Courses of Study 2013-2014 
    
    May 15, 2024  
HELP
Courses of Study 2013-2014 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Course Descriptions

 

LAW—Law
  

  • LAW 7158 - Deals Seminar: Emerging Growth Companies and Venture Capital Financing: Principles and Practice


    Fall. 2 credits.

    Prerequisite: Business Organizations. Attendance mandatory at first class.

    S. Levy, B. Yaghmaie.

    The start-up high technology enterprise, privately financed largely with funds provided by angel investors and venture capital firms, is a successful source of important new and technologically innovative products.  Many highly visible and successful companies have raised venture capital at some point in their life cycle.  This course covers the legal and business issues that arise in the context of representing emerging growth companies and the venture capital investors who provide an important source of capital to such companies. In particular, the course will focus on the legal issues typically encountered by private companies at formation, financing, operation and key corporate events, including acquisition transactions and public offerings. Topics covered will include corporate formation and governance, angel investments (both equity and debt), venture capital financing, employment and equity compensation matters, protection of intellectual property, securities laws compliance, venture debt financing and exit strategies through merger, acquisition or initial public offering. The course will offer an introduction to these topics through the eyes of attorneys who practice in a leading Silicon Valley-based law firm active in New York City’s technology market and may also include guest presentations by industry participants, such as venture capitalists, angel investors and entrepreneurs.

  

  • LAW 7159 - Deals Seminar: Bank Loan Transactions


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Prerequisite: Business Organizations. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    C. Fox.

    This seminar explores how bank loans are used by businesses to finance acquisitions, growth and working capital needs.  A significant amount of time will be spent learning how to analyze and draft credit and security documents, and how specific contract provisions are employed to advance the business objectives of both borrowers and lenders.  We will explore the fundamental differences between bank loans and debt securities, and the ways in which the markets for these two kinds of investments are converging.  A particular area of focus will be how three areas of substantive law - secured transactions law, bankruptcy law and corporate law - come into play in the structuring and documenting of a typical secured bank loan.  We will also examine some of the legal and economic issues that arise when bank loans need to be restructured.

  

  • LAW 7160 - Deals Seminar: Law and Investment Banking - The General Counsel’s Perspective


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Prerequisite: Business Organizations. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    N. Radey.

    This seminar will focus on the legal and compliance issues faced by a large global financial institution, preparing students to advise financial institutions on issues arising in the current regulatory environment.  We will begin with an overview of how an investment bank is organized, the role of the legal and compliance department and some of the key issues these institutions have faced over the last decade and in the current environment.

    Through the use of case studies, the seminar will investigate various real and apparent conflicts of interest, focusing on information barriers, the evolving role of the research analyst function, the research settlement, and Regulation FD.  In addition, we will explore the issues surrounding internal investigations, highlighting the legal principles as well as practicalities involved in working with various stakeholders, including employees, regulators and investors.  Additional topics include the capital commitment process, New Product review and approval processes, as well as key documentation issues.  We will conclude with a discussion of significant changes implemented under Dodd-Frank, particularly in the derivatives area, and under the Volker Rule. There will be a final paper. The course also will include a session in New York where students will tour a global bank.

  

  • LAW 7162 - Contemporary American Jury


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement.

    V. Hans.

    This course evaluates claims about the benefits and drawbacks of the contemporary American jury. Drawing on the work of legal scholars and social scientists, we will explore a range of topics relating to criminal and civil juries, including: jury selection; the use of jury consultants; juror perceptions of attorneys, evidence, and experts; individual and group decision making processes; jury instructions; jury deliberations; damage awards; juries in death penalty cases; and jury reform. By studying legal and empirical scholarship about the jury, and by writing their own research papers about a jury topic, seminar participants should develop insights into jury trial functioning and policy debates over the jury’s role.

  

  • LAW 7163 - Deals Seminar: Financial Derivatives


    Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Prerequisite: LAW 6131 .  Satisfies the writing requirement.

    G. Barnett, G. Scopino.

    This seminar focuses on core derivative instruments - swaps, futures, options and other derivative financial instruments - that are regulated by the Commodity Exchange Act and related regulations. It examines the key terms and characteristics of swaps, futures, options and other derivatives, including how they are typically structured and used. The seminar also reviews the regulatory framework that governs these financial agreements, including the regulation of key market participants and key market structures. The seminar also will examine emerging legal issues involving derivatives, including coordination with international regulators and cross-border jurisdiction issues, the limits imposed by traditional confidentiality restrictions in an environment that is demanding greater information sharing for regulatory and other purposes, as well as enforcement issues, including fraud and market manipulation. The seminar will enable students to research specific issues related to the regulation of derivatives.

  

  • LAW 7165 - Current Debates in Criminal Law


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    S. P. Garvey.

    This seminar will explore a number of theoretical issues arising within the substantive criminal law. Possible topics include the justifications for state punishment; theories of excuse; the heat of passion defense; the legitimacy of imposing punishment for negligence; the relevance of resulting harm to criminal liability; the defenses of duress and insanity; and the doctrine of imperfect self-defense.

  

  • LAW 7166 - Deals Seminar: Capital Markets Transactions


    Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    The course can be used to satisfy the writing requirement or the skills requirement, but not both. Limited enrollment.

    J. Junewicz.

    This seminar examines selected legal issues and documents in connection with capital raising transactions by companies and investment banks in the United States securities markets. Initial public offerings and offerings of investment grade and high yield debt securities will receive special focus. The seminar will review the essential aspects of equity and debt securities offerings such as the preparation of the prospectus, investor protection covenants in debt offerings, the indemnification and other key provisions of underwriting agreements, and the due diligence process. The seminar will include negotiation and problem-solving exercises, basic drafting, and student analyses of deal-related issues.

  

  • LAW 7169 - Deals Seminar: Real Estate Transactions


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Limited enrollment. The course can be used to satisfy the skills requirement.

    N. Bernardo, R. Wertheimer.

    Students will learn to prepare customary commercial real estate transactional agreements, such as purchase and sale contracts, management, development and joint venture agreements, space and ground leases, debt financing instruments and commitment letters and term sheets, with particular attention given to the give and take involved in negotiating these documents and their business rationale.

  

  • LAW 7170 - East Asian Law and Culture Seminar


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the skills or writing requirement, but not both. With the permission of the instructor a student will be permitted to take this seminar more than once. Everyone wishing to take course for credit must attend first class. Cannot be taken concurrently with LAW 7171 .

    A. Riles.

    With many of the world’s most dynamic economies now in East Asia, today’s law graduates are more likely than ever to be involved with legal issues from that region. At the same time, legal problems in East Asia, from human rights, to judicial and legal education reform, to conflicts over labor, environmental and minority rights, to local debates about medical and scientific regulation and ethics, are invaluable sources of comparative insight about our own legal system. This seminar introduces students to the challenges and opportunities of studying law and culture in East Asia from a sophisticated interdisciplinary perspective. Students will participate in a semester-long colloquium and conference series on law and culture in East Asia in which Cornell faculty and guest speakers from around the world will present new research on current legal issues in the region. Students will be required to read a series of background materials in preparation for each seminar and to write six three- to five-page papers responding to the presentations. Everyone who wishes to take the course for credit must attend the first class.

  

  • LAW 7171 - East Asian Law and Culture Colloquium


    Fall. 1 credit. S-U grades only.

     This offering does not satisfy the writing requirement. Cannot be taken concurrently with LAW 7170 .

    A. Riles.

    Students will participate in a semester-long colloquium and conference series on law and culture in East Asia in which Cornell faculty and guest speakers from around the world will present new research on current legal issues in the region. Attendance and participation in all of the 6 to 8 scheduled colloquia as well as the annual Clarke Lecture and Conference is required. Students will prepare a 3-5 page response paper summarizing key findings of one workshop event for a wider public audience over the course of the semester.

  

  • LAW 7180 - [Election Law]


    Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the requirement requirement.

    J. Stiglitz.

    This course examines the laws governing elections. Topics include campaign finance, election administration, districting and gerrymandering. The course gives attention to questions of whether and how the laws promote democratic objectives. Students will write a seminar paper and give a short presentation to the class.

  

  • LAW 7195 - Estate Planning


    Spring. 3 credits.

    The course can be used to satisfy the writing requirement or the skills requirement, but not both.

    M. O’Toole.

    This course examines estate planning from simple testamentary planning to more sophisticated testamentary and lifetime planning. The course reviews the federal estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax, state transfer taxes and those aspects of income taxation pertinent to estate planning. The course will examine sophisticated estate planning in some detail, including qualifying dispositions for the marital and charitable deductions, postmortem planning, the use of valuation discounts, and techniques involving life insurance, closely held business interests, qualified plan benefits and individual retirement accounts, personal residences and qualification for governmental entitlements. The course will review issues in drafting Wills and trusts. The course will review planning for disability through powers of attorney and health care proxies. The course will review ethical considerations in the practice of estate planning and acting as a family counselor.

  

  • LAW 7196 - Europe and the United States: Fiscal and Political Choices and Economic Consequences


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement.

    R. Minella.

    The purpose of this course is to examine the political and fiscal choices of Europe and the United States, and examine the economic consequences of them. The books chosen for study will be Boomerang by Michael Lewis, Currency Wars by James Rickards, The New Road to Serfdom by Daniel Hannan and Coming Apart by Charles Murray. One further book may be added. The format for the seminar will be to read the books, discuss them in class, and then write an essay about some aspect of the book being written about. The class will then discuss the various topics suggested by the papers. As Europe is further along the “social democratic path” than the United States, we will examine a number of developments taking place in Europe and seek to understand their implications as they relate to the United States.

