Course Schedule

This course will open with an introduction to the hydrological cycle, its natural stocks and flows, its fresh and saline elements, its phases, its vertical and horizontal dimensions, its mutable biogeochemistry, and its essentiality to the maintenance of life.  We'll draw on water's critical roles within the biosphere, the atmosphere, and the cryosphere and the accelerating destabilization of these roles as we encounter them in our time.

We'll then trace the powerful influences of U.S. law on the use and consumption, conservation, diversion, and development of water's stocks and flows. To do so, we'll first follow the evolution of American water law and policy as they emerge into a distinct body of doctrines in the soggy Eastern states; then, as they re-emerge through a very different body of law in the arid Western and Southwestern states; and, finally, as they emerge for the third time through the troubled development and implementation of federal authority.

The resultant complex of concepts, rules, and practices has spawned a regime of rights, entitlements, and demands for entitlement that has heavily favored stasis over long periods of time.

Now, the entire regime is cracking open under the competing pressures that markets,  social injustices, and strident political differences over resource exploitation in the face of accelerating climatic changes are bringing to bear. In the final portion of the course, we'll investigate some of these arenas of severe conflict, in search of the fourth evolutionary stage of water law--more coherent, more deeply splintered, or both-- that may be starting to emerge.

Our methods of approach will rely on a mix of lecture; individual- and team-led class participation; and some deep dives that will involve expert guests. Class members are encouraged to apply their diversity of disciplinary training and interests throughout the course and to adopt a special topic for the term, if they wish.

There will be a very brief written assignment and a final research paper on an instructor-approved topic that may be a group effort, in lieu of an exam. Honesty and graduate-level proficiency are the major criteria on which these projects will be judged.

This survey course in U.S. water law and policy traces these subjects from their influential pre-colonial origins through their nineteenth century development into the very different allocational regimes of the Eastern and Western states—both, still standing-- to their twentieth century re-birth within a cooperative-federalist schema of water quality regulation to their current entanglement in a large complex of no-longer-duckable issues and problems-- a stew that is the legacy of ideas, norms, and practices that resisted change for too long. These issues and problems include the over-exploitation of water resources; climate-driven droughts and floods and their ties to impervious cover excesses and dams; the chemical infiltration of the public water supply; chronic underinvestment in infrastructure; and confrontations with matters of principle, including environmental justice and the human right to water, to name a few. The uneasy meld of water law’s past, present, and future, accounted for under the drivers of policy, principle, and politics, are what this course is about.  

            Some attention will be given to Texas water law and policy. This will include guest presentations by Texas experts from different fields.

            Methods will include lecture; individual and team-led class participation; and some “deep dives” into matters of extended exploration. Class members will be encouraged to apply their diversity of disciplinary training and interests to the subjects at hand and to adopt a pet topic or theme for the term, if they wish. There will be one very brief paper-writing exercise and a final paper on an instructor-approved topic, both subject to graduate-school standards of review, in lieu of an exam.

This survey course in American water law, policy, and the normative principles that underlie them is designed to welcome a multi-disciplinary cohort of students, including those from law, engineering, earth sciences, government, public policy, and community and regional planning, into a highly collaborative learning environment. The shared pursuit of knowledge and insight from multiple contributory disciplines enlivens and enriches this course every year.

The course will pay its deepest respects to the essentiality of water for the maintenance, as well as the flourishing, of life and to the earth's systematic reliance on water's cyclical stocks and flows.

 The main body of the course will examine the law's highly-fragmented regulation of surface and groundwater allocation within its two historically-divided, regionally-distinct, state-law-dependent regimes, as well as its regulation of water quality under federal statutory initiatives that have lost their political shine and are now considerably vexed. The conventional kinds of conflicts that have driven and molded water law and policy throughout almost all of its history will illustrate the terms and functions of this over-all body of fractured institutional design.

We will then consider some of the fraught practical issues of our current moment, one in which water law's conventional rationales and outcomes face conflicts of extreme social and economic importance  within new or long unresolved policy frames. These are likely to include, by example: extraordinary water demands for data-centers; water demands for thirsty agricultural uses in increasingly-populated states that are challenged by dwindling or unsteady supplies; governmental responses to floods, droughts, chemical pollution, and to historically unanswered tribal needs.

