helfra godfrey idalyah
Elisa Rathrock
This is a survey course designed to introduce students to the powers and limitations of administrative agencies and the legal and political mechanisms which regulate them. Emphasis will be placed on coverage of a broad range of topics rather than upon detailed analysis of any particular area. The course's function in the curriculum is to serve as a building block for advanced courses in particular regulatory areas. Students will gain a basic familiarity with the structural and procedural arenas in which administrative agencies operate. Advanced courses can therefore begin with the assumption that students have this basic understanding and proceed quickly to more detailed coverage of the issues as they arise in that particular regulatory context.
In an age when information travels the globe instantaneously and people can travel to almost anywhere worldwide in less than a day, crossing the oceans in ships still takes about the same amount of time as it did 100 years ago. International transportation of everything from cars to computers occurs almost exclusively by water. It is only a matter of time before practitioners encounter Admiralty principles. This course is intended to provide a broad overview of the origins, development, and current status of admiralty law in the United States. The following topics will be discussed: sources of admiralty law; admiralty jurisdiction; maritime torts; maritime bodily injury; maritime contracts; maritime commercial instruments; maritime liens; marine insurance; maritime transportation; pollution; and miscellaneous maritime issues that do not otherwise fit into the above general categories. Guest practitioners will supplement typical class study. Grading will largely be based on a combination essay and objective question final exam.
This seminar will explore the pitfalls and opportunities that often arise in environmental disputes from the perspective of the parties (companies, governments, citizen groups, and indigenous groups) that commonly find themselves in those disputes. This discussion-based seminar will be divided into four parts:
The culmination of this course will be the preparation of a Litigation Strategy Memorandum. Students will pick an environmental dispute that interests them, pick a party in that dispute to represent (e.g. government, private party, citizen group), and draft a memorandum analyzing how the topics we discuss in class would apply to and inform the strategy that the party should take in the dispute.
This course prepares students for research in practice and clerkships. Building on the legal research skills acquired in first-year Legal Writing classes, students will learn effective research strategies and search techniques while becoming familiar with the legal resources commonly used by attorneys in day-to-day practice. This course will cover a wide range of legal research topics, including case law, statutes, court documents, administrative materials, secondary sources, and more. Students will learn through a combination of lectures, assignments, in-class exercises, and other hands-on activities.
This course explores fundamental concepts and techniques of legal and interdisciplinary research. Though the course uses the lens of writing and editing scholarly articles, students will master research skills necessary for practicing law. Students will learn and practice resource selection, research strategies, and citation. Students will be expected to complete weekly assignments and one final take-home exam.
This course will address torts and tort issues not generally covered in first year foundational torts, including business torts such as fraud, negligent misrepresentation, interference with contractual relations; first amendment governed torts such as violation of privacy, defamation, and appropriation of personality; and damages issues such as wrongful death, 'wrongful' life, punitive damages, and purely economic consequential damages. It will emphasize these issues from the point of view of the personal injury or insurance law practitioner rather than from an abstract doctrinal perspective; this course is recommended for those who are preparing for a career involving personal injury and/or insurance practice. There will be no significant overlap between this course and course offerings in products liability and insurance law.
This course will examine the development of tribal justice systems from pre-contact through colonization, and into our modern era of tribal self-government. We will describe modern tribal government activities and explore how disputes are resolved within American Indian nations. We will study comparative tribal constitutional law, the tribal laws governing membership in Indian nations and tribal elections, the nature of legal practice in tribal court, and how one becomes a member of a tribal bar. We will also consider how traditional areas of law are handled by American Indian nations, such as civil rights law, criminal law and procedure, domestic relations, property, contracts, torts, civil procedure, and jurisdiction. Finally, we will look at tribal economies and the role played by tribal administrative law and regulation.
As a predicate to effective social justice advocacy, we need to hone the skills that enable us to live up to our values of anti-racism and pro-equity. These skills include empathy, deep listening, process orientation, collaboration, dialogue, and centering of minoritized voices. This course will provide the opportunity to practice these skills, among others, and to utilize them with equity design thinking to innovate potential solutions to systemic inequities in the communities we inhabit. The course will be co-created: the instructor will provide content for the first approximate 1/3 of the course and everyone will help to determine the content for the remaining 2/3 of the course.
The United States relies on competition rather than government regulation or private cartels to determine what goods are produced and how much is charged for them in most sectors of the economy. This preference for free market rivalry over centralized control is reflected in the federal (and state) antitrust laws: monopolization, mergers, horizontal restraints, and vertical restraints. The main goal of the course is to learn and apply contemporary antitrust analysis, which employs economics, precedent, and public policy in an effort to develop legal principles that advance consumer welfare.
This class builds on the introductory Domestic Violence course and provides students with the opportunity to prepare a full protection order petition with a live client. Students will learn how to create the initial petition, prepare for the ex parte hearing, prepare evidence, including declarations for the return hearing and represent the petitioner in that hearing at the end of the semester. These hearings will occur virtually. Students will learn the specific advocacy skills needed to effectively interview, counsel, and represent Domestic Violence survivors as well as how to write effectively and persuasively in this area of the law.
Experts from the field including court advocates, navigators, as well as attorneys and a commissioner will guest speak in the class. In addition to attending an in-person class weekly for the first eight weeks, each student will be assigned to a supervising attorney from the law firm, McKinley Irvin, with whom they will meet online weekly at an agreed upon time to practice the skills reviewed in class. Finally, students must be available for the date and time that the court holds the hearings at the end of the semester.
Artificial Intelligence and other applications of data science are rapidly transforming the way we make decisions, conduct business, and express ourselves. Our legal institutions are struggling to respond, and policymakers around the world are tweaking, overhauling, or remaking just about every area of law. This course will investigate the emerging legal frameworks being created to address the way Artificial Intelligence is reshaping society. Students will consider local, state, and federal laws, as well as engage in comparative analyses of approaches in other countries. The course also will focus on how AI is reshaping established common law doctrines (including torts, Constitutional Law, statutory civil rights protections, and regulatory approaches such as securities law). No prior technical knowledge is required.
The legal profession has been irreversibly transformed by artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI. This course will explore the uses of both traditional AI and generative AI in the delivery of legal services, including practice management, document review, e-discovery, legal research, document automation, and predictive analytics. Students will have the opportunity to interact with AI tools and practice using these tools effectively and responsibly. Students will also identify how the use of these tools intersects with the rules of professional conduct and broader ethical considerations. No technical experience is necessary to succeed in this course.
This course is a collaboration between the Law School and Washington Lawyers for the Arts, a non-profit organization. Students in the clinic will work with two experienced intellectual property attorneys who serve as adjunct faculty. On the second and fourth Mondays of each month, students will participate with the adjunct faculty in interviewing and advising artists and others seeking legal assistance regarding intellectual property issues. On the remaining Monday(s) of each month, the faculty will engage the students in a variety of lawyering skills activities, including discussions of interviews from the prior week, simulated skills exercises drawing on current developments in intellectual property law, and activities devoted to ethics and professionalism.
For aviation, the course reviews the sources of international aviation law including the International Civil Aviation Organization, and the Montreal Convention which governs international air carrier liability. U.S. aviation law is covered, including the regulatory framework, the role of the FAA and NTSB, aircraft sales transactions, and tort liability analysis. Leading case law is analyzed by way of policy, strategic problem solving, and litigation strategy.
c01484d022