  

  • LAW 7201 - [Empirical Studies of the Legal System]


    Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    T. Eisenberg.

    This seminar introduces students to empirical analysis of legal issues. We will use a statistics package called Stata. The seminar will be conducted in three stages. Stage 1, lasting about four weeks, will give an overview of empirical studies, statistics, and Stata. In Stage 2, lasting about four weeks, students will plan their own empirical projects, and begin gathering the data to be analyzed. A short paper due during this period will include a literature review, set forth the empirical study to be conducted, and suggest how the results will further understanding of the legal system. In Stage 3, students will analyze data, write a paper, and present the findings to the seminar. Students are free to choose their own research topics. I can also recommend several.

  

  • LAW 7231 - [Ethnoracial Identity in Anthropology, Language, and Law]

    (crosslisted)
    (also ANTHR 6424 , AMST 6424 , LSP 6424 )
    Spring. 4 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    V. Santiago-Irizarry.

    For description, see ANTHR 6424 .

  

  • LAW 7232 - Ethical Issues in Criminal Investigations, Prosecutions and Policy


    Fall. 3 credits.

    The course satisfies the professional responsibility requirement. In addition, the course can be used to satisfy the writing requirement or the skills requirement, but not both. Limited enrollment.  Attendance mandatory at the first class session.

    M. Bachrach.

    This seminar explores the role of government lawyers and defense counsel in complex investigations and prosecutions, including white collar criminal cases and matters involving terrorism. We will examine relatively recent cases and proceedings, including, for example: the disbarment of Michael Nifong, prosecutor of the Duke Lacrosse team members; cases and guidelines regarding disclosure in criminal cases; cases against criminal defense attorneys Lynne Stewart, Robert Simels and Arienne Irving; the KPMG case (United States v. Stein) and issues relating to deferred prosecutions. We will also address the role of government lawyers in advising on the treatment of detained persons during interrogation. In doing so, we will read declassified memoranda and reports written by and about lawyers from the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice on the use of torture in investigations conducted as part of the war on terrorism.

  

  • LAW 7239 - Corporate Governance and Corporate Scandals


    Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Prerequisite: LAW 6131  or with the instructor’s approval, a corequisite. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    G. Fletcher.

    How has corporate governance changed in the past 30 years? Have these changes been beneficial to shareholders, managers, stakeholders or the general public? What effect have financial crises and corporate scandals had on the evolution of corporate governance standards? Standards of “good corporate governance” have morphed dramatically from one in which managers and directors are able to ignore shareholders without repercussions, to one in which shareholders are more active in the companies in which they invest. Further, with each new financial crisis or corporate scandal, corporate governance makes a simultaneous step, which may be over- and under-inclusive of the issues present in these crises or scandals. In this seminar, our focus will be on scandal and crisis response legislations, such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank, the rise of proxy advisory firms, executive compensation and pay-for-performance metrics, increased importance of institutional investors, and other current issues in corporate governance. Further, we will investigate the influence of corporate governance norms on the legal and ethical responsibilities of lawyers and other business professionals, as they assist corporations navigate the ever-changing corporate governance landscape. Business Organizations is a pre-requisite or, with the instructor’s approval, a co-requisite. Grades will be based on class participation, reading responses, and a final paper.

  

  • LAW 7260 - Federal Appellate Practice


    Fall. 3 credits.

    This course can be used to satisfy the writing requirement or the skills requirement, but not both. Attendance mandatory at first class.

    J. Blume, R. Wesley.

    This seminar will explore federal appellate practice in the Supreme Court of the United States and the federal courts of appeal from the perspective of a litigator with insights from the bench. The focus of the course will primarily be on procedural and substantive constitutional issues pending before the Supreme Court of the United States, but issues percolating in the federal courts of appeal may be addressed as well. Students will each argue two cases currently pending on the Supreme Court’s docket, and will write one brief in either a pending Supreme Court or court of appeals case. Students will also participate as judges, with the faculty, in some cases and also, on occasion, be required to make a brief argument on short notice on issues raised in class. Enrollment is limited to 12 Students. The class will meet on the following days: August 28th, September 4th, September 25th and 26th, October 2nd and 3rd, October 30th and 31st, November 6th and 7th , November 13th and 14th, December 4th.

  

  • LAW 7261 - [Feminist Jurisprudence]


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    C. G. Bowman.

    This seminar examines the role of law, and, more generally, the role of the state, in perpetuating and remedying inequities against women. After studying the historical emergence of sexual equality law in the United States, we discuss a number of paradigmatic feminist legal theories, including formal equality, MacKinnon’s “dominance” theory, relational feminism, pragmatic feminism, and various anti-essentialist theories (e.g., critical race feminism and intersectionality). We then proceed to apply these analytical structures to various substantive areas of law of particular concern to women, including but not limited to rape and other types of violence against women; pornography; prostitution; abortion, surrogacy and other reproductive rights issues. Students present their own research on other issues to the class. Grade based on paper and class participation.

  

  • LAW 7281 - [First Amendment Theory]


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    Staff.

    An examination of competing theories about the scope and justification of freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of religion. The seminar will consider free speech theories focused on liberty, formal equality, self-government, public morality, dissent, and anti-domination; the relationship of various conceptions of democracy to freedom of press; and various conceptions regarding the optimal relationship between church and state. Among the more specific topics at issue in some of the readings are commercial speech, pornography, flag burning, subsidies of the arts, campaign finance, the structure of the mass media, government involvement with religious symbols, and vouchers to religious schools.

  

  • LAW 7283 - Citizenship in American Constitutional Thought


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    A. Rana.

    What has it meant in the past and what does it mean today to be an American? What are the benefits and responsibilities entailed by membership in the polity, and to what extent have these benefits presupposed formal American nationality? This seminar will use the law of citizenship to explore the historical and philosophical linkages in the U.S. between full inclusion and judgments about property ownership, race, gender, and immigration. In the process, we will also assess how distinct ideologies (ranging from republican self-government to the national security discourse) have altered accounts of political participation, economic independence, and external threat. These topics will be addressed by a close reading of landmark cases (including Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Minor v. Happersett, United States v. Wong Kim Ark) as well as seminal books in the political history and theory of U.S. citizenship.

  

  • LAW 7291 - Global and Regional Economic Integration: The WTO, EU, and NAFTA


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement.

    J. J. Barceló III.

    The seminar studies the process of international economic integration occurring both globally and regionally. In the global context it takes up a basic introduction to WTO law and selected problems. In the regional context it takes up a basic introduction to the European Union, including the institutional and lawmaking processes, the direct effect and supremacy of EU law, and the development of the four freedoms (goods, services, persons, and capital). A basic introduction to NAFTA will also be included. Student seminar papers may deal with issues arising within any of these regimes, or any other regional regime. Comparative studies will be encouraged.

  

  • LAW 7292 - Health Care Law


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    M. Frakes.

    This survey course provides an overview and analysis of the law and policy applicable to health care financing and delivery in the United States. The course is broadly divided into three units. Unit One covers the basic right to health, the duty to treat, and the core doctor-patient relationship, including such topics as informed consent, confidentiality of medical information and licensure. Unit Two covers medical malpractice liability and additional rules and regulations designed to deter, and compensate for, medical errors. Unit Three addresses the existing sources of health care insurance and financing in the United States and explores the various laws governing the insurance market, including such topics as Medicare, Medicaid, ERISA preemption, and managed care liability. Unit Three will also examine current efforts to reform health care insurance, financing, and delivery. Additional topics explored in the course will include drug regulation, provider reimbursement, the corporate structure of hospitals, and the application of antitrust law to health care.

  

  • LAW 7311 - Immigration and Refugee Law


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Prerequisite: Constitutional Law. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    S. W. Yale-Loehr.

    This course explores the evolving relationship between U.S. immigration policy and our national purposes. Immigration plays a central role in contemporary American life, significantly affecting our foreign relations, human rights posture, ethnic group relations, labor market conditions, welfare programs, public services, and domestic politics. It also raises in acute form some of the most basic problems that our legal system must address, including the rights of insular minorities, the concepts of nationhood and sovereignty, fair treatment of competing claimants for scarce resources, the imperatives of mass administrative justice, and pervasive discrimination. In approaching these questions, the course draws on diverse historical, judicial, administrative, and policy materials.

  

  • LAW 7321 - International Criminal Law


    Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    M. Ndulo.

    The seminar examines the questions surrounding international criminal law as a separate discipline and the sources of and basic principles underlying the subject. Particular attention will be paid to the question of jurisdiction over international crimes. It will consider international crimes such as aggression; war crimes, crimes against humanity, terrorism, and torture. It will also consider the treatment of past human rights violations in post conflict situations. It will further consider procedural aspects of international criminal law and the forums that deal with international crimes. In that context, it will look at the structure, jurisdiction and jurisprudence of Truth Commissions; the International Criminal Court (The Rome Statute); the former Yugoslavia Tribunal; Rwanda Tribunal and extradition and mutual legal assistance. The format will be class discussions of assigned readings. Final assessment in the course will be based on participation in class discussions and a written paper on a subject falling within the themes of the seminar. Paper topics must be submitted to the instructor for review not later than the third week of class. Each student is expected to give a presentation based on his or her paper to the class.

  

  • LAW 7322 - International Taxation


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Prerequisite: Federal Income Taxation. LLM students who have not taken Federal Income Taxation must secure permission of the instructor. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    R. A. Green.

    This seminar examines the principles underlying the U.S. taxation of U.S. persons who earn income abroad and the U.S. taxation of foreign persons who earn income in the United States.

  

  • LAW 7358 - International Environmental Law


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    K. S. Porter.