Interstate compacts and rivalries, issues of local control, uncooperative federalism--all these and other examples of law on the hoof will enter the course, as we test the capacities of this heavily challenged field of chronically-inertial law to rise to new needs for principled, coherent, sometimes innovative response.

Our methods of approach will rely on a mix of readings and lecture; individual- and team-led class participation; and visits from expert guests. Class members are encouraged to apply their diversity of disciplinary training and interests throughout the course and to adopt a special topic for the term, if they wish. All course materials, other than optional student-supplied contributions, will be available on Canvas; no purchases will be required.

There will be a very brief written assignment and a final research paper on an instructor-approved topic--the latter may be a group effort-- in lieu of an exam. Honesty in all aspects of the production of these papers and graduate-level proficiency in the research and writing are the major criteria on which these projects will be judged. They are not to be based on AI use.

 Learning Outcomes:

 1—This course intends to offer a gateway introduction to the kinds of issues, outcomes, doctrines, rationales, statutes, and stresses that contemporary water law, politics, and policies sweep in. Rational inquiry, analytic reasoning, and normative analysis will be our primary means of address.

2—Students will be steadily exposed to the concepts and vocabularies of hydrology and hydrogeology, equity and justice, law and policy.

3—Students will develop a familiarity with the foundations and institutional frameworks of water law and policy and the complexities of contemporary decision-making.

4—Law student class members will gain extensive exposure to the critical analysis of legal materials.  All students will develop critical skills in their approach to policy analysis.

5--Non-law students will not be expected to complete written or oral assignments or to offer voluntary in-class contributions as if they have had the same professional training as law students. They will be expected to make valuable use of the training they are receiving in their graduate field of choice.

6—Each student will pursue one or two course-related topics of personal interest and will write about these in the form of, first, a brief “opinion” essay and, second, a research-based paper. Through these means, each student will be encouraged to strive for original thought, a unique writing voice, and a personal-best effort at graduate-level scholarship through the production of clear, correct, and lively written exposition and adequately-framed and cited research.  (Note: Method of citation will follow the practice in each student’s home field.)

7—Class members will practice the skills necessary for the effective oral presentation of the course materials--and their own ideas.

8—Class members will gain the benefits of collaborative engagement, which they’ll practice within presentations in pairs and within class-presentation groups.

     Chaotic and upending droughts, floods, and hurricanes of historic proportions; groundwater depletions and surface water losses; algal blooms and other toxic drinking water threats; dam and other infrastructural failures; and an accelerating cascade of other devastating events have cast a glaring spotlight on the fragmented structure of state-based, region-based, and federal water rules and regulations and the fractured publicly- and privately-motivated ideals they represent. In the crowded public forum that is resulting from the practical consequences, the concerns and fears, and the notoriety of all of this, stakeholder groups vie to maintain existing rights and the expectations they have nourished. Other groups, including those that have been historically dispossessed of water rights, press for institutional, legal, and, in broad instances, justice-driven normative change.

     In this course, we will study these layers of tumult in reference to the law as it has come to be, with attention to its historic taproots; its policy-based underpinnings, puzzles, and rationales; and its possible futures, as they are being contested over now. Our modes of inquiry will include traditional legal analysis; institutional, physical (e.g., infrastructure failure), and policy analysis, with an emphasis on problem- and solutions-identification; the substance of current debates; expert guest participation; and the creative and enlivening interactions that our multi-disciplinary student membership invites.

     A major design feature will involve “deep dives” into hot topics of important public concern. These openings to conflicts in-the-round mean to underline the fact that, while some class members are preparing to specialize in water-specific careers, all of us need to prepare through reflective engagement and a shared basis in knowledge for endemic kinds of water stress in whatever place we live, as these are our times. Water wisdom for long-term stewardship is our aim, as this role will belong to everyone, wherever we live and on the planet we call home.

    Students may be assembled into multi-disciplinary or single-discipline class discussion teams (or both). Everyone will write a very brief paper on a course-related topic of her or his own and a final research paper on an instructor-approved topic. Both are subject to graduate-level writing standards; no bots allowed. There will be no exams in the course.

Water is essential to the existence of all living things on this, our “blue” planet, including, of course, us. As the planet is seventy percent water, so, it happens, are we. As the character in a 2011 novel put this, “We exist only as a film on the water.” If that suggests itself as a fragile state of affairs, that’s because, increasingly, it is.

