CURRICULUM

Course Descriptions:  Law and Other Disciplines

590 Jurisprudence (2 or 3) 
Galston

Basic jurisprudential concepts; nature of law; development of legal institu-tions; jurisprudential schools—natural law, analytical, historical, sociological, functional; law and logic; law and justice; the judicial process; legislative, executive, administrative decision making; impact of politics, economics, and scientific advance on legal systems; contemporary trends in jurispru-dential thought. (Examination)


591 U.S. Legal History (2 or 3) 
Cottrol

Examination of the history of U.S. law from the seventeenth century to the -present. Topics include Anglo-American constitutionalism, the reception and transformation of the common law, slavery and the law, race and gender in U.S. law, corporations, labor and the rise of the regulatory state, and legal education and the legal profession in U.S. history. (Research paper)


592 Jurisprudence Seminar (2 or 3) 
Mitchell

Selected topics in legal theory to be announced at the time of registration. Enrollment is limited. (Research paper or examination)


593 Professional Responsibility and Ethics Seminar (2)
 
Selected topics in professional responsibility and ethics. Intensive study of questions of lawyer responsibility and ethics raised by professional codes and moral philosophy. Prerequisite: Law 218. Enrollment is limited. (Re-search paper)


594 History of the U.S. Constitution (2 or 3) 
Wilmarth

Examination of the philosophical and historical background of the U.S. Constitution, including the writings of Locke and Montesquieu, with par-ticular attention to social contract theory, natural law, and separation of powers principles. Consideration of the relevance of these concepts to the debates surrounding the drafting and ratification of the Constitution and the original Bill of Rights, and the degree to which these concepts have been reflected in decisions of the Supreme Court, including selected deci-sions of the Marshall Court and several more recent decisions. (Take-home examination or research paper with permission of the instructor)


595 Race, Racism, and American Law (2 or 3) 
Butler

Examination of the influence of race and racism on the development of law in the United States. The use of law by legislatures and judges, both to enforce and to remedy racism in selected contexts, possibly including criminal justice, voting rights, public accommodations, education, em-ployment, housing, free speech, and family law. The course will also con-sider the utility of critical race theory as a method of legal analysis. (Ex-amination)


596 Law of Race and Slavery (2) 
Cottrol

The role of legal norms and processes in developing patterns of slavery and race relations in the United States and other societies. Application of themes and methods from comparative and historical sociology to the study of legal history. Topics include the legal origins of slavery in the Americas, law and racial classifications, social and economic conse-quences of legal discrimination, and legal remedies and the undoing of systems of discrimination. Comparative study of the history of race rela-tions in the United States, Latin America, and South Africa. Enrollment is limited. (Research paper) 


597 Legal History Seminar (2 or 3) 
Tsuk Mitchell
 
Selected topics in legal history to be announced at the time of registration. Enrollment is limited. (Research paper)


598 Law and Economics (2 or 3) 
Barnes

An introduction to the main features of the “Law and Economics” move-ment, with particular attention to the content, application, and criticisms of the Coase theorem. Topics include a brief review of essential aspects of price theory (including the concept of a competitive price equilibrium), an introduction to the principal notions of welfare optimality (including Pareto and Hicks–Kaldor efficiency), and the problems posed by externalities and public goods. Emphasis on some of the classical works in this field and applications to specific decisions. (Examination)


601 History of the Common Law (3)  
Lerner

The history of legal procedure and institutions in England and the United States, in particular the relationships among judges, juries, and lawyers in civil and criminal cases. Development of rules of evidence; links between law and equity. How changes in politics, society, and economics affect le-gal procedures and courts. Origins of the adversarial legal system and comparisons with the inquisitorial system on the European continent and elsewhere. (Examination or research paper with permission of the instruc-tor)


602 Law and Accounting (2 or 3) 
Cohen

Study of fundamental accounting principles with emphasis on corporation accounting; legal and accounting implications of specific items in financial statements of corporations; inventory adjustments; corporate transactions, distributions, capital adjustments. Strongly recommended for students who have had no accounting. (Examination and problem assignments)