    The development of international environmental law since the 1960s is a remarkable exercise in law making. This course will review this development, its legal foundations and fundamental principles. It will outline the framework within which the principles and rules of international environmental law apply. The framework comprises the legal nature of states, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, treaties and other legal instruments such as UN resolutions. The course will consider the adequacy of this legal system in addressing regional and global needs to achieve sustainability. Critical aspects of sustainability include: climate change, increasing frequency and magnitude of disasters including droughts and floods, marine resources, energy, biodiversity, genetic resources and associated intellectual property issues, and trade and economic development. These crosscutting challenges must balance conflicting goals of economic development and environmental sustainability. Such challenges involve basic considerations of human rights, such as the human right to water, and in particular the self-determination of indigenous peoples. A major component of the course will be individual projects selected by each student with the instructor’s approval.

  

  • LAW 7371 - Islamic Law and History


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Attendance is mandatory at the first class meeting. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    D. S. Powers.

    This course is designed to introduce law students to the terminology, principles, and concepts of classical Islamic law. After discussing the origins and evolution of Islamic law, we will turn first to the organization of qadi courts (procedure and evidence) and then to specific areas of the law, e.g., personal status (marriage and divorce), the intergenerational transmission of property (bequests, gifts, and endowments), commerce (contracts, hire, allocation of loss), and crime. The application of legal doctrine to actual disputes will be analyzed through the reading of expert judicial opinions or fatwas (in English translation) issued in connection with medieval and modern court cases.

  

  • LAW 7374 - [Judicial Opinion Writing]


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. The course can be used to satisfy the writing requirement or the skills requirement, but not both. Limited enrollment.

    Staff.

    Judicial opinions are a fundamental part of our legal system. Well-written opinions share many common characteristics making them effective resolutions of current disputes as well as helpful precedent for the resolution of future disputes. This course is an excellent class for future judicial clerks as well as second-year students who may want to apply for clerkships next year. This course includes a study of cases briefed and argued at the Supreme Court during the current Fall Term and will require students to research, write, and revise majority and dissenting opinions in various cases based upon a careful consideration of the briefs, an oral argument, and any applicable precedent.

  

  • LAW 7392 - Jurisprudence of War


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    J. Ohlin.

    An investigation of the deeper theoretical and conceptual problems underlying the Law of War. Covered topics will include the collective nature of genocide, aggression, and crimes against humanity; modes of liability in international criminal law, including the doctrines of conspiracy, joint criminal enterprise, co-perpetration, and command responsibility; and current controversies from the War on Terror, including terrorism, torture, extraordinary rendition, and targeted killings. Students are required to write a seminar paper on a topic to be chosen in consultation with the professor.

  

  • LAW 7393 - [Jurisprudence and Normative Political Theory]

    (crosslisted)
    (also GOVT 7606 )
    Fall. 4 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    A.M. Smith.

    For description, see GOVT 7606 .

  

  • LAW 7394 - Labor Migration and Trafficking


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement.

    C. Thomas.

    A new, rapidly evolving body of international and domestic law focuses on human trafficking and human smuggling. This course will focus on understanding the legal mechanisms of this new legal order, the ideological and policy impulses that produced and sustain it, the complex ways in which it is interacting with other legal regimes affecting labor migration (immigration law; human rights law and governance, including refugee law; international criminal law; international and national labor law; etc.), and the distributive effects it is producing both in the developed and the developing worlds. Guest speakers will apprise us of recent developments both in the US and at the international level. Participation on panels discussing reading assignments will be a course requirement. There will be a take-home examination with a paper option available upon the instructor’s approval.

  

  • LAW 7395 - [Labor and Employment Arbitration]


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    M. L. Goldstein.

    Study of arbitration in the field of labor-management relations, including an analysis of principles and practices, the law of arbitration, the handling of materials in briefs or oral presentation, the conduct of a mock arbitration hearing, and the preparation of arbitration opinions and post-hearing briefs.

  

  • LAW 7411 - Law and Higher Education


    Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    J. J. Mingle.

    Higher education is a complex, idiosyncratic institution. Universities and colleges have a unique mission – teaching, research, and public service – and a uniquely challenging task of accommodating the various constituencies and organizations, both internal (governing boards, faculty, students, alumni) and external (legislatures, courts, regulatory agencies) that influence how they are managed and how policies are shaped. This seminar explores the dynamic tensions, high expectations, and complex legal-policy issues universities and colleges face in fulfilling their mission.

  

  • LAW 7412 - [Law and Humanities Colloquium]

    (crosslisted)
    (also ENGL 7412 )
    Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    B. Meyler.

    In an era of increasing interdisciplinary collaboration, the fields that comprise the humanities are engaging in new ways with law as well as with each other, and projects developed within the context of law schools themselves bear renewed relevance to the humanities. This colloquium will bring together scholars working at the forefront of legal history, law and literature, law and culture, and critical theory from the institutional vantage points of both law and the humanities. Those who present materials will be asked to speak not only about their specific research but also to address where their work is situated within new developments in law and humanities as a whole.

    The course will begin with three weeks of seminar designed to apprise students of the history of law and humanities to date and to situate current developments within this history. We will, for example, read classics of the law and literature movement by James Boyd White and Robert Cover, then inquire as to how recent work-such as the essays in Victoria Kahn and Lorna Hutson’s collection Rhetoric and Law in Early Modern Europe-might differ in approach. The rest of the course will be organized around a series of speakers, some drawn from Cornell and some from other universities. The students will convene for a half hour at the beginning of the session, which will then be opened to a larger community, including faculty members, for the talk itself.

    Students will be required to write six three- to five-page papers responding to the speakers’ pre-circulated talks; these will be due in advance of the class session and shown to those lecturing in order to prompt and enhance discussion. Everyone who wishes to take the course for credit must attend the first class.

  

  • LAW 7571 - [Legal Narratives]


    Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    E. L. Sherwin.

    This seminar takes an in-depth look at the factual, legal, and social background of notable legal decisions. The seminar is based on a recently published series of texts presenting the “stories” behind well-known first year cases. After reading and discussing a selection of cases from these sources, each student will prepare and present his or her own case history of a case selected by the student, working from briefs, related legal material, secondary sources, and, if possible, contacts with lawyers and parties. Grades will be based on papers and presentations.

  

  • LAW 7572 - Litigation Drafting


    Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    The course can be used to satisfy the writing requirement or the skills requirement, but not both. Limited enrollment.

    L. Freed.

    This course focuses on drafting documents typically encountered during the pretrial phase of civil litigation. As drafters, lawyers must think strategically about, and understand the conventions unique to, each document. Students will have repeated opportunities to develop essential drafting and professional skills through a combination of in-class exercises and take-home writing assignments related to pleadings, motions, discovery requests, affidavits, demand letters, and settlement agreements.

  

  • LAW 7578 - Markets, Democracy, and the Rule of Law


    Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Satisfies the writing requirement.

    O. Lienau.

    The promotion of markets, the spread of democracy, and the promulgation of the rule of law are frequently presented as three interrelated goals at both the domestic and the international level. In this seminar, we will consider the multiple potential meanings embedded in these goals and the degree to which they may be complementary and/or in tension. The seminar will include a theoretical unit (considering, among other things, the degree to which the definitions of each of these elements are settled or contested) and a series of applications. We will discuss both academic scholarship and cases/case studies that highlight these issues. Students will write a paper for the course, and will also give a brief presentation to the seminar on their paper topic.

  

  • LAW 7580 - Markets, Morals, and Methods


    Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    R. Hockett.

    This seminar is devoted to the foundations of choice, agency, and welfare – matters that lie at the core of normative legal and economic theory. Readings, guest speakers, and class discussion will focus on the nature of preferences, reasons, and norms, as well as (a) their inter-relations and (b) their roles in guiding human decision and action. A central theme will be the question whether and to what degree welfare, well-being, and wealth for that matter can be understood apart from and even as determinative of normative propriety (“rightness” and “wrongness”), or whether instead these concepts presuppose a prior conception of normative propriety. Many legal and economic theorists seem to assume the former, but this assumption can – and in this course will – be examined critically.

  

  • LAW 7591 - [Mergers and Acquisitions]


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Prerequisite: basic Contracts class from Cornell or another U.S./Canadian law school or basic contracts class (from any other law school) deemed comparable by the professors. Prerequisite or corequisite: basic Business Organizations/Corporations class at Cornell or another U.S./Canadian law school. Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    M. I. Greene, R. A. Hall.

    The focus of this course is developing the lawyering skills required by an attorney advising a client who is selling or acquiring a business. Individual drafting exercises, as well as strategy discussions and negotiations by student teams acting as counsel to the buyer or seller, will be interspersed with lectures on the business acquisition process and analysis of selected publicly available documentation of actual acquisition transactions. The typical chronology of an acquisition: negotiation by the buyer and the seller of the basic terms of the deal including selection of structure (sale of stock or assets; merger); drafting and negotiation of a term sheet or letter of intent; due diligence investigation; drafting and negotiation of the definitive acquisition agreement; handling of problems encountered between the execution of the agreement and the closing of the acquisition; and the closing.

  

  • LAW 7592 - The Military and the Law


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement.

    D. Rawald.

    In the decade since the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11th, our military forces have engaged in two long term wars in foreign countries as well as an ongoing struggle against the terrorist organization involved with those attacks. The legal issues both within the military and surrounding our military actions have risen to the forefront throughout the course of these conflicts. This seminar will explore those issues, taking a historical perspective on the evolution of the law as it intersects with the military while primarily focusing on the legal issues facing our country today. Topics will include a discussion of the military court-martial system as compared to the Article III civilian federal court system and the use of courts-martial to try non-military contractors employed in war environments. We will also examine the use of targeted killings and the detention of individuals in combat, including scrutiny of the developing case law regarding habeas rights for individuals the military has detained and the use of military commissions. This course is designed to elicit discussion from both a policy and legal perspective on these current issues while helping to broaden the students’ understanding of how law impacts our military forces and how our military can be used to spread the Rule of Law. The course content will touch upon issues raised in criminal law, international law, national security law and the law of armed conflict. Students will be graded on two papers and their participation in classroom discussion.

