI people include killings, torture, ill-treatment, “corrective” or punishing rape, "conversion therapy," discrimination in schools, in the workplace and in accessing health services, among many others. Intersex persons face human rights violations because of the general lack of acceptance of their bodies that differ from the socially accepted standards of “female” and “male” bodies. Because of their sex characteristics, intersex people often face human rights violations including irreversible non-consented and non-medically necessary genital surgery at the early stages of infancy and throughout childhood, as well as forced sterilization, among others.

SEMINAR: The course will take a close look at some of the human rights violations faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) people, or other people perceived as such, as well as the corresponding States’ obligations under international human rights law. The students will analyze landmark and recent decisions emerging from regional and international human rights monitoring bodies, which have developed standards around these categories. This analysis will provide a solid legal foundation for students to develop their projects for external partners.

FIELDWORK: Students will be placed with organizations working in the area of sexual and reproductive rights. Most likely, the work will be conducted remotely, as several of these organizations are not based in the Washington D.C. area. The work conducted for this portion of the course will be supervised by the external organization.

In the past, the work with external partners specific human rights issues faced by LGBTQI people, included collaborating on several policy and legal projects, including preparing shadow reports to present before international human rights bodies, conducting analysis of legislation or a related case, among others. External partners vary every year, and include international and domestic leading human rights organizations working on the promotion and protection of the rights of LGBTQI people at the international and domestic level.

Please see the Social Enterprise and Nonprofit Law Clinic website for more detailed information about the clinic.

For registration-specific supplemental materials, please see the Social Enterprise and Nonprofit Law Clinic PDF.

For information about clinic registration generally, please see the Clinic Registration Handbook.

States are the “laboratories of democracy” Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, and contemporary theories of localism argue that policy change can be driven by innovation at the municipal level.  Each state has its own Constitution, its own court system, and its own legislative process. States and local governments enjoy substantial law-making and regulatory authority; bear significant responsibility for the financing and provision of most domestic public goods and services; and are key sites for political participation.  This course surveys the legal environment, political values and policy debates that shape state and local governments in the United States. After completing the course, students will be able to identify many of the key doctrinal principals and analyze how they apply to the socio-economic context of federalism today. Some of the topics for discussion include (1) the allocation of power between states and their local governments and the role of state and local governments in the federal system; (2) distinctions between state constitutions and the US Constitution in form and powers including elected judiciaries, legislative procedure, line item vetoes, direct democracy and fundamental rights; (3) the Tenth Amendment, cooperative and coercive federalism, and the role of states as a counterweight to federal power; (4) the pivotal role of local government in the regulation of private land use; (5) state and local sources of revenue, balanced budget provisions, and limits on borrowing; (6) recent trends in blight, suburbanization, sprawl and redevelopment; (7) federal pre-emption of state authorities, and the conflict between plenary state power and local autonomy; and (8) inter-local cooperation and regional governments. The course will examine the role of governors and mayors as policymakers, and how horizontal federalism serves as a driver of national policy in areas including civil rights, immigration and climate change. The course also will challenge students to explore the tension between the historical movement toward greater local home rule and the modern trend to regional solutions. Finally, the course will enable students to exercise and develop skills of particular relevance to state and local decision-making: statutory interpretation, working effectively in groups, and understanding the dynamics and procedural context of state and local government proceedings.

Learning Objectives:

This course aspires to empower its students to:

• Recognize and apply several core legal doctrines that enable and constrain state governments and various local government entities.
• Describe how several prominent threads of American political theory have guided the historical development of state and local government law.
• Apply several constitutional principles and legal standards that regulate state and local government
• Explain the predominant funding mechanisms for state and local governments, and analyze how state and local policies can affect the viability of local government.
• Identify several state and federal policies that can impair the sustainability of local government; and federal policies that constrain the autonomy of states in performing their core functions.
• Develop and deliver principled arguments about how socio-economic policy issues relate to legal doctrine, intra-regional wealth, housing and land use policy and alternatives to local government.

Please see the Street Law website and this video for more information about the course.