604 Quantitative Analysis for Lawyers (2 or 3) 
Halpern, Cavanaugh

Introductory course for lawyers that does not assume or require advanced mathematical skills. Application of non-legal methods of analysis in public policy problems with attendant evidentiary requirements, including the ef-fective use of experts. Principal non-legal methods of policy analysis, in-cluding micro-economic analysis (basic price theory and industrial organi-zation), financial analysis (including the roles of financial institutions), and statistical analysis. Introduction to basic analytic concepts and terminol-ogy/jargon, common applications of the analysis in the law, and practical problems of expert witnesses. (Examination or research paper with per-mission of the instructor)


606 Law and Literature (2 or 3) 
DeSanctis, Schaller

The ways in which the law is depicted in literature, and how literary interpre-tation can be applied to legal texts. Literary and philosophical works of short to moderate length by Melville, Kafka, Shakespeare, Capote, Morrison, Garcia Marquez, and Faulkner, among others. (Research paper and oral presentations)


608 Feminist Legal Theory (2 or 3) 
Ridder

Law and society studied from the point of view of women. The course fo-cuses on feminist jurisprudential treatment of gender and examines the prospects for sex equality under the law. Enrollment is limited. (Research paper)


610 Cultural History and the Lawyer Seminar (2)  
Proto

The importance of the cultural and historical background of a controversial issue to the development of a successful legal argument. Analysis of cases and statutes; lawyer “models” and the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility; experiences of Thurgood Marshall, William Rehnquist, Louis Brandeis, and others as students and lawyers. (Writing projects)


612 Law and Anthropology (2) 
R. Palmer

Cultural aspects of law in the context of various societies. Traditional African dispute resolution and the changes brought about by colonialism; Native American political structures; Gypsy courts; the relative legal rights of insid-ers and outsiders in small-scale European communities; non-legal resolu-tion of disputes in urban neighborhoods in the United States. Legal rules and cultural traditions of these and other societies compared in terms of economic efficiency, personal responsibility and freedom, and ethical bal-ance. (Take-home examination)


614 Law and Psychiatry (2) 
Blackmon

The problems and legal issues raised by the interface of psychiatry and the law: informed consent, privacy, the insanity defense, civil and crimi-nal commitment under questions of legal competency, forced medication, and disability law with reference to the mentally ill. Evolving trends in pro-fessional standards, constitutional rights, legislative rights, ethics, licens-ing, contracts, and torts in the relationships among the psychiatric pro-fession, the law, and the mentally ill. The role of psychiatric experts, standards of admissibility, and weight
of evidence and their impacts on the relationship between the law and the mentally ill. (Take-home examination)


615 Law and Psychology (2) 
Kirkpatrick

The intersection of law and psychology. Eyewitness identification, poly-graph evidence, hypnotically refreshed memory, recovered memory, syn-drome and profile evidence, jury selection, jury decision making, stan-dards of expert testimony, and predicting dangerousness. (Research pa-per)


616 Genetics and the Law (2 or 3) 
Suter

Examination of the legal and ethical issues that genetics research and technology present. Topics include eugenics; the Human Genome Pro-ject; ethical, legal, and regulatory issues associated with clinical genetics and various types of genetic testing; possible discriminatory uses of ge-netic information by employers, insurers, and others; legislative attempts to protect the privacy and confidentiality of genetic information; ownership of genetic samples and information; patent law issues; forensic uses of genetic information; gene therapy; and cloning. (Examination)


617 Law and Medicine (2 or 3) 
Rabecs

Examination of legal and ethical issues that arise in the doctor–patient relationship and medical decision making. Topics include informed con-sent; human experimentation; personhood; reproduction, including ad-vanced technologies and prevention; patients’ rights; death, dying, and limits on intervention; hard choices; and public policy issues. (Take-home examination)