  

  • LAW 7593 - [Income Taxations of Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions]


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Prerequisite: Federal Income Taxation is an absolute prerequisite for the seminar, unless (a) a student believes that he or she has an equivalent academic or professional background, AND (b) receives my advance permission to enroll. Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    R. Schnur.

    This is an advanced seminar that, after reviewing the basic federal income tax principles governing taxable and nontaxable corporate mergers and acquisitions, will introduce students to some of the more complex transactional tax issues and will explore how these tax concepts are utilized in structuring acquisition transactions. The emphasis will be on domestic rather than cross-border acquisitions. There will be no final examination, but students will be asked to prepare several planning memoranda directed at different merger and acquisition fact patterns.

  

  • LAW 7594 - [New York Civil Practice]


    3 credits.

    Prerequisite: Full year of Civil Procedure. Next offered 2014-2015. The course satisfies the ethics requirement. In addition, the course can be used to satisfy the writing requirement or the skills requirement but not both. Limited enrollment.

    Staff.

    The course will explore the idiosyncrasies and intricacies of New York practice and procedure, with a particular focus on practice in the New York Supreme Court (the primary court of general original jurisdiction in New York). The course will also examine rules concerning civility in litigation and the ethical boundaries of zealous representation.

  

  • LAW 7596 - Cross-Border Mergers & Acquisitions


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    P. Pradal.

    The seminar studies the process of cross-border M&A transactions. It will tackle the main business and legal issues, including forms and techniques of combining two businesses, negotiation, due diligence, regulatory issues, and the resolution of employee and other social issues. The Seminar will include workshops to simulate the various steps of an M&A transaction. Student seminar papers may deal with any legal or other issues arising within any of the stages of cross-border M&A transactions or may address larger institutional, theoretical or policy issues raised by such transactions. Comparative approaches will be encouraged. The reading covers the basic business and legal issues most frequently encountered in international mergers and acquisitions.

  

  • LAW 7601 - [Organized Crime Control]


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    R. Goldstock.

    This seminar will explore the challenges organized crime poses to society and to traditional law enforcement techniques. Students will undertake a simulated investigation using physical and electronic surveillance, the analysis of documentary evidence, and the examination of recalcitrant witnesses before the grand jury. The RICO statute will be explored in detail as well as a variety of non-criminal remedies including forfeiture and court-imposed trusteeships.

  

  • LAW 7631 - Pretrial Practice, Litigation Strategies, and Remedies in Commercial Litigation


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Prerequisite: Civil Procedure and Contracts or Anglo-American Contract Law. Satisfies the professional responsibility requirement and the writing requirement.

    A. M. Radice, M. D’Amore.

    This seminar studies the strategies of complex commercial litigation, focusing on case development in the pretrial period. It will address strategies and approaches to pleadings, jurisdiction, motions, pretrial discovery and remedies (e.g., preliminary injunctions, damages) in the context of difficult and unclear legal issues. Hardball litigation techniques and ethical considerations will be considered as well as the use of litigation to achieve business goals. Actual litigated cases will be dissected and papers in the form of briefs and memoranda will be written on each. Since 90% of commercial cases settle before trial, this seminar will be a real life presentation of the commercial litigation process.

  

  • LAW 7674 - [Recent Changes in Financial Regulation]


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    C. K. Whitehead.
  

  • LAW 7685 - Research Seminar: Financial Market and Financial Regulation


    Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Satifies the writing requirement.

    L. Stout.

    In most markets, money is traded for goods or services. In financial markets, money is traded for more money to be received in the future, often contingent on future events. Financial markets include the markets for bank deposits; bank loans; insurance; corporate securities; government-issued securities; stock and commodity futures; home mortgages; car loans; credit cards; mutual funds; defined contribution pension plans; and many other types of transactions. In this research seminar, students will select individual topics relating to financial market regulation for research and study (subject to instructor approval). Each student in the seminar will be asked to write a 20-30 page paper on their chosen topic and give an oral presentation on their paper to their fellow students in class.

  

  • LAW 7741 - [The Separation of Powers]


    Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    J. Chafetz.

    The nature and consequences of our constitutional “separation of powers” is a topic of substantial debate, with significant implications for our system of government. This seminar examines the ways this concept is understood and used by modern judges, legislators, executive officials, and scholars to justify, or to attempt to modify, the distribution of power within contemporary American government.

  

  • LAW 7765 - [Tax Policy Seminar]


    Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Prerequisite: LAW 6441 . Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    L. Kahng.

    This seminar analyzes the tax policy goals of fairness, simplicity, and economic efficiency, and examines how well the present tax system satisfies these goals. Specific topics include: progressivity of the tax rate structure; use of the tax system to advance social policies; tax legislative process; taxation of the family; and comparison of income and consumption taxes.

  

  • LAW 7772 - Critical Legal Geography


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. Co-meets with GOVT 4675 /SHUM 4875 .

    I. Braverman.

    This seminar will introduce students to the emerging tradition of Critical Legal Geography, which offers heightened attention to the political and power-ridden properties of law and spatiality, both widely defined. We will unravel the overlooked properties of law and space, exposing their treatment as technical, neutral, and a-political and their real and imagined entanglements with various forms of power. The seminar will draw on a wide variety of scholars- including Michel Foucault, Bruno Latour, Timothy Morton, and Duncan Kennedy-to explore a few of the major areas of focus within (and in the margins of) Critical Legal Geography, including: borders and checkpoints, the private/public divide, constitutionally protected spaces, wilderness and the law, animality and biopower, and even “loo laws” and sanitary surveillance. The students will learn how to approach legal texts and statements critically so as to expose the technologies of powers that underlie their existence.

  

  • LAW 7780 - [Regulatory Policymaking: Politics, Ethics, Economics]


    Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    J. Stiglitz.

    We live in a democracy yet bureaucrats, not elected representatives, produce many of the rules that govern our economic and social behavior. This course examines the regulatory process by addressing the politics, ethics, and economics of the modern administrative state. When is regulatory intervention into markets socially beneficial? How should we value a human life for the purposes of regulatory cost benefit analysis? How does politics influence regulatory production? The course gives attention to connections with administrative law doctrines. Students will write a paper and give a short presentation to the class.

  

  • LAW 7781 - Theories of Property


    Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

    Prerequisite: LAW 5121 . Satisfies the writing requirement.

    G. Alexander.

    This seminar will provide an introduction to the most influential contemporary theories of property, as well as an opportunity to discuss how those theories might approach several important questions within property law. The first half of the seminar will survey the contending theories, including various utilitarian/welfarist theories of property, Lockean and libertarian theories, as well as Aristotelian approaches. The second half will explore various property “controversies” through the lenses of these theories. We will discuss questions such as redistribution, eminent domain, regulatory takings, intellectual property, and the right to exclude.

  

  • LAW 7782 - [Tort Theory]


    Fall or spring. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement. Limited enrollment.

    Staff.

    This is a seminar on the philosophy and theory of tort law. The format of the seminar is as follows: the first few meetings are devoted to an overview and discussion of the history and philosophy of the law of torts; after the first few sessions, each seminar session consists of a close-reading critique of one important modern article or book chapter. Each member of the seminar is required to read each article very closely before coming to class and then to prepare one difficult question for that week’s assigned student-critiquer and one for the assigned student-defender. The articles to be discussed are selected to represent a broad range of methodologies, philosophical positions and topics. The pedagogic strategy is to bring together a small group of students who really have command of the details of a controversial argument about an issue or problem in the law of torts so that they can have a fruitful conversation evaluating the argument.

  

  • LAW 7783 - Topics in Intellectual Property


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement.

    O. Liivak.

    Sizable disagreement and controversy surround many areas of intellectual property. This seminar explores these disputes. By surveying the academic literature the seminar aims to introduce, understand, and ultimately critique the arguments being made for and against various aspects of intellectual property.

  

  • LAW 7784 - [The War on Drugs]


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    M. J. Satin.

    The United States incarcerates more people for drug offenses than any other country. Of the more than 2 million people in prisons or jails, approximately one-quarter of those people have been convicted of a drug offense. This seminar examines America’s War on Drugs, including its political and legal history, its evolution and development over the past forty years, and its social and economic consequences. Specific attention will be paid to its impact on the poor and people of color. To that end, the seminar will examine policing in inner cities as well as disparities in sentencing between crack and cocaine offenses and the recent federal cases and legislation on this subject. Other topics include drug testing in schools and the workplace, mandatory minimum sentences, the relationship between drug offenses and violent crime, problem solving courts like drug court, the movement to legalize drugs, U.S. foreign policy towards countries supplying illegal narcotics, and the domestic drug laws of other countries. Students will be expected to write 4 short papers and a pleading in a mock drug case.

  

  • LAW 7785 - War Crimes Trials and the Law of Genocide


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the professional responsibility writing requirement and the writing requirement.