The fall curriculum focuses on the purpose of laws and legal reasoning, negotiations, criminal justice, and human rights. A lesson plan bank is provided to all Street Law instructors. The course capstone is a human rights “mini” mock trial where the high school students perform as lawyers and witnesses and compete against other Street Law classes. This practicum allows law students to gain invaluable lawyering skills while actively giving back to the local community. Guiding students through the semester is a remarkable and unforgettable experience. 

SEMINAR: The seminar uses interactive instruction to explore law and legal concepts, classroom management, lesson planning, and student assessment. Law students have time to collaborate with their peers and also gain access to additional lessons they can use in their classes. Outside of the seminar, faculty provide intensive support and collaborate with each student to support their learning and growth. 

PROJECT WORK: The placements are determined primarily by the law student’s schedules for the semester. All classes will be taught in person. There, they will work for at least 10 hours/week preparing for and teaching a course in practical law. Law student instructors have the primary responsibility for the instruction and grading of their students. Street Law faculty and fellows observe each law student instructor and conduct post-observation debriefs at least three times per semester. 

Regular and punctual attendance is required at all practicum seminars, field placements, and scheduled events. If a student must miss a seminar, a Street Law event, or project work, the student  must speak to the professor as soon as possible to discuss the absence. Unless the professor indicates otherwise, a student with more than one unexcused absence from the practicum seminar, or one week of unexcused absences from the fieldwork or project work, may receive a lower grade or, at the professor’s discretion, may be withdrawn from the practicum course. 

ORIENTATION: There is a three-day orientation required for this practicum course. Orientation will be held from Tuesday, August 22, thru Thursday, August 24. Law students will experience the student-centered teaching methodology they will use in their own classes and have a chance to practice facilitating before entering the classroom. Attendance at the orientation is mandatory. Evening division students should reach out to practicum faculty to discuss orientation schedule conflicts.

MEETING INFO

Thursdays, 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Please see the Street Law website and this video for more information about the course.

OVERVIEW: Street Law Mock Trial Advocacy s a project-based practicum course where Georgetown Law students teach a course in mock trial advocacy at DC public high schools (day students) or the DC Jail (evening students). Enrolled law students develop and refine critical lawyering skills, including legal research and writing, time and project management, public speaking, and the capacity to engage diverse audiences in a low-risk, high-reward environment. Street Law instructors help the local community better understand the law, identify how it impacts them, and develop legal and analytical skills. In short, Street Law instructors have a tangible impact on the lives of local residents. 

The spring semester focuses on trial and litigation skills. Street Law instructors prepare their students to compete in a mock trial tournament. The law students develop a thorough understanding of trial procedure, law, and effective advocacy skills. This practicum allows law students to actively give back to the local community while gaining invaluable lawyering skills.

SEMINAR: The seminar uses interactive instruction to explore law and legal reasoning, mock trial advocacy skills, classroom management, lesson planning, and student assessment. Law students have time to collaborate with their peers and also gain access to additional lessons they can use in their classes. Outside of the seminar, faculty provide intensive support and collaborate with each student to support and encourage their learning and growth. 

PROJECT WORK: The placements are determined primarily by the law student’s schedules for the semester. All classes will be taught in person. There, they will work for at least 10 hours/week preparing for and teaching a course in practical law. Law student instructors have the primary responsibility for the instruction and grading of their students. Street Law faculty and fellows observe each law student instructor and conduct post-observation debriefs at least three times per semester. Guiding students through the mock trial process is remarkable and unforgettable. 

Regular and punctual attendance is required at all practicum seminars, field placements, and scheduled events. If a student must miss a seminar, a Street Law event, or project work, he or she must speak to the professor as soon as possible to discuss the absence. Unless the professor indicates otherwise, a student with more than one unexcused absence from the practicum seminar, or one week of unexcused absences from the fieldwork or project work, may receive a lower grade or, at the professor’s discretion, may be withdrawn from the practicum course.

