Course Schedule

This course will explore the legal issues raised by the business of video games and other software-based interactive entertainment. The course will consists of a series of class meetings that track the conception, development and commercialization of video game properties and focus on the way the law has developed and is evolving in each area. In addition, special issues related to virtual worlds/Metaverse, NFTs, user generated content and similar concerns will be covered.

This course will explore the legal issues raised by the business of video games and other software-based interactive entertainment. The course will consists of a series of class meetings that track the conception, development and commercialization of video game properties and focus on the way the law has developed and is evolving in each area. In addition, special issues related to virtual worlds/Metaverse, NFTs, user generated content and similar concerns will be covered.

This course will explore the legal issues raised by the business of video games and other software-based interactive entertainment. The course will consists of a series of class meetings that track the conception, development and commercialization of video game properties and focus on the way the law has developed and is evolving in each area. In addition, special issues related to virtual worlds, user generated content and similar concerns will be covered.

"Sovereignty" is perhaps the most pervasive, and contentious, issue both in political theory and in law.  University of Michigan law political theorist and law professor Don Herzog, for example, has suggegsted that the concept itself be retired, to "rest in peace," inasmuc, he argues, that contemporary realities are so different from the assumptions operative at the turn of the 17th century, when the idea of sovereignty was initially developed.  But, in fact, one cannot understand the major Western religions without paying attention to the importance of "divine sovereignty."  We will therefore begin with Abraham's acceptance of God's command to kill his son Isaac.  The course will definitely be grounded in various approaches to "sovereignty" throughout Western history.  The limitation to the "West" reflects my own lack of relevant knowledge rather than a well-founded belief that the West is exceptional in developing concepts of sovereigty.

We will also look carefully at the transformation from "divine sovereignty'--as in the "divine right of kings" and other rulers--into what I regard as the most important single political notion of hte past 400 years, the idea of popular sovereignty.  What are some of the meanings of the term, and attendant complications?  If "the people" are sovereign, for example, we must decide who is part of the relevant community of "the people" rather than "outsiders." Some outsiders may be defined as living outside of some territorial demaraction.  But even some people living"inside territorial boundaries" may nonetheless be viewed as outside the "sovereignt people."  Think, for example, of members of Indigenous Nations or enslaved persons, or resident aliens, especially if they are undocumented.  Many are treated as not truly part of the relevant legal community, with few, if any, rights that that community is "bound to respect."  But even if we can agree on who comprises "the people," there is still the question as to whether there are any genine limits on the power of the "soverereign community." How, if at all, does one deal with the idea of "limited sovereignty," or is that a contradiction in terms? Are there transcendent norms that limit "sovereign power," and is that true of God or only of "popular" sovereigns?

We will pay suitable attention to cases of the United States Supreme Court, but you should know that a primary point will be that they almost always beg the central theoretical questions posed by "sovereignty" as a political concept.  Justice Thomas, for example, has been rightly critical of some of the use of "sovereignty" language with regard to the autonomy of Indigenous Nations.  The status of Puerto Rico has also raised some complicated questions for those trying to make sense of the term "sovereignty."  We will also pay some attention to contemporary international law and its ramifications for the idea of sovereignty.  Can one, for example, at the same time support a strong theory of "American" (or any other national) sovereignty as well as the notion of "international" human rights or a "duty. protect" the "inrnal" victims of a paticulr regime's discrimination or tyranny?  

Depanding on the enrollment, I'll certainly be open to alternatives in the work requied and gradding.  I do not conceive of this as a semina, but should anyone wish to write a "seminar paper" in lieu of an examination, that can probalby be arranged.  Similarly, I might well ask you to write short "response" papers to the assigned readings as part of the required workload.  