          The earth’s hydrological cycle—regulator of the freshwater/saltwater balance that sustains our bodies, our food networks, our geographic placements—is increasingly perturbed, a function of the ongoing disturbance of the planet’s natural systems under conditions to which our society, all societies, must quickly learn to adapt. We are in the process of inventing a new existential curriculum, one based on the need to live with careful attention to a myriad of challenging, earth-system-dependent details.

          What might “adaptation” mean—what can it mean? what should it mean?-- for one of the most stabilizing traditions on which we depend—law; its symbiotic policy matrix; its case-law-based jurisprudence of private conflict resolution, relied on for fostering incremental, small-bore movement by design? The crises engendered by climate change and the stabilizing, slow-moving features that characterize our legal tradition do not easily converge.

          Emergent issues and questions fall heavily—uneasily—on water law, one of the oldest branches of American law, embossed with the early norms and rules of soggy England; its later developments tentacular and disjunctive, dependent on regions; states; a late-arriving, compromised federal presence; and on property law, rooted in notions and conflicts about land.   

          Five further matters of note:

(1) Our approach to each unit of material will be solidly planted in the legal tradition and relevant policy, including their rationales, and norms. Only after an introduction to foundational knowledge of each major component of the system in place may we reasonably engage in exploration, evaluation, and critique-- and we will, as we go along.

(2) The approach and materials will be inter-disciplinary and include basic hydrology/hydrogeology; climate science; (a possible smidge of) engineering; policy analysis; political governance; climate ethics and environmental ethics (environmental justice). Our forms of engagement: mostly reading; writing; some guests; some film, including videos made by you.

(3) We may treat Texas water law and policy as a kind of learning lab. We’ll occasionally look to developments outside the U.S.

(4) Units will be covered through lecture and collaborative as well as individual student enterprise. I mean to foster collaborative engagement.

(5) The course and student evaluation will depend on reading, discussion, writing, and, as to the final paper, research. There will be no exam.

This course is intended to provide a practical introduction to the practice of what is commonly referred to as “white collar” crime—an area of criminal defense primarily focused on government investigations of corporations and individuals for non-violent criminal offenses, often of a regulatory or financial nature.

The course will focus on themes and issues commonly encountered in representing clients in these complex and often lengthy investigations, and will walk students through the typical phases of a corporate criminal investigation, up to and including resolution. Recognizing the increasing ability of law enforcement authorities to cooperate beyond national boundaries, the course will also provide an introduction to common issues and themes in cross-border investigations.

Textbook: White Collar Crime in a Nutshell (6th Edition)Ellen S. Podgor | Jerold H. Israel | Miriam H. Baer | Gregory M. GilchristISBN: 9781647082864

This course is intended to provide a practical introduction to the practice of what is commonly referred to as “white collar” crime—an area of criminal defense primarily focused on government investigations of corporations and individuals for non-violent criminal offenses, often of a regulatory or financial nature.

The course will focus on themes and issues commonly encountered in representing clients in these complex and often lengthy investigations, and will walk students through the typical phases of a corporate criminal investigation, up to and including resolution. Recognizing the increasing ability of law enforcement authorities to cooperate beyond national boundaries, the course will also provide an introduction to common issues and themes in cross-border investigations.

Textbook: White Collar Crime in a Nutshell (6th Edition)Ellen S. Podgor | Jerold H. Israel | Miriam H. Baer | Gregory M. GilchristISBN: 9781647082864

This course is intended to provide a practical introduction to the practice of what is commonly referred to as “white collar” crime—an area of criminal defense primarily focused on government investigations of corporations and individuals for non-violent criminal offenses, often of a regulatory or financial nature.

The course will focus on themes and issues commonly encountered in representing clients in these complex and often lengthy investigations, and will walk students through the typical phases of a corporate criminal investigation, up to and including resolution. Recognizing the increasing ability of law enforcement authorities to cooperate beyond national boundaries, the course will also provide an introduction to common issues and themes in cross-border investigations.