ORIENTATION: There is a three-day orientation required for this practicum course. Orientation will be held from Tuesday, January 9, thru Thursday, January 11, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  Law students will experience the student-centered teaching methodology they will use in their own classes and have a chance to practice facilitating before entering the classroom. Attendance at the orientation is mandatory. Evening division students should reach out to practicum faculty to discuss orientation schedule conflicts. Attendance at this orientation is mandatory for students who did not already take the fall semester Street Law: Criminal Justice and Human Rights practicum.

ENROLLMENT INFORMATION: Students enroll in this course via MyAccess. Students are encouraged to enroll in this practicum course and the fall semester practicum course Street Law: Criminal Justice and Human Rights. Alternatively, students who enroll in this course may take the summer course Street Law: Corrections and Community (if offered).

After registering via MyAccess, please email Street Law Professor Charisma Howell at ch329@georgetown.edu to set up an informational interview with Street Law staff.

Studies the treatment of charities and other nonprofit organizations, including private foundations, churches, hospitals, trade associations, social clubs, and political organizations under the federal income tax law. Among the topics covered are the characteristics of the various classes of exempt organizations, the legislative policies underlying their exemption from tax, problems associated with qualification for and retention of exemption, joint ventures, the unrelated business income tax including corporate sponsorship, the declaratory judgment remedy, implications of racial discrimination, international activities and the treatment of lobbying and political expenditures.

Discover what it means to "practice" technology policy through an innovative and experiential class using cutting-edge technology issues to teach practical writing, legal, legislative and policy making skills that can be applied to any legal and policy matter (e.g., competition, national security, health, tax policy).

Students can expect to leave with an understanding of key technology legal and policy issues while also being exposed to “skills of the trade” for legislative advocacy, including: persuasive advocacy for policy issues, formation of policy campaigns, legislative strategic planning, drafting of policy documents, and stakeholder politics. Specifically, students will develop practical legal and policy making skills, such as drafting talking points, writing testimony, creating a strategic legislative campaign, and learning the art of an elevator pitch. Students will learn skills that can help them pursue a wide-array of careers, from a law firm to the White House.

There is no prerequisite course required. Class will incorporate pre-class preparations and may also include in-class skill building exercises.

Learning Objectives:

Goals:

• Receive substantive knowledge of key policy issues related to technology.

• Develop skills for successful legislative advocacy and policy making with a focus on stakeholder perspectives and tech policy issues.

• Develop legislative strategy skills needed for planning and implementing legislative advocacy/policy campaigns.

• Develop oral and written skills specific to policy making.

Outcomes:

• Students will gain substantive knowledge of technology policy issues.

• Students will develop practical written advocacy skills through drafting advocacy papers, talking points and testimony to Congress.

• Students will develop practical written advocacy skills for drafting testimony from the perspective of a Congressperson or policy maker.

• Students will develop legislative strategy skills - such as how to coalition build, critically review a lobbying strategy plan, evaluate a media plan and other crucial aspects of policy campaign.

• Students will develop oral advocacy skills for delivering prepared testimony to Congress.

• Students will develop oral advocacy skills for delivering an elevator pitch.

• Students will develop oral advocacy skills for preparing and implementing an effective meeting for policy making.

This seminar will consider the past, present, and future of the death penalty in the U.S.  Topics will include the Eighth Amendment framework; capital-eligible offenses and limitations; the role of race; intellectual disability, insanity, and mental status; juvenile offenders; procedural requirements in capital cases; actual innocence claims; methods of execution; juror qualification; and the allocation of issues between judge and jury.  The course also will cover current abolition initiatives under state constitutional, legislative, and clemency initiatives.

Student learning goals: Students will gain both a jurisprudential understanding and practical insight into the death penalty and its administration.  Students will intensively explore this challenging constitutional and legal area, and will write on an important selected issue.

The first 1,000 days between a woman’s pregnancy and her child’s second birthday significantly impacts a child’s ability to grow, learn, and thrive and affects a country’s health and prosperity.  This course approaches this period with a Reproductive Justice (RJ) lens, emphasizing social supports, financial assistance and other tools that advance the right to have and raise children.  Both in the US and throughout the world, factors such as race, language, income, education, ability, gender identity and sexual orientation all impact one’s ability to carry a healthy pregnancy to term, and the opportunities babies have to grow and thrive.