    M. Rosensaft.

    Beginning in November 1945, in an unprecedented attempt to bring war criminals to justice, more than 20 senior government officials and military leaders of Hitlerʼs Third Reich were indicted and tried, in what has become known as the Nuremberg Trial, for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Earlier that fall, the SS commandants, officers and guards who had been arrested by the British upon the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, had been tried before a British military tribunal. These were the first of numerous trials of Nazi war criminals and related criminal and civil proceedings arising out of the Holocaust. This seminar will examine legal and ethical issues raised in these and other trials of Nazi war criminals and individuals accused of collaborating with the Nazis in perpetrating crimes against humanity, including the 1947 “Justice Trial” of Nazi judges and senior officials of the Third Reich Ministry of Justice, the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem and the 1963-64 Tel Aviv trial of Hersz Barenblat, the head of the Jewish police in the ghetto of Bedzin, Poland. The course will also examine the history of the Genocide Convention, and the developing law of genocide and crimes against humanity with respect to atrocities in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Darfur, including the evolving law on rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war.

  

  • LAW 7786 - The Western Legal Tradition


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    T. J. McSweeney.

    Have you ever walked by the law code of Gortyn in the basement of Myron Taylor Hall and wondered what it says? Have you ever wanted to know what’s actually in Magna Carta? Have you ever wondered who Coke and Blackstone were and why they are mentioned so often in constitutional debates? In this seminar, designed as a “great books” course, we will take an in-depth look at some of the primary texts of the Western legal canon, the intellectual inheritance of modern lawyers. Most of the class will involve reading and discussing the primary texts themselves, from Hammurabi’s code to Oliver Wendell Holmes, with secondary readings for historical background. We will also read some texts that are not generally treated as part of the canon in order to engage with the issues of how the canon was formed, how certain authors came to be identified with the West, and how certain texts were identified as “legal” texts. Students in this course will gain a deeper understanding of how conceptions of law have changed over time and how they got to be the way they are today.

  

  • LAW 7793 - Water Law


    Fall. 3 credits.

    Satisfies the writing requirement.

    G. Torres.

    The aim of this course is to give a solid understanding of U.S. water law and an appreciation of the magnitude of its underlying economic stakes. The course examines the development of water law from its English common law roots including concepts of navigable waters, riparian rights and prior appropriation and doctrines governing the use of groundwater. The course will review major water programs in the Western states and consider the public trust doctrine, the role of federal law, particularly concerning reserved water rights of Indian tribes, the federal government’s long history of promoting irrigation schemes through the Bureau of Reclamation, and federal flood control laws. In the Eastern states, the focus will be on water quality and its impact on water uses, including the application of the Safe Drinking Water Act to protect groundwater in New York City and if there is time the heavily litigated application of the Clean Water Act to the New York headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

  

  • LAW 7801 - [Immigration Appellate Law and Advocacy Clinic]


    Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only. (S-U grades with permission of instructor)

    Next offered 2014-2015. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment. This course may require off premises travel.

    S. W. Yale-Loehr, W. Ruehle.

    Students will write appellate briefs to the Board of Immigration Appeals on behalf of clients who have petitioned to remain in the United States because they fear persecution or torture in their home countries. These clients will typically have represented themselves pro se in Immigration Court. During the first part of the semester students will learn substantive and procedural asylum and Convention Against Torture (CAT) law, such as the nature of persecution, grounds for asylum and CAT claims, and the practical and social effects that these laws have on new immigrants who seek asylum or CAT relief. Classes may also cover practical knowledge needed for effective representation, such as advanced research and writing skills. During the second part of the semester, students will work in teams of two on appellate briefs. These briefs will not only entail serious legal analysis, but may also require sociocultural and political research, so that the students can effectively write about the conditions of the client’s home country. Students will interview clients over the phone during this time, with the possibility of face-to-face interviews. Some clients may be incarcerated, and many will be out-of-state. Students may also locate expert and other witnesses, and draft affidavits and motions. The students’ cases will provide a basis for more in-depth substantive learning, as well as practical skills and attorney-client issues. In class, each team will also discuss the legal and practice issues that arise in their case, so that all students can benefit from and assist with each individual case.

  

  • LAW 7802 - [Capital Appellate Clinic]


    Fall or spring. 4 credits.

    Prerequisite: Criminal Procedure, Evidence, and either the Capital Punishment or Post-Conviction Remedies Seminars are preferred but not required. Next offered 2014-2015. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment.

    Staff.

    Students in this clinic will assist in the preparation of appellate briefs in selected capital cases. Students will work intensively with the record, research legal issues, and draft arguments.

  

  • LAW 7803 - Advanced International Human Rights Clinic


    Fall, spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only. (S-U by permission of instructor)

    Prerequisite: International Human Rights Clinic. Permission of instructor required. Limited enrollment. Satisfies the skills requirement.

    E. Brundige.

    This course offers students who have completed the International Human Rights Clinic the opportunity to pursue one or more projects in conjunction with the Clinic, working in teams with other students enrolled in the advanced or regular Clinic. Students will gain experience in international human rights advocacy and develop human rights lawyering and leadership skills. Students will participate in regular project team and all-clinic meetings. In the spring semester, they will also participate in seminar sessions that are combined with the International Human Rights Clinic seminar.

  

  • LAW 7805 - Advanced Labor Law Clinic


    Spring. 3 credits.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment.

    A. Cornell.

    The Advanced Labor Law Clinic provides students another opportunity to deepen their understanding of traditional labor and employment law by representing the interests of workers with typical workplace issues. There is no classroom component to this course. Students will dedicate their time to addressing client inquiries related to organizing, collective bargaining, unfair labor practice charges, the Family Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act or other workplace issues. Students may also have the opportunity to represent their clients in a case before the National Labor Relations Board, in mediation or arbitration pursuant to the dispute resolution mechanism in the collective bargaining agreement. In addition to the domestic labor law inquiries, interested students may have the opportunity to address international labor law topics as well. The international labor law work typically occurs in Latin America. During the semester, there will likely be two guest speakers and two panel discussions on timely labor law topics, which students will be required to attend, along with weekly meetings to discuss case preparation and advancement. In this course students will advance the following skills: interviewing, counseling, factual investigation, legal research and writing, problem-solving and depending on the assignment, trial preparation skills (direct and cross-examinations, opening statement and evidentiary arguments).

  

  • LAW 7811 - Capital Punishment Clinic 1


    Spring. 4 credits.

    Prerequisite: Criminal Procedure, Evidence, and the Capital Punishment Seminar are preferred but not required. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment.

    J. H. Blume, S. L. Johnson, K. M. Weyble.

    Death penalty litigation: investigation and the preparation of petitions, memoranda, and briefs. This course is taught as a clinic. Two or possibly three capital cases are worked on by students. Case selection depends on both pedagogical factors and litigation needs of the inmates. Students read the record and research legal issues. Some students are involved in investigation, while others assist in the preparation of papers. All students are included in discussions regarding the necessary investigation, research, and strategy for the cases.

  

  • LAW 7812 - Child Advocacy Clinic 1


    Spring. 4 credits.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.

    A. J. Mooney.

    Students will participate in the representation of children who are the subject of family court proceedings. Cases are likely to involve children who are the subjects of petitions such as: abuse or neglect, custody, termination of parental rights, status offense and juvenile delinquency. Students will interview clients and their families, prepare documents such as pleadings, motions, pre-trial memos and proposed findings of fact, and participate in court conferences and hearings. The in-class component of the course will address cross-disciplinary concerns such as working with other professionals and using social science to assist a client. Additionally, the course will focus on child development and the particular ethical concerns involved with the representation of children.

  

  • LAW 7813 - Child Advocacy Clinic II


    Spring. 4 credits.

    Prerequisite: LAW 7812 . Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Attendance is mandatory at the first class.

    A. Mooney.

    Students in Clinic II will:1) work directly on law guardian cases, taking greater responsibility and working more independently than they are able to in the Child Advocacy Clinic I; 2) develop a more in-depth knowledge of the field of child advocacy by participating in a weekly reading group; 3) act as mentors for students in the Child Advocacy Clinic I, answering simple questions and providing emotional support for students who are often encountering, for the first time in their lives, stark poverty and violence; 4) act as liaisons between the students in the Child Advocacy Clinic I and the instructor, helping to identify areas in which the Clinic students need further instruction; 5) act as teaching assistants for Child Advocacy Clinic I, reviewing work products of the Clinic students and assisting them in locating research, formbooks, and samples of court documents.

  

  • LAW 7815 - Capital Punishment Clinic 2


    Spring. 4 credits.

    Prerequisite: Criminal Procedure, Evidence, and the Capital Punishment Seminar are preferred but not required. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. This course may require off premises travel. The Cornell Death Penalty Project will reimburse students for reasonable travel expenses.

    J. H. Blume, S. L. Johnson, K. M. Weyble.

    Death penalty litigation: investigation and the preparation of petitions, memoranda, and briefs. This course is taught as a clinic. Two or possibly three capital cases are worked on by students. Case selection depends on both pedagogical factors and litigation needs of the inmates. Students read the record and research legal issues. Some students are involved in investigation, while others assist in the preparation of papers. All students are included in discussions regarding the necessary investigation, research, and strategy for the cases.

  

  • LAW 7832 - Externship - Full Time


    Fall, spring. 12 credits. S-U grades only.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.

    G. G. Galbreath.

    The Externship - Full Time course allows students (24 in fall, 16 in spring) to earn 12 credit hours as externs working full time at approved placement sites at virtually any location (most sites are non-profit organizations or governmental agencies) during the fall or spring semester of their third year or the spring semester of their second year. The course purpose is to provide a bridge between the study of law and its practice. A written application for the course must be submitted to the instructor and approved during the semester preceding the semester the student plans to participate. The student must be supervised/mentored by an attorney and engage in meaningful and “attorney-like” work at the placement which furthers the student’s education and career goals. In addition to his or her work responsibilities for the placement, the extern will create a Learning Agenda, prepare weekly Journal entries, engage in a regular electronic Discussion Board with other externs and the instructor, host the instructor for a site visit, and do a written Description of Placement. See the BlackBoard web site for Externship - Full Time for more detail on these requirements.