This seminar will be divided into courts of nine students each.  Each court will take up the same selection of important and interesting cases pending before the Supreme Court in this term. You will act as a justice of the Supreme Court, deliberate with your fellow justices on the basis of the actual briefs and records before the Court, and decide each case. In the course of the semester, you will be expected to write at least two major opinions (for the court, concurring, or dissenting), and two brief opinions (concurring or dissenting separately). You and your colleagues on your court will be the center of conversation and judgment. My role will be secondary, as a sounding board, gadfly and consultant on your work. This is an exciting and demanding seminar, at a moment of great stress within, and attention to, the Supreme Court and its cases.

This seminar will be divided into courts of nine students each.  Each court will take up the same selection of important and interesting cases pending before the Supreme Court in this term. You will act as a justice of the Supreme Court, deliberate with your fellow justices on the basis of the actual briefs and records before the Court, and decide each case. In the course of the semester, you will be expected to write at least two major opinions (for the court, concurring, or dissenting), and two brief opinions (concurring or dissenting separately). You and your colleagues on your court will be the center of conversation and judgment. My role will be secondary, as a sounding board, gadfly and consultant on your work. This is an exciting and demanding seminar, at a moment of great stress within, and attention to, the Supreme Court and its cases.

This seminar will be divided into courts of nine students each.  Each court will take up the same selection of important and interesting cases pending before the Supreme Court in this term. You will act as a justice of the Supreme Court, deliberate with your fellow justices on the basis of the actual briefs and records before the Court, and decide each case. In the course of the semester, you will be expected to write at least two major opinions (for the court, concurring, or dissenting), and two brief opinions (concurring or dissenting separately). You and your colleagues on your court will be the center of conversation and judgment. My role will be secondary, as a sounding board, gadfly and consultant on your work. This is an exciting and demanding seminar, at a moment of great stress within, and attention to, the Supreme Court and its cases.

This seminar will be divided into courts of nine students each.  Each court will take up the same selection of important and interesting cases pending before the Supreme Court in this term. You will act as a justice of the Supreme Court, deliberate with your fellow justices on the basis of the actual briefs and records before the Court, and decide each case. In the course of the semester, you will be expected to write at least two major opinions (for the court, concurring, or dissenting), and two brief opinions (concurring or dissenting separately). You and your colleagues on your court will be the center of conversation and judgment. My role will be secondary, as a sounding board, gadfly and consultant on your work. This is an exciting and demanding seminar, at a moment of great stress within, and attention to, the Supreme Court and its cases.

This seminar will be divided into courts of nine students each.  Each court will take up the same selection of important and interesting cases pending before the Supreme Court in this term. You will act as a justice of the Supreme Court, deliberate with your fellow justices on the basis of the actual briefs and records before the Court, and decide each case. In the course of the semester, you will be expected to write at least two major opinions (for the court, concurring, or dissenting), and two brief opinions (concurring or dissenting separately). You and your colleagues on your court will be the center of conversation and judgment. My role will be secondary, as a sounding board, gadfly and consultant on your work. This is an exciting and demanding seminar, at a moment of great stress within, and attention to, the Supreme Court and its cases.

This is a one-semester three-unit seminar that will review the cases the SCOTUS has accepted for certiorari in the 2022-2023 Term, which of course begins in Oct. of 2022. We will focus on those cases concerning criminal law and procedure and related civil topics, such as immigration and civil rights actions. We will meet once a week for two hours. The only prerequisite is first-year criminal law. However, it would no doubt be helpful to have taken one of our criminal procedure or upper-level criminal law-related courses or seminars, or one of the criminal law clinics or internships. Each week, for the first hour, two of you will argue a pending SCOTUS case representing the government or plaintiff and two will argue representing the defense. The class and I will act as the Justices and question you, the attorneys, from the bench. For the second hour, we will dissect the arguments we heard, and perhaps attempt to predict what the Court will do. Two or three students will write a majority, dissenting, and perhaps a concurring opinion, which they will submit to me the following week. You will not be required to draft more than two opinions each. You will rewrite one of your opinions (your choice) after receiving feedback from your fellow students and from me. Your roles will constantly shift. You may not select which side of an argument you are on, but you can request particular cases. If you don't see a case you are following on my list, please ask! I will be flexible based upon student interest.