Increasingly, law and policy has been recognized as a high-impact and robust approach for accelerating progress in supporting women who are pregnant and lactating, along with infants through their first 24 months.  In various jurisdictions, policymakers enact courses of action, regulatory measures, laws and policies, and set funding priorities with direct or indirect effects on providing the essential building blocks for families during the 1,000-day window of opportunity.  This course focuses on policies, programs and practices across the globe—at the national, tribal, state and local levels—that improve or hinder a mother and child’s health and well-being.  Students will examine the evidence informing these courses of action, along with the historical and contemporary legislative, regulatory and judicial aspects.  This course applies the RJ framework to an area that has primarily been viewed as one of public health.  In doing so, students will build a deeper understanding of the social factors and inequities that impede public health initiatives and widen health disparities.  Topics and themes include preconception care, infertility, assisted reproductive technology, maternal and infant mortality disparities, newborn screening, immunizations, maternity and paternity leave policies, breastfeeding relevant policies and practices, dietary and physical activity guidance, social assistance programs, food and nutrition labeling, childcare supports, and other environmental and policy strategies to support maternal and child health.

Federal employees and contractors safeguard our nation’s most sensitive information and secrets. However, many do not consider that national security is a major consideration when employing civil servants or making decisions regarding their continued employment.  As of 2017, over 4.3 million Americans possess a security clearance and even more have access to sensitive, unclassified information. Security clearances and suitability reviews assess the reliability, trustworthiness, and character of prospective employees. 

Because security clearance and suitability adjudications often determine whether a person is hired - and in some cases, fired - they invoke the application of employment protections under laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008. The decision to deny employment based on a security clearance or suitability decision is considered an adverse action. While some actions are subject to judicial and/or administrative court review, others are not.  Therefore, executive orders, federal regulations, and agency guidance are necessary to ensure that vetting is both thorough and fair. In the last decade, courts and agencies have grappled with issues ranging from discrimination to the stigmatization of mental health issues in security clearance and suitability adjudications.

This course will examine the intersectionality of national security issues and employment; specifically, how national security concerns shape vetting in federal employment from security clearances to suitability reviews. Moreover, it will serve as an introduction to understanding the interplay of federal case law, executive orders, federal regulations, and agency guidance in this area.

Our major infrastructural industries—electricity, gas, telecommunications, transportation and water—were historically controlled by monopolies. Since the 1980s, efforts to introduce competition into these industries have met obstacles. Battles before legislative bodies, regulatory agencies and courts, at the state and federal levels, have produced a distinct body of law. That body of law—the law of introducing competition into historically monopolistic industries—is the subject of this course.

From the principles learned in the course, students have written papers on such diverse topics as renewable energy, internet, movie production, chicken slaughtering, student loans, pharmaceutical research, Uber, Flint's water crisis, utility corporate form, law school admissions, farms seeds and insecticide, Youtube, private space travel, rare minerals used in solar and wind facilities, Facebook, cloud storage, electric storage, and telemedicine at the VA. Some of these papers have made their way into professional journals or law journals.

Regardless of the industry or era, the regulation of infrastructural monopolies and their competitors has  five common elements: its mission (to align business performance with the public interest); its legal principles (ranging from the state law on exclusive monopoly franchise to federal constitutional protection of shareholder investment); policy flexibility (accommodating multiple public purposes, from service reliability to environmental accountability to protection of vulnerable citizens); reliance on multiple professional disciplines (law, economics, finance, accounting, management, engineering and politics); and formal administrative procedures, such as adjudication and rulemaking.

Today, political challenges are causing policymakers to stretch regulation's core legal principles. Four examples of these challenges are: climate change (e.g., To what extent should we make utilities and their customers responsible for "greening" energy production and consumption?); universal service (e.g., Should we bring broadband to every home, and at whose cost?); privacy (How do regulators induce personal changes in energy consumption while protecting the related data from public exposure?); and protection of our infrastructure from hackers, terrorists and natural catastrophes.