  

  • LAW 7833 - Criminal Defense Trial Clinic


    Fall. 4 credits.

    Prerequisite: Evidence recommended. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.

    L. Salisbury.

    Students represent defendants in non-felony, non-jury criminal cases. The course has both a classroom and courtroom component. The classroom component focuses on all aspects of the handling of a criminal case, including criminal law and procedure, ethics, trial strategy, plea bargaining and trials. The courtroom component involves attendance at court proceedings, including pre-trial conferences. Each student potentially may interview clients and witnesses, and prepare clients and witnesses for trial. All students will conduct negotiations with the District Attorney’s Office, do legal research, conduct fact investigation, prepare discovery demands and engage in motion practice.

  

  • LAW 7834 - Externship - Part Time, Other Local


    Fall, spring. 4 credits. S-U grades only.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.

    G.G. Galbreath.

    The Externship - Part Time, Other Local course allows students to earn 4 or more credit hours as externs working at least 8 hours per week at approved placement sites in the Ithaca area while continuing to attend classes at the law school (most sites are with non-profit organizations or governmental agencies). The course purpose is to provide a bridge between the study of law and its practice. A written application for the course must be submitted to the instructor and approved during the semester preceding the semester the student plans to participate. The student must be supervised/mentored by an attorney and engage in meaningful and “attorney-like” work at the placement which furthers the student’s education and career goals. In addition to his or her work responsibilities at the placement, the extern will create a Learning Agenda, prepare weekly Journal entries, engage in a regular electronic Discussion Board with other externs and the instructor, host the instructor for a site visit, and do a written Description of Placement (see the BlackBoard website for Externship - Part Time, Other Local and the site for Externship - Full Time for more detail on these requirements).

  

  • LAW 7835 - E-Government Clinic 1 and 2


    Fall, spring. 4 credits. S-U grades only.

    Recommended Prerequisite: LAW 6011 . Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement.

    C. Farina, M. Newhart, D. Epstein, C. Blake.

    Interested students must register through the clinic registration procedure. Submit to Mary Newhart (mjn3@cornell.edu) a resume and a letter of interest within one week after the end of the pre-registration period. Include any experience in computer or information science, ADR or collaborative decision-making, web design or communication, statistical analysis, or videomaking, as well as substantive interest/experience in health policy, consumer financial products and/or financial regulation. (Such experience is not required; knowing about it helps us identify the incoming skill sets of the group.) Some preference will be given to students willing and able to do two semesters.

    President Obama’s Open Government Initiative calls on federal agencies to increase transparency, participation, and collaboration in their decision-making. Use of Web 2.0 technologies and social networking tools to elicit public comment in rulemaking and other policymaking is especially emphasized. However, several significant legal, communications, and technological challenges exist. The e-Government Clinic, which grows out of the research of CeRI (the Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative), engages students in theoretical development and practical application of principals of public law, deliberative democracy, conflict resolution, and collaborative decision-making in the contexts of Web-enabled rulemaking, regulatory review, and strategic planning. The primary research vehicle is an operational website, RegRoom.org, which features live public commenting moderated by Clinic students. For some students, travel to Washington DC to meet with the responsible agency may be required. Students are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement with every agency we work with during the particular semester.

    New substantive focuses of the clinic include: (1) health IT, working with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT on strategic planning for health e-records and other technologies; and (2) consumer financial protection, working with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Prof. Whitehead will supervise the substantive work involved in these rulemakings.

  

  • LAW 7837 - International Human Rights Clinic


    Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Students who wish to apply to the clinic should pre-register and also submit a resume, transcript, writing sample, and statement of interest to Prof. Brundige (eb456@cornell.edu) by the end of the pre-registration period.

    E. Brundige.

    This Clinic provides students with an opportunity to gain firsthand experience in international human rights advocacy. Through a critical seminar and practical case and project work, students will examine and engage in local, global, and transnational efforts to advance human rights. Students will develop skills such as interviewing, fact-finding, project and case management, international and comparative legal research, legal drafting, and oral advocacy by working on projects and cases for human rights organizations, judges, intergovernmental human rights experts or bodies, and individuals. The course will give students experience in diverse methods of human rights advocacy, such as fact-finding and reporting, domestic and international litigation, legal assistance and counseling, and human rights education. Examples of past projects include conducting field research in Zambia for a report on the problem of sexual violence against girls in schools, preparing an amicus brief in support of a petition on the right to free education in Colombia, and participating in a trial advocacy training program on human trafficking for judges and lawyers in Liberia. Students will also have the opportunity to examine critically the ethical, political, cultural, and other challenges that affect the promotion of human rights. Some projects may involve optional international travel, and some projects may address human rights issues within the United States.

  

  • LAW 7861 - Externship - Part Time, Judicial


    Fall, spring. 4 credits. S-U grades only.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Included in 18 credit overall rule. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.

    G. G. Galbreath.

    The Externship - Part Time, Judicial course allows students to earn 4 or more credit hours as externs working at least 8 hours per week as a law clerk in the chambers of a New York or Federal judge in Central New York while continuing to attend classes at the law school. The course purpose is to provide a bridge between the study of law and its practice. A written application for the course must be submitted to the instructor and approved during the semester preceding the semester the student plans to participate. The student must be supervised/mentored by the judge or law clerk and engage in meaningful and “attorney-like” work at the placement which furthers the student’s education and career goals. In addition to his or her work responsibilities in the judge’s chambers, the extern will create a Learning Agenda, prepare weekly Journal entries, engage in a regular electronic Discussion Board with other externs and instructor, host the instructor for a site visit, and do a written Description of Placement (see the BlackBoard web site for Externship - Part Time, Judicial and the site for Externship - Full Time for more detail on these requirements).

  

  • LAW 7870 - [Juvenile Justice Clinic]


    Fall. 4 credits.

    Students who have previously taken Criminal Procedure, Capital Punishment Seminar, Advanced Criminal Procedure or the Capital Punishment will have a preference in the selection process, but it is not required that a student have taken one or more of those courses if they have some other relevant experience. Next offered 2014-2015. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement.

    J.H. Blume, S.L. Johnson, K.M. Weyble.

    This clinic will respond to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Miller v. Alabama holding that juvenile offenders cannot be sentenced to mandatory terms of life without parole. Students will assist counsel appointed to represent juveniles sentenced to life without parole terms and juveniles facing potential life without parole sentences in the development and presentation of mitigating evidence in regard to both the crime and the juvenile’s life history. Travel may be required as most students will be involved in investigation.

  

  • LAW 7871 - Labor Law Clinic


    Spring. 4 credits.

    It is helpful to have taken Administrative or Employment Law, but not required. Permission of instructor required. Preference given to: students who have taken Labor Law. Satisfies the skills requirement. This course may require off premises travel. Please contact the professor if this is an obstacle.

    A. Cornell.

    The Labor Law Clinic will provide students a practical opportunity to learn labor law, while making meaningful contributions to the labor movement and working people. This clinic will combine a substantive classroom component with practical experience. Students will advise labor unions and workers on a variety of legal issues that surface during the semester and may have the opportunity to represent unions in different forums. Students will communicate directly with union representatives and will be required to sort through the facts, research the issues, and provide information and advice. Students will routinely draft legal memoranda, prepare and file pleadings and briefs as required. Students may have the opportunity to represent unions at hearings, mediation or arbitration. Students may also be required to observe a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board, Public Employment Relations Board or an arbitration. Students have also been invited to observe the collective bargaining process.

    A small number of students will have the opportunity to dedicate their clinical time to international labor law. Interested students can support the work of nonprofit organizations or global union federations with ongoing cases or projects. These projects occasionally involve a short period of field work outside of the country, typically in Latin America.

  

  • LAW 7872 - [Land Use, Development, and Natural Resource Protection Clinic]


    Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. This course may require travel for some projects.

    K. S. Porter, C. G. Bowman.

    Land use laws are a vital aspect of sustainable development. Balancing social, economic and environmental factors involves a rich and multi-faceted body of laws. This clinic provides students with the opportunity to work hands-on to identify, design and implement economically and legally viable solutions to problems arising from land and natural resources management. Participating students will assist clients such as developers, government agencies, community leaders, and NGOs according to their selected project. An increasingly critical concern is the role of land use and development on the quantity and quality of water resources. Another high priority, of national as well as local importance, is the development of energy resources, and the complexities of the legal issues posed by their environmental and land use impacts.

    Students have the opportunity to work on an international issue. Issues include sustainable development, transboundary conflicts, stresses in rural and indigenous communities, and the role of women. For students undertaking an international project, products may include consultative papers or other briefing materials and presentations. The Clinic will cosponsor an international conference in Spring 2012.

    With faculty guidance, students conduct their own selected project on a topic or dispute of theoretical and practical legal importance. Projects may include or involve: a detailed theoretical and practical legal analysis of a selected problem; drafting or critically reviewing municipal ordinances and inter-municipal agreements; consulting on design parameters for development sites; drafting petition/explanatory documents for clients who wish to obtain variances; resolving compliance issues with state and local laws; and developing alternative dispute resolution or collaborative options.

    Students commonly attend meetings, and draft briefing papers or give presentations to their clients, such as local governments and agencies. Because this clinic offers a great variety of transactional work, it will benefit students interested in transactional practices, particularly in a career in real estate, land use, energy issues, finance, general practice, and environmental law. No exam.

  

  • LAW 7873 - [Juvenile Justice Clinic II]


    Spring. 4 credits.