There is no casebook.  Please read the briefs of the parties posted posted on the SCOTUS blog for the assigned cases (or the cert. petition and opposition to cert., if that is all there is), and the opinion below. I will also post those on Canvas for your convenience. Reading the briefs of amici is not required. Please check Canvas every week for your written and oral assignments. I will try to get those sorted out and posted after the first week of class. There is no final exam. Your grade is based 50% on your oral arguments, questioning, and other class participation, and 50% on your written opinions. Obviously I cannot blind grade. However, this seminar is limited to 16 students, and therefore I will not grade on a curve.

This is a one-semester three-unit seminar that will review the cases the SCOTUS has accepted for certiorari in the 2022-2023 Term, which of course begins in Oct. of 2022. We will focus on those cases concerning criminal law and procedure and related civil topics, such as immigration and civil rights actions. We will meet once a week for two hours. The only prerequisite is first-year criminal law. However, it would no doubt be helpful to have taken one of our criminal procedure or upper-level criminal law-related courses or seminars, or one of the criminal law clinics or internships. Each week, for the first hour, two of you will argue a pending SCOTUS case representing the government or plaintiff and two will argue representing the defense. The class and I will act as the Justices and question you, the attorneys, from the bench. For the second hour, we will dissect the arguments we heard, and perhaps attempt to predict what the Court will do. Two or three students will write a majority, dissenting, and perhaps a concurring opinion, which they will submit to me the following week. You will not be required to draft more than two opinions each. You will rewrite one of your opinions (your choice) after receiving feedback from your fellow students and from me. Your roles will constantly shift. You may not select which side of an argument you are on, but you can request particular cases. If you don't see a case you are following on my list, please ask! I will be flexible based upon student interest.

There is no casebook.  Please read the briefs of the parties posted posted on the SCOTUS blog for the assigned cases (or the cert. petition and opposition to cert., if that is all there is), and the opinion below. I will also post those on Canvas for your convenience. Reading the briefs of amici is not required. Please check Canvas every week for your written and oral assignments. I will try to get those sorted out and posted after the first week of class. There is no final exam. Your grade is based 50% on your oral arguments, questioning, and other class participation, and 50% on your written opinions. Obviously I cannot blind grade. However, this seminar is limited to 16 students, and therefore I will not grade on a curve.

In this seminar, students will explore rapidly evolving debates around government surveillance, new technologies, civil liberties, and personal privacy. The course will cover surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community, police, and U.S. allies and adversaries abroad, examining key legal instruments and court decisions in light of broader policy debates. The class will also examine the interbranch allocation of responsibility for authorizing, implementing, and overseeing surveillance programs. In particular, the course will focus on surveillance activities affecting new and emerging technologies and those technologies’ potential to shift the balance between citizen and state. Students will be evaluated based on class participation and a research paper fulfilling the Law School writing requirement.

In this seminar, students will explore rapidly evolving debates around government surveillance, new technologies, civil liberties, and personal privacy. The course will cover surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community, police, and U.S. allies and adversaries abroad, examining key legal instruments and court decisions in light of broader policy debates. The class will also examine the interbranch allocation of responsibility for authorizing, implementing, and overseeing surveillance programs. In particular, the course will focus on surveillance activities affecting new and emerging technologies and those technologies’ potential to shift the balance between citizen and state. Students will be evaluated based on class participation and a research paper fulfilling the Law School writing requirement.

In this seminar, students will explore rapidly evolving debates around government surveillance, new technologies, civil liberties, and personal privacy.  The course will cover surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community, police, and U.S. allies and adversaries abroad, examining key legal instruments and court decisions in light of broader policy debates.  The class will also examine the interbranch allocation of responsibility for authorizing, implementing, and overseeing surveillance programs.  At every stage, the course will highlight surveillance activities affecting new and emerging technologies and those technologies’ potential to shift the balance between citizen and state.  Students will be evaluated based on class participation and a research paper fulfilling the Law School writing requirement.