Complicating these political challenges are two sources of constant tension: ideology (e.g., private vs. public ownership, government intervention vs. "free market"); and state-federal relations (e.g., Which aspects of utility service are "national," requiring uniformity; and which are "local," warranting state experimentation?).

This field has many jobs, as new issues emerge and as baby boomers retire. Lawyers play varied roles. They advise clients who are suppliers or customers of regulated services, represent parties before regulatory tribunals, advise those tribunals or their legislative overseers, and challenge or defend those tribunals on judicial review.

The Doctors Trial considered the fate of twenty-three German physicians who either participated in the Nazi program to euthanize persons deemed "unworthy of life" (the mentally ill, mentally retarded, or physically disabled) or who conducted experiments on concentration camp prisoners without consent. The Doctors Trial lasted 140 days. Eighty-five witnesses testified and almost 1,500 documents were introduced. Sixteen of the doctors charged were found guilty. Seven were executed.

The Doctors Trial provides a significant and important example of human rights violations and serves as a lesson in law and bioethics vital to understanding how law evolved from an initial eugenics policy to and including the horrible examples that framed human atrocities during WW II. 

This course will highlight examples from Jeanne Guillemin's "Hidden Atrocites, Japanese Germ Warfare and American Obstruction of Justice at the Tokyo Trial", Joel Dimsdale's  "Anatomy of Malice" examining the psychological assessments necessary for the trials, and Vivien Spitz's "Doctors from Hell", delving deep into the actual court transcripts from the proceedings. Ben Ferenz's work, one of the actual prosecutors at the trials, will also be included as insight into this tragic period. 

Making an Exoneree is a project-based practicum that will involve students in wrongful conviction cases and provide them with experience, knowledge and analytical skills in working with wrongfully-convicted individuals and exploring avenues towards exoneration. The percentage of wrongfully convicted persons is currently estimated to be between 2 and 5%, meaning somewhere between 46,000 and 230,000 innocent persons are currently incarcerated. This practicum will explore the causes behind wrongful convictions and involve law students directly in the complex legal process of building a case in support of, and advocating for, an exoneration (most often, long after the original underlying conviction) on behalf of several wrongfully convicted individuals. 

Making and Exoneree was created by Marc Howard and Marty Tankleff, who share a unique connection and history: childhood friends since the age of three, they know about wrongful convictions through personal experience – Tankleff spent over 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and Howard played a role in securing his exoneration. Every spring semester since 2018, under the guidance of Howard and Tankleff, fifteen highly motivated Georgetown University undergraduate students reinvestigate five probable wrongful conviction cases, produce short documentaries, and create social media campaigns, websites, and petitions advocating for exoneration. 

Law students will play an instrumental role in reviewing, analyzing and synthesizing their assigned individual’s legal case materials. They will document the procedural history of the case, perform legal research, synthesize complex case materials and legal precedent and otherwise participate in developing, assessing and advocating for different legal and related strategies that might lead to exoneration. They will contribute to identifying areas for reinvestigation, managing teams of undergraduate students doing reinvestigation, and preparing and presenting (orally and in writing) an in-depth, critical legal evaluation of their assigned case. In some cases, law students will assist legal counsel. In others, they will contribute to developing visual media, presentations and social media campaigns demonstrating the merits of a case in an effort to obtain legal representation for the person whose case they have been assigned. In 2023, during the practicum's inaugural year, one of the wrongfully convicted individuals walked out of prison after 42 years, in large part, because of the zealous work of the Georgetown Law student assigned to the case. 

This seminar will address aspects of the long and ongoing work to win LGBT freedom, equality, and inclusion. Topics likely will include the freedom to marry, challenges to so-called “sodomy” laws, the efforts to establish the rights of transgender individuals, LGBT parenting, and employment discrimination, as well as such matters as how the movement is structured, how political and legal groups and strategies interact, etc. The approach will be to talk not only about the development of the legal doctrine but also about the cultural and political context in which the struggle has taken place, and how that context contributed to the willingness or unwillingness of courts and politicians to embrace the cause. Readings will include briefs, case law, and selections from secondary sources. Students should finish the course with an understanding of how the law in this area has evolved, where it is going, and how the LGBT movement illustrates some more general aspects of how successful civil rights movements in this country operate.

