Electives

Appellate Drafting  This seminar will focus on understanding the appellate process through an actual criminal case – People v. William – currently pending in the New York State Court of Appeals. Students will be assigned as counsel for either appellant, Tony William, or respondent, the People, and be required to analyze the record on appeal, assess the lower court decisions and legal issues, develop strategies for the statement of facts and argument, and write an appellate brief.  The course concludes with oral argument, giving each student an opportunity to practice her/his advocacy skills before a panel of appellate judges, professors, and/or practitioners.  Through related readings and class discussions, students will engage in a critical analysis of the appellate judging process, which should help improve each student’s legal writing strategies and skills.  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
Required pre- or co-requisite: Corporations.

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
Required pre- or co-requisite: Corporations. 
Recommended: Courses in Corporate Finance or Accounting.

Criminal Litigation Drafting
This class will cover the essential drafting challenges from a simple criminal complaint, through investigation, onto trial. We will work with one fact pattern. The method will be interactive, open-ended. Each student will run his or her own case using the fact pattern, drafting various documents required at each step. With the aid of current and former prosecutors appearing as guest speakers, we will explore the fundamentals of a safe, persuasive drafting practice from both the defense and government perspective.  3 credits

Criminal Litigation Drafting: The Complex Prosecution
This course will consider the special drafting challenges presented by the complex prosecution. Working with materials representing the "raw" output of agents and detectives in the wake of September 11, students will investigate a terrorism case. The course will give in-depth consideration to a range of thorny questions--legal, factual, and tactical--that frame the drafting of such critical and sensitive case-making tools as proffer and cooperation agreements, documentary search warrants, pen registers, eavesdropping applications, and multi-party enterprise indictments. Guest speakers from the prosecution and defense will discuss methods of building and attacking these indictments, privacy concerns, and how new technologies (the Web, the internet, and wireless communications) have revolutionized the business of policing in a free society. 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

International Human Rights Drafting
A special course limited to Crowley Scholars to prepare them for the forthcoming human rights mission. 3 credits

Intellectual Property Drafting  Intellectual Property Drafting This transactional drafting course covers license, work for hire, and other agreements involving copyrights, trademarks, rights of publicity, 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, which (depending on the professor) may include the entertainment, advertising, media, sports, publishing, technology and consumer products industries. Agreements featuring patent issues will be addressed, but will not be the main focus of this course. 3 credits.
 
Required prerequisite: Any course in trademark, copyright or patent law.

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

Public Media Drafting  This course will provide practical legal drafting opportunities by examining the intersection of not-for-profit and media law, through the presentation of real world fact patterns.  The course is designed to give students drafting and analytical experience in the area of “public media law” by exploring the issues faced by not-for-profit institutions (such as public television, radio, museums, libraries and universities) in the media context,   Topics and related drafting assignments will include the creation and funding of public media institutions; public media compliance with government regulatory schemes; corporate governance and tax exempt status issues faced by not-for-profit institutions; intellectual property rights ownership; indecency concerns in the public media context; and collaborations between public and for profit media players.  Field trips to media institutions based in New York City will take place as opportunities permit.  No prior knowledge of not-for-profit or media law is required or assumed.  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

Securities Regulations Drafting  This course will introduce students to legal drafting in the securities regulation field. It is designed to provide students with a detailed understanding of the various types of securities documents that the securities practitioner will most commonly be asked to draft or analyze. The course will focus on the legal disclosure requirements for these documents as well as the current drafting practices and conventions of securities practitioners. While the course will cover a broad range of documents and filings required under the federal securities laws, students will spend a substantial portion of the semester drafting a Registration Statement on Form S-1 for a hypothetical corporate client engaged in a hypothetical initial public offering (“IPO”) of its common stock. Each week students will analyze, research and draft various sections of Form S-1 based on a continuing stream of information provided by the client about the company and the IPO. Students will also meet with the professor in individual conferences to be held outside of class. By the end of the semester, students will have produced a complete Registration Statement on Form S-1 and gained a detailed understanding of the process of drafting securities documents.  3 credits

Pre or co-requisites: Securities Regulation and Corporations

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