    Prerequisite: Juvenile Justice Clinic 1 or permission of instructor. Next offered 2014-2015. Satisfies the skills requirement.

    J. H. Blume, S. L. Johnson, K. M. Weyble.

    Students will represent prisoners who were sentenced to life in prison without parole for offenses committed as juveniles.

  

  • LAW 7874 - Cornell Legal Aid Clinic I


    Fall. 4 credits.

    Satisfies the skills requirement. Attendance mandatory at first class.

    J. Feldman.

    In this clinic, student attorneys will represent low-income persons who reside in the greater Ithaca area.  The clinic will concentrate especially on areas of the law in which there are few opportunities for low-income clients to obtain representation in civil matters. School law will be a focus, and clinic students will represent K-12 students and their parents in special education, school discipline, and school residency cases.   The clinic will also accept cases in the areas of civil rights (including employment discrimination, disability rights, and fair housing), economic justice (including wage theft and other wage and hour violations), and access to governmental benefits (including Medicaid, food stamps, SSI/SSD, and unemployment insurance).

    In all types of cases, students will gain valuable litigation skills, negotiation skills, and client representation skills, by advocating for clients in a variety of administrative hearings and court proceedings.   Several sessions of the clinic seminar will be taught jointly with Professor Susan Hazeldean; her LGBT Clinic students will also join those class sessions.

    The clinic will be taught by Visiting Clinical Professor Jonathan Feldman, a public interest lawyer with extensive experience in special education cases and civil rights cases. Students who wish to apply to the clinic should submit a resume, transcript, and brief statement of interest (no more than 1 page) to Prof. Feldman by email, at jfeldman@empirejustice.org.

  

  • LAW 7881 - Attorneys for Children


    Fall, spring. 4 credits.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the office, which is located in downtown Ithaca. A car is not required for this course.

    A. J. Mooney.

    Students are placed at the local Attorneys for Children office, where they assist the attorneys in the representation of children in custody, abuse and neglect cases, juvenile delinquency proceedings, and PINS (Person in Need of Supervision) cases. Students accompany attorneys on home and school visits, attend court conferences, treatment team meetings and various Family Court hearings. Duties may include client interviewing, investigation, drafting memoranda and motions, and trial preparation. Students may also be able to appear in Family Court under the supervision of the Attorneys for Children staff. There will be several meetings with the instructor during the semester. Weekly journals are also required.

  

  • LAW 7905 - Advocacy for LGBT Communities Clinic I


    Fall, spring. 4 credits.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Attendance is mandatory at the first class. Students who wish to apply to the clinic must submit a resume, transcript, and short essay (no more than 2 pages) to Prof. Hazeldean. Students who have questions or would like more information about the clinic are encouraged to email Prof. Hazeldean (shazeldean@cornell.edu) and schedule a meeting. This course requires off premises travel to meet with clients and participate in hearings.

    S. Hazeldean.

    The LGBT clinic is dedicated to advancing the legal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The clinic represents diverse members of the LGBT community in a variety of legal matters and undertakes non-litigation projects to advance LGBT equality. All clinic students work on both an individual case and a non-litigation advocacy project. Students develop skills such as interviewing, client counseling, fact-finding, legal research, brief-writing, negotiating on behalf of clients, and conducting hearings. Examples of individual litigation cases are: representing a lesbian woman seeking asylum from Jamaica based on her sexual orientation and assisting a transgender woman in a men’s prison challenging the conditions of her confinement. Students will handle all stages of any legal proceedings in immigration court, state court, or other forums. Examples of advocacy projects include presenting a community education workshop in how LGBT seniors can protect their legal rights and writing a report on access to domestic violence shelters for LGBT domestic violence victims. The seminar portion is a practice-oriented examination of advocacy on behalf of LGBT people and of social justice lawyering generally.

  

  • LAW 7906 - Advocacy for LGBT Communities Clinic II


    Fall, spring. 2 credits.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Attendance is mandatory at the first class. This course requires off premises travel to meet with clients and participate in hearings.
     

    S. Hazeldean.

    The LGBT clinic is dedicated to advancing the legal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Students who have completed LGBT Clinic I can seek the instructor’s permission to enroll in LGBT Clinic II for 2, 3, or 4 credits, depending on the number of projects undertaken. Students in LGBT Clinic II work on individual cases for clients and/or non-litigation advocacy projects. They attend 4 seminar class meetings during the semester.

  

  • LAW 7907 - Advocacy for LGBT Communities Clinic (LGBT Clinic) III


    Spring. 2 credits.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Attendance is mandatory at the first class. This course requires off premises travel to meet with clients and participate in hearings.

    S. Hazeldean.

    The LGBT clinic is dedicated to advancing the legal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Students who have completed LGBT Clinic II can seek the instructor’s permission to enroll in LGBT Clinic III for 2, 3, or 4 credits, depending on the number of projects undertaken. Students in LGBT Clinic III work on individual cases for clients and/or non-litigation advocacy projects. They attend 4 seminar class meetings during the semester.

  

  • LAW 7911 - Externship - Part Time, Neighborhood Legal Services


    Fall, spring. 4 credits. S-U grades only.

    Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.

    G. G. Galbreath.

    The Externship - Part Time, Neighborhood Legal Services course allows 1 or 2 students to earn 5 or more credit hours as externs working at least 17 hours per week at the local legal services office in Ithaca (formally known as Legal Assistance of Western New York, Tompkins/Tioga Neighborhood Legal Services)(NLS) while continuing to attend classes at the law school. The course purpose is to provide a bridge between the study of law and its practice. A written application for the course must be submitted to the instructor and approved during the semester preceding the semester the student plans to participate. The student must be supervised/mentored by an NLS attorney and engage in meaningful and “attorney-like” work at the placement which furthers the student’s education and career goals. In addition to his or her work responsibilities at NLS, the extern will create a Learning Agenda, prepare weekly Journal entries, engage in a regular electronic Discussion Board with other externs and the instructor, host the instructor for a site visit, and do a written Description of Placement (see the BlackBoard web site for Externship - Part Time, Neighborhood Legal Services and the site for Externship - Full Time for more detail on these requirements).

  

  • LAW 7920 - [Real Estate Litigation Clinic]


    Fall or spring. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment.

    Staff.

    Students will help prepare for trial in a property-related lawsuit filed against Norfolk Southern Railway in New York state court on behalf of a group of homeowners in Lansing, New York. Students will help prepare the record for appeal and assist in the research and drafting of the appeals briefs. The course will be limited to 3 students, selected on the basis of academic strength as well as demonstrated interest in property and land use issues. Those interested should submit a resume, transcript, and brief statement (no more than 1 page) to Prof. Peñalver.

  

  • LAW 7921 - Prosecution Trial Clinic


    Fall. 4 credits. S-U grades only.

    Prerequisite: Evidence or permission of instructor. Satisfies the skills requirement. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.

    R. A. Sarachan.

    This course gives students the opportunity to prosecute non-felony non-jury trials in Ithaca City Court. The course has both a classroom component and a courtroom component.

    The classroom component involves lecture, discussion and trial simulation exercises. Topics include criminal law and procedure, prosecution ethics, trial strategy and preparation, trial conduct including direct and cross-examination, plea-bargaining and professional judgment.

    The courtroom component involves regular attendance at Ithaca City Court’s non-jury terms. Students will observe and critique trials and will prosecute offenses including traffic tickets (such as speeding and running a red light), city code violations (such as open container and noise offenses), non-felony penal law violations (such as disorderly conduct, possession of marijuana) among others. Each student will be expected to conduct multiple trials during the semester, depending on docket volume.

    During the semester students will also be expected to prepare witnesses (typically police officers), conduct plea-bargaining negotiations, case research and fact investigation, respond to discovery demands, and engage in motion practice and appellate practice as needed.

  

  • LAW 7922 - [Real Estate Litigation Clinic 2]


    Fall or spring. 3 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment.

    Staff.

    Students will help prepare for trial in a property-related lawsuit filed against Norfolk Southern Railway in New York state court on behalf of a group of homeowners in Lansing, New York. Students will help prepare the record for appeal and assist in the research and drafting of the appeals briefs. The course will be limited to 3 students, selected on the basis of academic strength as well as demonstrated interest in property and land use issues. Those interested should submit a resume, transcript, and brief statement (no more than 1 page) to Prof. Peñalver.

  

  • LAW 7951 - United States Attorney’s Office Clinic 1


    Fall. 6 credits. S-U grades only.

    Satisfies the skills requirement and the professional responsibility requirement. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.

    C. E. Roberts.

    The United States Attorney’s Office Clinic is a program in which law students work 12-15 hours per week for the United States Attorney’s Office in Syracuse, New York. Each student is assigned to work for an Assistant United States Attorney. Students perform research and writing, and trial assistance as needed. Students may qualify to appear in court under the supervision of their attorney, and are encouraged to observe court proceedings in the U.S. Courthouse. Students also attend a two hour seminar once a week at Cornell. The seminar will focus on writing in practice, including critiques of briefs, motions, and a petition for certiorari. Additional topics include federal criminal and civil practice, prosecutorial discretion, and habeas corpus. Guest speakers may include judges, a special prosecutor, and U.S. Department of Justice officials.

    Students must be a U.S. citizen. A detailed course description is available at: https://support.law.cornell.edu/students/forms/ClinicalCoursesAndExternshipsDescriptions.pdf

  

  • LAW 7952 - United States Attorney’s Office Clinic 2


    Spring. 6 credits. S-U grades only.

    Satisfies the skills requirement and the professional responsibility requirement. This course requires off premises travel. The student is responsible for travel to and from the sites.