In a fieldwork practicum course, students participate in a weekly seminar and conduct related fieldwork at an outside organization focused on toxic chemical law. For example, have you ever wondered what is in the food and drink we consume besides the raw agricultural products such as coffee beans or milk? In this course, students will explore the how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Toxic Substances Control Act and other statutes, and the the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) under the Consumer Product Safety Act work together (or don’t) to regulate toxic chemical products in consumer products that are consumed or used in the U.S. every day such as coffee, soft drinks and yogurt. Students will develop real-world lawyering skills such as fact gathering, legal research, drafting, developing guidance or advice, crafting advocacy strategy and more. Students will participate in a two hour/week seminar and also undertake 10 hours/week of fieldwork at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a public-interest nonprofit that advocates on behalf of consumers, and other non-governmental organizations.

SEMINAR: The authority of the FDA, EPA and CPSC to regulate the safety of toxic chemicals in consumer products has evolved as the manufacturing of everyday products has become increasingly industrialized and affected by an array of new technologies that cause the food and drink we regularly consume to contain potentially harmful chemicals. This seminar will utilize legislative and administrative materials as well as case law to enable students to critically evaluate the processes by which the federal government regulates toxic chemicals in consumer products and compare and contrast regulatory schemes for different consumer products. The course will also touch on related topics such as the role of the Federal Trade Commission in the regulation of marketing trade practices related to chemicals in consumer products.

FIELDWORK: In the fieldwork component of this course, students will be assigned to projects at the Environmental Working Group or a similar non-governmental organization. They will have an opportunity to learn how such institutions play a role in representing consumer interests in product safety issues being debated in both the administrative and legislative processes, and in matters subject to litigation.

US Health Law and Diplomacy in a Global Context aims to introduce US health law and policy

through comparative and international lenses. The course will provide interested students with a

broad introduction to key areas of domestic health law (health coverage, public health, product

regulation, social determinants outside the health sector), including divisions of responsibility at the federal, state, and local levels in the unique health policy environment of the US. The course will also provide a basic comparative framework for understanding the US health law and policy systems within the broader experience of high-income countries and other health systems. Moreover, this course will explore the role that the US plays in shaping and engaging in global health law through international law, federal assistance programs, and participation in international organizations. This element of the course will focus on the Constitutional and legal context for US foreign policy relating to health, including critical issues relating to the US role in the World Health Organization. Throughout the course, special attention will be paid to way in which law impacts health, more broadly the notion of “legal determinants of health” as articulated in the final report Lancet- Georgetown Commission on Global Health and Law.

The struggle to respect and ensure universally recognized and protected human rights while also protecting national security raises important and complex legal and policy challenges across a range of issues from the "war on terror" to climate change. This course will address current issues at the intersection of national security and human rights, with an emphasis on the novel and complex questions about the nature of conflict, national security threats, and the place of human rights in the context of the struggle against transnational terrorism after 9/11. These questions are especially salient with regard to state use of force, which involves the deployment of violence against individuals, as well as their seizure, detention, and trial.

In general terms, the current legal approach to dealing with these issues tends to present decision makers with a binary framework that was created with the assumption that conflict between states is the primary threat to international peace and stability. The absence of armed conflict is presumed to constitute peacetime, when human rights law requires that states deal with threats to the peace through law enforcement operations in which lethal force may be used only as a last resort, and exercising physical control over individuals is strictly constrained. Movement from peacetime to war occurs when states use armed force against one another, or when the use of force between non-state organized armed groups (against one another or against a state) reaches sufficient intensity and duration. During this period, the traditional paradigm assumes that international humanitarian law (IHL) largely governs state conduct, and that the demands of human rights law must be adapted to the IHL regime.