Textbook: White Collar Crime in a Nutshell (6th Edition)Ellen S. Podgor | Jerold H. Israel | Miriam H. Baer | Gregory M. GilchristISBN: 9781647082864

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

A general survey of the law relating to family wealth transmission, taking into account transfers within the probate system, wills and intestate succession, and transfers outside it, with special attention to trusts.  Topics include the legal definition of family relationships; formalities required for execution and revocation of wills and other donative documents; mental capacity and volition; drafting pitfalls, post execution events, and difficulties of interpretation; legal protections offered to a decedent’s spouse and children; will substitutes such as life insurance, pension plans, and rights of survivorship; planning for incapacity and other changes in circumstances; obligations and powers of fiduciaries; rights of creditors and beneficiaries; trust creation, supervision, modification, duration, and termination; charitable purposes; and the impact of tax policy on estate planning.

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

Wills and Estates focuses on donative transfers of property. Included are community property, intestate succession, the execution and revocation of wills, frequently recurring drafting problems, the use of trusts, fiduciary administration, future interests, the rule against perpetuities, powers of appointment, estate and gift taxation, and basic estate planning. The course emphasizes Texas law, but it also examines the law of many other jurisdictions, as well as numerous Uniform Acts.

This is a four credit course. There are no prerequisites.

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

Wills and Estates focuses on donative transfers of property. Included are community property, intestate succession, the execution and revocation of wills, frequently recurring drafting problems, the use of trusts, fiduciary administration, future interests, the rule against perpetuities, powers of appointment, estate and gift taxation, and basic estate planning. The course emphasizes Texas law, but it also examines the law of many other jurisdictions, as well as numerous Uniform Acts.

This is a four credit course. There are no prerequisites.

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

Wills and Estates focuses on donative transfers of property. Included are community property, intestate succession, the execution and revocation of wills, frequently recurring drafting problems, the use of trusts, fiduciary administration, future interests, the rule against perpetuities, powers of appointment, estate and gift taxation, and basic estate planning. The course emphasizes Texas law, but it also examines the law of many other jurisdictions, as well as numerous Uniform Acts.

This is a four credit course. There are no prerequisites.

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

This course deals with donative transfers of property, including intestate succession, probate administration of decedents’ estates, execution and revocation of wills, the use of trusts in estate planning, and rules of construction that affect will and trust drafting. The course also will cover community property laws and basic estate tax and gift tax principles. Relevant Texas Estates Code and Uniform Probate Code statutes will be included in a Supplement to the casebook. Prerequisites: None.

Wills and Estates focuses on donative transfers of property. Included are community property, intestate succession, the execution and revocation of wills, frequently recurring drafting problems, the use of trusts, fiduciary administration, future interests, the rule against perpetuities, powers of appointment, estate and gift taxation, and basic estate planning. The course emphasizes Texas law, but it also examines the law of many other jurisdictions, as well as numerous Uniform Acts.

This is a four credit course. There are no prerequisites.

This two-credit course will survey the most prominent current legal issues affecting the wind and solar industry. Taught by two practicing attorneys (with a combined 50 years of experience in the electric power, wind and solar industries), the course will explore the history of wind and solar energy, the fundamentals of developing a wind or solar project, the major elements of wind and solar leases and other real property issues, government tax incentives, litigation, interconnection and transmission issues, permitting, the impact of renewable energy development on the environment and wildlife, acquisitions and sales of wind and solar projects, and project finance. We will also learn about other technologies such as energy storage, green hydrogen, and electric vehicles. Many of our class meetings will feature prominent guest speakers who work in and provide counsel to the renewable energy and electric utility industries. Grading is based on a combination of a paper and presentation on a topic of the student's choosing, a transactional assignment, a case presentation, and class participation.

This two-credit course will survey the most prominent current legal issues affecting the wind and solar industry. Taught by two practicing attorneys (with a combined 50 years of experience in the electric power, wind and solar industries), the course will explore the history of wind and solar energy, the fundamentals of developing a wind or solar project, the major elements of wind and solar leases and other real property issues, government tax incentives, litigation, interconnection and transmission issues, permitting, the impact of renewable energy development on the environment and wildlife, acquisitions and sales of wind and solar projects, and project finance. We will also learn about other technologies such as energy storage, green hydrogen, and electric vehicles. Many of our class meetings will feature prominent guest speakers who work in and provide counsel to the renewable energy and electric utility industries. Grading is based on a combination of a paper and presentation on a topic of the student's choosing, a transactional assignment, a case presentation, and class participation.