    C. E. Roberts.

    The United States Attorney’s Office Clinic is a program in which law students work 12-15 hours per week for the United States Attorney’s Office in Syracuse, New York. Each student is assigned to work for an Assistant United States Attorney. Students perform research and writing, and trial assistance as needed. Students may qualify to appear in court under the supervision of their attorney, and are encouraged to observe court proceedings in the U.S. Courthouse. Students also attend a two hour seminar once a week at Cornell. The seminar will focus on writing in practice, including critiques of briefs, motions, and a petition for certiorari. Additional topics include federal criminal and civil practice, prosecutorial discretion, and habeas corpus. Guest speakers may include judges, a special prosecutor, and U.S. Department of Justice officials.

    Students must be a U.S. citizen. A detailed course description is available at: https://support.law.cornell.edu/students/forms/ClinicalCoursesAndExternshipsDescriptions.pdf

  

  • LAW 7953 - Securities Law Clinic 1


    Fall, spring. 4 credits.

    Prerequisite or corequisite in Securities Regulation or Dispute Resolution recommended but not required. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment. This course may require off premises travel for potential client and witness interviews, hearings, and community presentations. Assistance will be provided to students who lack available transportation.

    W. A. Jacobson.

    The course will focus on fundamental investigatory and advocacy skills applicable to representation of public investors in disputes subject to arbitration at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (f/k/a National Association of Securities Dealers), with particular attention to the elderly and to small investors. Substantive legal topics will include the scope and nature of binding arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act and New York law, and the legal and regulatory remedies available to defrauded investors. Coursework will include training in skills such as interviewing potential clients, evaluating potential claims, preparing pleadings, conducting discovery, representing clients at hearings and negotiating settlements. Class work will include presentations by nationally-recognized experts on topics applicable to evaluation of securities accounts, trading, and products. Students will have the opportunity under faculty supervision to represent investors, to provide public education to community groups as to investment frauds, to draft position statements to regulatory authorities, and/or to participate in preparing amicus briefs, in support of public investors.

  

  • LAW 7954 - Securities Law Clinic 2


    Fall, spring. 4 credits.

    Recommended prerequisite or corequisite: Securities Regulation or Dispute Resolution. Satisfies the skills requirement. Limited enrollment. This course may require off premises travel for potential client and witness interviews, hearings, and community presentations. Assistance will be provided to students who lack available transportation.

    Fall, W. A. Jacobson, B. Siegel; spring W. A. Jacobson.

    The course will focus on fundamental investigatory and advocacy skills applicable to representation of public investors in disputes subject to arbitration at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (f/k/a National Association of Securities Dealers), with particular attention to the elderly and to small investors. Substantive legal topics will include the scope and nature of binding arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act and New York law, and the legal and regulatory remedies available to defrauded investors. Coursework will include training in skills such as interviewing potential clients, evaluating potential claims, preparing pleadings, conducting discovery, representing clients at hearings and negotiating settlements. Class work will include presentations by nationally-recognized experts on topics applicable to evaluation of securities accounts, trading, and products. Students will have the opportunity under faculty supervision to represent investors, to provide public education to community groups as to investment frauds, to draft position statements to regulatory authorities, and/or to participate in preparing amicus briefs, in support of public investors.

  

  • LAW 7955 - Securities Law Clinic 3


    Fall, spring. 4 credits.

    Prerequisite or corequisite: Securities Regulation or Dispute Resolution recommended but not required. Permission of instructor required. Satisfies the skills requirement. This course may require off premises travel for potential client and witness interviews, hearings, and community presentations. Assistance will be provided to students who lack available transportation.

    W. A. Jacobson.

    The course will focus on fundamental investigatory and advocacy skills applicable to representation of public investors in disputes subject to arbitration at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (f/k/a National Association of Securities Dealers), with particular attention to the elderly and to small investors. Substantive legal topics will include the scope and nature of binding arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act and New York law, and the legal and regulatory remedies available to defrauded investors. Coursework will include training in skills such as interviewing potential clients, evaluating potential claims, preparing pleadings, conducting discovery, representing clients at hearings and negotiating settlements. Class work will include presentations by nationally-recognized experts on topics applicable to evaluation of securities accounts, trading, and products. Students will have the opportunity under faculty supervision to represent investors, to provide public education to community groups as to investment frauds, to draft position statements to regulatory authorities, and/or to participate in preparing amicus briefs, in support of public investors.

  

  • LAW 7991 - Cornell Research Colloquium


    Fall. 3 credits. J.S.D. and LL.M. grades: H, S, U; J.D. program: letter grades only.

    Satisfies the writing requirement. This seminar course will be required for all first-year J.S.D. candidates. It will also be open first to L.L.M. students and then to J.D. students to the extent that places are available. Visiting scholars and exchange students from foreign institutions are highly encouraged to attend in an unofficial capacity.

    M. Lasser.

    This seminar is a course in advanced academic research methodology. The Colloquium is designed to prepare the students to engage in doctoral-level research, analysis and writing, especially in comparative and international contexts. How is the researcher to select an object or subject of investigation? How should she formulate research questions? How should she engage in the study of foreign and domestic legal institutions, doctrines and/or cultures? How is interdisciplinary work to be accomplished?

    The early portions of the course will involve discussing readings in comparative research methodology, including functionalism, Common Core analysis, legal transplant theory, historicism, law and development, legal pluralism, cultural analysis, colonial studies, and comparative institutionalism. In the latter portions of the course, students will present and critique their methodologically reflective research projects. A modest number of external speakers will be invited to present their work in progress for the purposes of generating methodologically oriented discussion.

  

  • LAW 8991 - Thesis


    Fall, spring. 5 credits. LL.M. grades: H, S, U, J.D.

    Enrollment limited to: graduate students and students completing joint J.D.-LL.M. program. Satisfies the writing requirement.

    Staff.

    Arrangements for a master’s thesis are made by the student directly with a faculty member. A faculty member may require the student to submit a detailed outline of the proposed thesis, as well as a summary of previous writing on the subject or other appropriate information. The work is completed during the academic year under the supervision of a law faculty member.

  

  • LAW 9901 - Graduate Research


    Fall, spring. Graduate program grading: HH, H, S, U.

    Enrollment limited to: J.S.D. Students.

    Staff.

LING—Linguistics
  

  • LING 1101 - Introduction to Linguistics


    (KCM-AS)
    4 credits.

    Fall, S. Murray; spring, W. Harbert.

    Overview of the science of language, especially its theoretical underpinnings, methods, and major findings. Areas covered include: the relation between sound and meaning in human languages, social variation in language, language change over time, universals of language, and the mental representation of linguistic knowledge. Students are introduced to a wide variety of language phenomena, drawn not only from languages resembling English, but also from many that appear to be quite unlike English, such as those native to the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific.

  

  • LING 1109 - [English Words: Histories and Mysteries]

    (crosslisted)
    (also CLASS 1699 )(HB) (HA-AS)
    Spring. 4 credits.

    Next offered 2014-2015.

    A. Nussbaum.

    Where do the words we use come from? This course examines the history and structure of the English vocabulary from its distant Indo-European roots to the latest in technical jargon and slang. Topics include formal and semantic change, taboo and euphemism, borrowing, new words from old, “learned” English loans from Greek and Latin, slang, and society.

  

  • LING 1111 - American Sign Language I


    Summer. 4 credits.

    T. Galloway.

    Students with no previous background in American Sign Language (ASL) are introduced to the nature of a signed language and develop expressive and receptive skills in ASL. Basic grammar and vocabulary are covered, including explanations of the fundamental parts of a sign, proper use of fingerspelling, and the significance of nonmanual features. Instruction is supplemented with videotexts allowing students to begin to explore the visual literature of the Deaf community in the United States-stories, poems, and jokes that are unique to Deaf culture. Readings and class discussions acquaint students with the causes of deafness, the historical development of ASL and its linguistic status, and characteristics of deaf education both throughout history and in the present day.

  

  • LING 1112 - [American Sign Language II]


    Summer. 4 credits.

    Prerequisite: LING 1111  or permission of instructor. Next offered 2014-2015.

    T. Galloway.

    In this intermediate course, students continue to develop expressive and receptive fluency in ASL. Focus is on greater descriptive skill, developing intermediate-level narratives, and enhancing conversational ability. Advanced grammar and vocabulary is supplemented with further instruction in the linguistic structure of ASL. Readings, class discussions, and videotexts containing samples of the visual literature of the United States Deaf community continues students’ investigation into American Deaf history and the shaping of modern Deaf culture.

  

  • LING 1131 - Elementary Sanskrit I

    (crosslisted)
    (also CLASS 1331 , SANSK 1131 )
    Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

    Offered alternate years.

    A. Ruppel.

    For description, see SANSK 1131 .

  

  • LING 1132 - Elementary Sanskrit II

    (crosslisted)
    (also CLASS 1332 , SANSK 1132 )
    Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

    Prerequisite: LING 1131  or permission of instructor.

    A. Ruppel.

    For description, see SANSK 1132 .

 

Page: 1 <- Back 10 … 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 … Forward 10 -> 97
  Courses of Study Home
  Course Descriptions

  Colleges, Schools, and Units
  Agriculture and Life Sciences
  Architecture, Art, and Planning
  Arts and Sciences
  Athletics and Physical Education
  Biological Sciences
  Computing and Information Science
  Continuing Education and Summer Sessions
  Cornell Tech
  Engineering
  Graduate School
  Hotel Administration
  Human Ecology
  Industrial and Labor Relations
  Law School
  Nutritional Sciences
  Officer Education
  Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
  Veterinary Medicine
  My Favorites