International terrorism by non-state actors presents challenges to reliance on this binary peacetime-wartime framework. One possible response is to regard terrorist violence as presumptively occurring during peacetime, which means that terrorism must be addressed under a law enforcement paradigm, which is governed by human rights law. Some critics, however, argue that the scale of destruction inflicted by international terrorist attacks is more akin to wartime damage than domestic criminal activity, and that law enforcement is insufficiently flexible to permit preventive operations. They argue that that international terrorists therefore should be treated as engaged in armed conflict that triggers the application of IHL.

Rules governing the use of force under IHL, however, run the risk of being excessively permissive when applied in settings that do not involve segregated battlefields but terrorists embedded in large civilian populations whose behavior is not unambiguously hostile. Service members are also being increasingly required to carry out activities more akin to law enforcement when undertaking operations amidst these local populations. One response to this is a call for greater incorporation of human rights principles into armed conflict operations in some settings.

There is a pressing need to develop legal concepts to guide operations that blend human rights and national security concerns in a way that does justice to the distinctive nature of many conflicts in the contemporary world. Some commentators and scholars argue that we should eschew the legal categories of human rights law and IHL and focus on forms of regulation that involve highly contextual assessment of the complex competing considerations at stake in particular situations. Others argue that traditional legal categories establish important presumptions, and that human rights law in particular is more flexible about the use of force than many observers realize. Still others suggest that we should consider a new third category to guide the use of force that draws on elements of both law enforcement and armed conflict. This course will assess these and other positions in the debate, with the aim of exploring how best to respond to the challenges that international terrorism and other forms of non-traditional state violence pose for the use of force.

Student learning objectives for the course are to use class sessions and the preparation of a paper:

• To become familiar with basic human rights standards that govern the use of force in law enforcement settings, with particular emphasis on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights;
• To become familiar with basic international law standards that govern the grounds for resort to force (jus ad bellum) and regulate the way force may be used in armed conflicts (jus in bello or law of armed conflict/international humanitarian law); and
• To gain an appreciation of the complex ways in which many current security threats and responses to them have features that do not fall squarely into the categories of either crime subject to law enforcement operations or armed conflict subject to conventional military operations.

The District of Columbia has a unique position as the seat of the United States government.  Because it is not a state, it does not have a voting representative in the U.S. Congress. It has limited powers of home rule, and did not even receive its current form of home rule until a 1973 Act of Congress. Its power remains limited even as to matters affecting entirely local interests. Indeed, Article1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution vests Congress with the power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases over the District, and it has done so for matters ranging from budget control to marijuana sales. DC has  non-voting representatives in each Chamber of Congress who did not have a staff, offices on Capitol Hill, or budgets, and a Delegate to the House of Representative who can participate in hearings, but does not have a vote.  In some respects, DC is like a U.S. territory, and yet, unlike territories, it does not have a clearly designated path to statehood. For many reasons, the residents of the District of Columbia have repeatedly sought statehood primarily in order to have representation and to have autonomy over its own laws, budget, and constituency, and each time the effort has failed. 

At the same time, within the narrow ambit of its home rule power, DC is a vibrant, thriving city. It has overall high income levels, with DC taxes paying the highest per capita income taxes in the nation. It has a population of over 700,000 residents, most of them full-time, larger than the population of two American states, and larger than the population of at least one state when it was admitted to the Union. That DC is a “transient city” is a myth. In fact, until recently, DC had a majority-Black population, and has for over a hundred years been a center of culture and education for Black residents, nurturing institutions like Howard University and the U Street corridor.

DC has a unitary school district, its own metropolitan transit system, and its own Mayor, an elected Attorney General, a city Council, and its own court system. The DC Council is the legislative body in DC made up of 13 members – 8 Councilmembers each of whom represent one of the eight wards in the District, 4 of whom represent the city “at large”, and one Chairman. It has a unique system of sublocal governance through its Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs). It has a police department, and a National Guard, but, as we saw on January 6, the Mayor cannot call up the Guard in the same way other Governors can on their own accord. We have also seen how the police powers of DC are constrained by the relationship with federal property and federal law enforcement agencies in the district.

