ElectivesAdvanced Legal Writing Seminar This course provides advanced training in analytic and persuasive legal writing. It focuses on clear writing as the natural extension of organization and thorough analysis. The writing exercises use hypotheticals based on actual cases in a variety of practice areas. Students draft and edit short and long documents including letters, litigation documents, memoranda, and legislation. 3 creditsAppellate Drafting This seminar covers the preparation of an appeal from the notice of appeal to the submission of the brief. Students review and prepare various federal and state appellate court papers including notices of appeal, motions for leave to appeal, writs of certiorari, and appellate briefs. The major project of the course involves an actual case pending in a federal or state appellate court. Students analyze the record on appeal, assess the legal issues, develop strategies for the case, and prepare a brief. Through related readings, students also conduct a critical analysis of the appellate judging process. 3 credits Civil Litigation Drafting This seminar covers the preparation of civil litigation papers in a trial court. Students analyze the legal issues raised by hypothetical fact patterns, develop litigation strategies, and prepare various litigation documents including complaints, answers, discovery requests and responses, affidavits, and memoranda of law. 3 credits Civil Rights Litigation Drafting Based on a hypothetical fair housing case, this course is designed to teach students how to draft documents common to civil rights cases. The course is of special interest to students who are contemplating a career in civil rights law, but it also trains students in general civil litigation drafting skills. Students draft pleadings, discovery requests and responses, letters to clients, settlement agreements, and summary judgment motion papers. This offering differs from Civil Litigation Drafting (above) only in being more specialized in its substantive focus. 3 credits Commercial Drafting Seminar: Acquiring a Business This seminar deals with the role of the lawyer in transactional work and the functions of a contract in a transactional setting. The seminar is a practical exercise built around the acquisition of the assets of a business from initial negotiations through closing. Students assume many of the usual roles of junior lawyers in transactional practice, including drafting substantive portions of the acquisition agreement and many collateral documents involved in a typical transaction. The course assists students in sharpening drafting skills, gaining insight into how commercial agreements of all types perform, and learning to recognize and develop solutions to business problems that arise in the process of doing a deal. Students in the seminar attain drafting and business analytical skills that can be utilized in all types of commercial transactions. 3 credits Commercial Drafting Seminar: Business Contracts and Transactions This seminar introduces the basic drafting principles that govern agreements and other instruments used in business transactions. The course focuses not only on business acquisition agreements but also on a broad range of other instruments including employment contracts, commercial leases, license agreements, loan agreements, and statutory filings. The course covers how to structure an agreement, draft clearly, and deal with both business and legal issues. Weekly assignments require each student to draft an agreement or other instrument according to the instructions of a hypothetical client. Students then revise some of these assignments to reflect the professor’s comments and changes in the deal. 2 or 3 credits Criminal Litigation Drafting This class will cover the essential drafting challenges from a simple criminal complaint, through investigation, and on to trial. Working with one fact pattern, the method will be interactive and open-ended. Students will run their own cases using the fact pattern, drafting various documents required at each step. With the aid of criminal attorneys appearing as guest speakers, the class will explore the fundamentals of a safe, persuasive drafting practice from both the defense and government perspective. A background in criminal law or procedure is helpful, though not required. 3 credits Family Law Drafting This course provides students with a firm grounding in understanding and drafting documents most often encountered in matrimonial practice. To facilitate the students’ understanding of the use of particular provisions, there is significant classroom discussion of substantive matrimonial and tax law. The principal focus of the course is on drafting portions of separation agreements including provisions on custody and visitation, child and spousal support, and equitable distribution. Students also prepare prenuptial agreements. 3 credits Intellectual Property Drafting This transactional drafting course focuses on license agreements for copyrights, trademarks, patents and related rights. The course is designed to give students an opportunity to apply drafting and analytic tools to practical, real-life situations. Through a series of out-of-class assignments and in-class drafting exercises of increasing complexity, students are introduced to the science and art of transactional drafting and contract interpretation. The course also studies a number of leading intellectual property cases demonstrating key drafting and interpretive principles. The drafting and reading assignments provide a practical context in which to examine some of the most interesting—and in many cases thorny—issues that arise when granting rights to intellectual property to another party. Students explore intellectual property-related issues that arise in a number of industries, including the entertainment, media, computer, high technology and consumer products industries. 3 credits Legislative Drafting This course teaches basic techniques of statutory and regulatory drafting. Students engage in a series of redrafting and editing exercises and then undertake the original drafting of a series of increasingly complex statutes. Through related readings, the class also explores how the legislative process and principles of statutory interpretation (including the canons of statutory construction and the use of legislative history) affect the drafting process. 3 credits Media Law Drafting In this course students learn to draft documents related to the practice of media law, from traditional media (print publishing, television, and film) to new media (internet and digital distribution). The assignments include pre-publication review of articles and scripts for potential defamation or disparagement claims, copyright and trademark-related drafting (including "lawyer's letters" to clients, advising on the risks of pursuing a particular mark, applications for copyrights/trademarks, and "cease and desist" letters), content licenses, freelance rights agreements, and media-related litigation and mediation documents (including letters demanding retraction/correction, complaints, motion practice, and settlement agreements). The course exposes students to practical drafting situations through real-world fact patterns. 3 credits Public Interest Writing Seminar This intensive writing seminar trains students to think more clearly and to develop and refine their writing skills. Students select a public interest topic of their choice and write a paper of contemporary interest. The course, which is tailored to the needs of individual students, teaches strategies for making writing an easier and more pleasurable process as students develop substantive expertise in their chosen topic. This course may be used to satisfy the upper-class writing requirement. 3 credits Real Estate Drafting In this course students will learn to prepare and revise documents used in commercial real estate transactions from the perspective of each of the parties. Discussions and assignments will be based upon hypothetical fact patterns and mock negotiations by students and guest speakers. The course will teach students to identify legal and business issues that arise in the preparation and revision of documents, and to address them in a clear and well organized fashion. The course will cover letters of intent, real estate brokerage agreements, commercial leases and subleases, contracts for sale of vacant land and condominium units, deeds and easement agreements, and basic construction documents. The course will be useful to students who plan careers in real estate or other transaction-based areas of practice. 3 credits Regulatory Drafting This course introduces students to both litigation and transactional drafting skills in the context of regulated industries. Students follow the life cycle of a regulation, drafting submissions to be filed with various administrative agencies relating to the various stages of regulatory enactment. In addition, students prepare documents for proceedings addressing regulatory waivers and enforcement. Class members will have the opportunity to participate in mock client meetings and administrative litigation proceedings. Particular agencies covered may include SEC, Patent and Trademark Office, FCC, FDA, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Department of Transportation, Department of Homeland Security and the newly proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). 3 credits Trusts and Estates Drafting This course focuses on drafting documents used in estate planning and administration. Substantive law discussions are integrated into exercises in drafting documents commonly used by estate and trust practitioners. These documents include wills, trusts, petitions to the Surrogate’s Court, and beneficiary designations for life insurance policies and retirement funds. 3 credits |