In this seminar, students will explore rapidly evolving debates around government surveillance, new technologies, civil liberties, and personal privacy.  The course will cover surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community, police, and U.S. allies and adversaries abroad, examining key legal instruments and court decisions in light of broader policy debates.  The class will also examine the interbranch allocation of responsibility for authorizing, implementing, and overseeing surveillance programs.  At every stage, the course will highlight surveillance activities affecting new and emerging technologies and those technologies’ potential to shift the balance between citizen and state.  Students will be evaluated based on class participation and a research paper fulfilling the Law School writing requirement.

In this seminar, students will explore rapidly evolving debates around government surveillance, new technologies, civil liberties, and personal privacy.  The course will cover surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community, police, and U.S. allies and adversaries abroad, examining key legal instruments and court decisions in light of broader policy debates.  The class will also examine the interbranch allocation of responsibility for authorizing, implementing, and overseeing surveillance programs.  At every stage, the course will highlight surveillance activities affecting new and emerging technologies and those technologies’ potential to shift the balance between citizen and state.  Students will be evaluated based on class participation and a research paper fulfilling the Law School writing requirement.

Negotiations in Congress about tax policy increasingly focus on the dozens of credits in the federal income tax law. There are credits for parenting, education, home ownership, research and development, energy production, electric cars, and building affordable housing, just to name a few. There are three competing frameworks for evaluating tax credits: as instruments for resolving competing claims of tax jurisdiction, as tools of income measurement, and as tax expenditures equivalent to direct spending. This seminar will explore these frameworks and invite each student to write a paper evaluating a specific tax credit of their choice. Prerequisite: Federal Income Tax.

This seminar examines the history of American tax law as a central engine of constitutional development, state building, and democratic conflict. It explores how tax law emerged, evolved, and acquired its current structure, from the fiscal failures of the Articles of Confederation and the constitutional design of the taxing power, to the rise of tariffs and excises, the transformation to a mass income tax, and the development of modern tax administration. Along the way, we will consider how taxation has been intertwined with economic factionalism and representation, war and public credit, property and inequality, and the growth of the administrative state. The animating goal of the course is to use history to give students the conceptual tools and contextual background needed to understand the persistent messiness and political salience of contemporary tax law. Many of today’s most pressing fiscal disputes—over inequality, corporate taxation, tax exemptions, and administrative discretion—are recurring features of the American tax state rather than entirely new problems. By situating modern debates within their historical trajectories, students will develop a deeper capacity to analyze and navigate tax law in practice, whether as tax specialists, policy advisors, litigators, or lawyers in any field. Evaluation will be based primarily on a substantial research paper in which students use the historical materials and themes from the course to intervene in a contemporary issue in tax law or policy of their choosing. No prior background in tax law or legal history is required.

PREREQUISITE: Federal Income Tax (354J or 454J or 393Q or 493Q). This seminar will examine some fundamental features of the U.S. federal income tax system and will focus on various tax policy considerations including fairness, efficiency, complexity/simplicity, the Executive Branch and legislative processes, and taxpayer behavior. The assigned readings and class discussions will focus on several key topics, including the proper timing for taxing income, progressive versus flat tax rates, the income tax treatment of property transferred at death or by gift, tax expenditures, the taxation of corporate income, and capital gains and losses. You and I will need to agree on your paper topic during the first month of class or so, and thereafter you must complete an outline of your paper that you submit to me for review and comment, then you must do a substantial draft of the paper that you will present in class and that I will give you comments on, and, finally, you must submit your final paper to me approximately two or three days before the deadline for spring grades (the precise deadline for the final paper will be given to you during or before the first week of classes in the spring semester). Your grade will be based on the final paper submitted (approximately 85 percent of the final grade) and class participation (approximately 15 percent of the final grade), including discussion of the assigned readings for 6 or 7 weeks of the seminar class sessions, the PowerPoint presentation of your draft paper in class, and your discussion of other students' draft papers during their PowerPoint presentations of them.