DC also faces challenges in developing housing and infrastructure. Because of deep disparities in income, it has been subject, in some areas, to rapid gentrification. At the same time, through its Master Plan, and by dint of the efforts of Councilmembers, the construction of affordable housing and limiting the exodus of longtime residents is a policy priority.

DC has also distinguished itself as a best practice model in two areas: its pursuit of local climate policy, including a commitment to net-zero carbon use; and its efforts to distinguish itself as a world-class city, with subnational diplomacy and networks with mayors both in the US and globally. 

In this class, we will look at the unique structure of DC government within the contexts of our our federalist system its governance structure and institutions, and some of the policy challenges it faces. We will discuss the movement for DC statehood, including its historical and justice-related underpinnings. The class is taught by Professor Chertoff, who studies state and local government. Several guest speakers are expected.   

The assessment for the class will offer students the opportunity to participate in one of two exercises: a mock hearing in the DC Council on a contemporary bill; or a mock negotiation of a Community Benefit Agreement, an agreement designed to incorporate stakeholder input in the development that is occurring so rapidly in many formerly underserved parts of the District.  

This course will introduce the legal principles governing the acquisition, use, and conservation of water resources, with an emphasis on the historic development of water allocation systems and the challenges posed by climate change. The course will first explore how states have developed competing allocation schemes — riparianism, prior appropriation, and hybrid systems —in response to local conditions and inquire how those systems can respond to changing climatic conditions. The course will next examine the federal government’s role in water allocation through its various and competing interests, including, navigation, flood control, reclamation, conservation, and protection of Native American water rights. The course will also survey mechanisms for resolving water disputes between states, through interstate compacts and Supreme Court original actions, and among nations, through treaties and arbitration. The course materials will include case law, legislation, and academic commentary. Throughout the course, traditional water law principles will be examined in the context of current concerns over climate change.  

This course provides a survey of the key elements of domestic water resources law and policy, as well as selected international topics. Students will study the relevant state and federal law, legal opinions and interpretations, and development of underlying policies relating to water resources. The course will provide an overview of the basic doctrines relating to water law – prior appropriation and riparianism, and will consider hybrid systems of water allocation developed to address today’s needs and challenges. Students will examine the legal issues surrounding water as a shared regional resource in both domestic and international contexts. The course will review the law of federal and Indian reserved water rights. Finally, the course will address some of the pressing water resources topics of today, such as sustainable management and climate change adaptation in watersheds and river basins in the U.S. and around the globe. We will also address strategies and challenges for addressing future international and domestic water needs. Throughout the course, we will consider the successes and failures of water resources law and policy and prospects for effective water resources management, including conservation, infrastructure development, and the importance of sound science. Students will be expected to participate in class discussions, as well as to complete a final paper. This is a two-credit seminar.

This course will involve an in-depth study of the complex body of laws by which we protect or regulate wildlife, including laws that protect ecosystems and the habitats in which wild animals live. The course will provide an overview of the wildlife common law history that stretches across several centuries and will address wildlife-specific federal laws and their accompanying regulations, including the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The course will also cover civil and criminal enforcement, constitutional and Tribal issues that arise in wildlife cases, as well as international law, including the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

This course will survey the problem of wrongful convictions. We will first examine the primary causes of wrongful convictions, including “junk science,” false confessions, prosecutorial misconduct, misidentifications, jailhouse snitches, and ineffective assistance of counsel. Next, we will explore the legal landscape of actual innocence litigation, including habeas corpus, Section 1983, and the lingering question of whether innocence alone is a constitutional basis for relief. Finally, we will consider the moral, ethical, and philosophical implications of wrongful convictions for our justice system, and the difficulty of administering a functioning system while also correcting its mistakes.

Learning Objectives:

1. We hope that, by the end of this class, you will have a working understanding of the most common causes of wrongful convictions and the most common issues that arise when litigating them.
2. We also hope that, throughout the course, you will develop a broader sense for what the fact of wrongful convictions means for our criminal justice system overall, and what if anything we can improve.
3. Finally, we hope that you will develop and demonstrate improved critical thinking, persuasive writing, and oral advocacy through the written and oral components of this class.