PREREQUISITE: Federal Income Tax (354J or 454J or 393Q or 493Q). This seminar will examine some fundamental features of the U.S. federal income tax system and will focus on various tax policy considerations including fairness, efficiency, complexity/simplicity, the Executive Branch and legislative processes, and taxpayer behavior. The assigned readings and class discussions will focus on several key topics, including the proper timing for taxing income, progressive versus flat tax rates, taxing the family unit, the income tax treatment of property transferred at death or by gift, tax expenditures, the taxation of corporate income, and capital gains and losses. You and I will need to agree on your paper topic during the first month of class or so, and thereafter you must complete an outline of your paper that you submit to me for review and comment, then you must do a substantial draft of the paper that you will present in class and that I will give you comments on, and, finally, you must submit your final paper to me approximately two or three days before the deadline for spring grades (the precise deadline for the final paper will be given to you during or before the first week of classes in the spring semester). Your grade will be based on the final paper submitted (approximately 85 percent of the final grade) and class participation (approximately 15 percent of the final grade), including discussion of the assigned readings for 6 or 7 weeks of the seminar class sessions, the PowerPoint presentation of your draft paper in class, and your discussion of other students' draft papers during their PowerPoint presentations of them.

PREREQUISITE: Federal Income Tax (354J or 454J). This seminar will examine some fundamental features of the U.S. federal income tax system and will focus on various tax policy considerations including fairness, efficiency, complexity/simplicity, the Executive Branch and legislative processes, and taxpayer behavior. The assigned readings and class discussions will focus on several key topics, including the proper timing for taxing income, progressive versus flat tax rates, taxing the family unit, the income tax treatment of property transferred at death or by gift, tax expenditures, the taxation of corporate income, capital gains and losses, and the proper income tax treatment of price level changes. You and I will need to agree on your paper topic during the first month of class or so, and thereafter you must complete an outline of your paper that you submit to me for review and comment, then you must do a substantial draft of the paper  that you will present in class, and that I will give you comments on, and, finally, you must submit your final paper to mw two days before the deadline for spring grades. Your grade will be based on the final paper submitted (approximately 85 percent of the final grade) and class participation (approximately 15 percent of the final grade), including discussion of the assigned readings for 6 or 7 weeks of the seminar class sessions, the presentation of your draft paper in class, and your discussion of other students' draft papers during their presentations of them.

"I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and I go home.” — Greg Abbott, Texas Attorney General, April 30, 2013.  Everything is bigger in Texas, including the state’s impact on Constitutional Law. Seminal decisions originating in Texas have shaped every area of constitutional doctrine from abortion to voting rights. This class will explore the role that the state of Texas and localities within Texas have played in instigating constitutional change in our federal system. It will engage in in-depth analysis of landmark Supreme Court cases that came out of Texas, including inquiries into how the case developed, why the Supreme Court granted certiorari, and the impact of the eventual decision on Texas and the nation.

This seminar examines how legal and financial institutions shape not just the rate of innovation, but its direction. Why do some technologies flourish while others remain underdeveloped? How do tort liability, patent design, venture capital, and regulatory structures channel investment toward certain forms of innovation and away from others?

The course explores how uniform legal rules interact with heterogeneous technologies, often producing systematic distortions. We will study how tort liability surrounding pregnancy and fetal harm may deter innovation in female reproductive health; how uniform 20-year patent terms can disadvantage long-horizon innovations such as cancer prevention; and how venture capital’s fund structure and exit incentives favor scalable, short-term returns over slower, prevention-oriented or liability-exposed technologies. Throughout, we consider how discount rates, risk allocation, and institutional design influence technological trajectories and raise questions about equity and social welfare.

Because of its lopsided outcome, the Election of 1864 gets short shrift in popular and scholarly discussions of the most important elections in American history. Compared to 1800, 1876, or 2000, it barely makes a dent. Insofar as most people know anything about the election, they probably know only that Lincoln won—and maybe that it wasn’t especially close. The assumption baked into that desultory treatment is that there’s nothing for us to learn from the proceedings. This seminar is premised on the idea that that’s a mistake. A compelling case can be made not only that the Election of 1864 was the most important election in American history, but that, 160 years later, it still has some remarkably important lessons to teach us today. First, the election quite literally saved the Union. Had Lincoln lost (as he thought he would as late as the end of August), the odds are exceptionally high that the war would have been lost alongside the election—with Confederate independence as the inevitable, if not inexorable, result. But the Election of 1864 also brought with it a confluence of remarkable (and underappreciated) historical, political, and legal developments that helped to move the needle from Lincoln’s expected defeat in August to his landslide victory in November—and that we’ll study in this class.

It was in 1864 that northern states first adopted absentee voting on a widespread basis—an effort on the part of Republican-controlled state legislatures, in particular, to make it possible for soldiers fighting away from home to vote. That precedent had immediate short-term implications, as well: as many as 70% of the soldiers who voted in 1864 would vote for Lincoln. And it inaugurated a practice that has become a lightning rod in contemporary American politics—in a context that illuminates, and largely responds to, present-day objections to remote voting. 1864 also saw the only mixed presidential ticket in American history, with Lincoln unceremoniously dumping incumbent Vice President Hannibal Hamlin in favor of the Democratic military governor of Tennessee, Andrew Johnson—a move that would have profound political and historical ramifications of its own following Lincoln’s assassination and Johnson’s succession to the presidency, and from which contemporary political parties have taken all of the wrong lessons about cross-party tickets. Relatedly, 1864 saw one of the largest national unity votes in American history, with countless War Democrats voting for the Republican Lincoln on the “National Union” ticket—literally opting for their country over their party. That ticket included a commitment not just to an unconditional Confederate surrender (the central point of contention between War Democrats and Peace Democrats), but to adoption of a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery—which would pass both chambers of Congress in January 1865, and be ratified by the states 11 months later. And all of this happened while the Union army and navy continued to advance against their Confederate foes—one of the more remarkable alignments of political and military decisionmaking during wartime, with consequences for the division of civil and military governmental functions that persist to the present.

But the most remarkable thing about the Election of 1864 is that it happened at all. It remains the only example in recorded history of a democracy holding a national election during a civil war. Despite calls from some members of his party to consider postponement, Lincoln never wavered from his conviction that holding the election on schedule was absolutely essential—even, if not especially, when he became convinced that he was going to lose. Lincoln desperately wanted to win the war, but only to save the very democracy that he was willing to let vote him out of office to stop him. The Election of 1864 thus is not just a story about the election that saved the Union; it is a story about presidential leadership; it is a story about adapting the franchise to the circumstances of the moment; it is a story about elevating country over party; and it is, at its core, a story about the simultaneous fragility and resiliency of our democracy—one that ought to be shouted from the rooftops, especially today. Our goal in this seminar is to learn—and figure out how to tell—that story.

This seminar will examine topics in the law of Social Media and Artificial Intelligence.  

Social media has revolutionized how we share, consume, and interact with all forms of digital content. These changes brought by social media touch on all aspects of our life—including our legal system. This course will discuss the spectrum of legal topics being impacted by social media: marketing, intellectual property, employment, privacy, free speech, and fund raising. You will also explore the role that lawyers in law firms and within organizations face when addressing these changes and the emerging risks. The objective of this seminar is to introduce students to the social media legal issues and the methods being used by attorneys to address these risks and how to identify the next area of social media that will challenge our existing legal norms. 

Artificial Intelligence is the use of machines to generate reasoning and problem solving, knowledge representation, and planning and decisionmaking. AI has been available in many forms for years but its use is becoming more commonplace in the practice of law. The delivery and use of AI presents many important legal and policy questions for society.