Course Schedule

This 3 credit hour seminar will focus on issues and problems associated with “decarbonizing” (reducing or eliminating fossil fuels from) the American energy system.  We will explore various plans that propose relatively rapid, deep decarbonization of the electricity sector, including those proposed by the states of California and New York,  “100% renewable” cities like Aspen, CO and Georgetown, TX, as well as academic proposals for rapid deep decarbonization. We will also look plans to decarbonize the transportation sector, including plans by European cities and nations to eliminate gasoline-powered vehicles within their borders within the next few decades.  The seminar will meet weekly, with the bulk of the student’s grade based upon an individual research paper. 

There are no prerequisites for this seminar, but, students who have taken one or more of the following classes will have an easier time with the readings:  Regulating Energy Production (Spence), Texas Energy Law (Smitherman), or Regulating Energy Markets (Spence).

How are and should corporations be run and regulated, and how do and should modern financial markets and products function? This seminar tackles timeless and timely questions.  Here are some possible examples.  What are the legal and public policy considerations in determining what a corporation’s goals should be—and what do the corporations actually do?  In this connection, what does the moniker “ESG” mean and what are the pluses and minuses of considering “ESG” factors for shareholders, other stakeholders, and society?  What should a prospective lawyer (or judge, legislator, or regulator) who was a college history major know about matters such as stock market behavior, efficient markets, portfolio diversification, derivatives, and new financial products?  How do such matters relate to corporate goals, corporate governance and the role of institutional investors, bank and securities regulation, world financial stability--and your personal finances?  No business or finance background required!  Both students with and without such backgrounds have presented and written fascinating analytical papers on a very wide variety of topics in this seminar.  It is recommended (although not required) that students either have already taken or simultaneously take Business Associations or Business Associations (Enriched).

This seminar will address risks associated with petroleum and energy resource development in the United States and in other countries. The study of petroleum law offers students a unique opportunity to study law in the context of a specific industry, energy, and a subject matter that includes three of the largest traded and most strategically important commodities: oil, natural gas, including LNG, and natural gas liquids. The initial readings and the first several seminar sessions will examine basic principles of both domestic and international petroleum law, some of the more important contracts used in the petroleum sector, financial matters, and environmental issues. The primary object is for each student to write a 25-35 page paper with over 120 footnotes and with over 30 sources on an approved topic related to petroleum or other energy resources. Students must select an approved topic within the first two weeks, and thereafter prepare an outline, a first draft, and a final draft. The final draft is due on the last day of final examinations. Suggested research topics will be provided, but students will be allowed to select their own research topics, subject to instructor approval. Students will prepare and present a 20-minute presentation for class. Student presentations will occur during the last several weeks of the course. The paper will count 80%, the presentation will count 10%, and class participation (including attendance) will count 10%. The class is reserved to 10 JD students and 5 LLM students. There are no prerequisites for this seminar. Readings will be somewhat individualized for students: students who have a copy of Anderson, Weaver et al., International Petroleum Law and Transactions (RMMLF [FNREL] 2020), will be assigned readings from that book. Students who have a copy of Lowe, Anderson et al. Cases and Materials on Oil and Gas Law (West Academic 8th 2022), will be assigned readings from that book. Students who have neither book should purchase one of these two books, as they may choose.

Enforcing contracts we enter into is fair, we are told, because we have consented to their terms. But what is consent? Is consent possible under circumstances of extreme ignorance, including ignorance of facts and relevant law? And what considerations ought to determine the scope of our consensual commitments, even when freely made? Can reflection on these abstract questions help us understand the law of contract? Can it help judges do their jobs better as interpreters? And do judges presuppose, knowingly or not, controversial notions about the nature and value of consent when applying contract law's doctrines or interpreting contracts? These and related questions will be the focus of our seminar, which includes reading recent philosophical and empirical work on consent, as well as recent case law that presupposes or engages with these thorny issues.

This seminar will be a study of philosophical questions concerning punishment and responsibility in the criminal law. These questions include the nature of punishment, its justification, proportionality,  the compatibility of criminal responsibility with a scientific world view, and the compatibility of mens rea as a condition of criminality with deterrence as an aim of punishment.

We will consider the ethical foundations of law and politics, focusing on the moral and intellectual virtues.  The questions we consider are of interest to philosophers of politics and jurisprudence, constitutional scholars, political scientists, legislators, and jurists.  The approach is partly historical, partly contemporary.

Most of our ancestors took for granted that it was impossible to organize a decent legal and political order without a certain kind of character on the part of the citizens and the rulers.  Some thought we inevitably get the government we deserve; others thought that certain constitutional devices could ‘stretch’ virtue, so that it might be possible to get a somewhat better government than we deserve (for example, with the help of checks and balances).  Not until Hume did it became common to suppose that a well-designed regime is not particularly reliant on virtue at all.  On this view, arguably, it should have been easier than it has been to promote republican government in countries that are not accustomed to it.

I am primarily an ethical and political theorist, rather than a jurisprude, a historian, or a number cruncher.  However, I invite students who identify with a variety of approaches.

This seminar will explore fundamental questions concerning the nature and justification of private property. These questions include how to conceptualize the right to property and what it should be understood to encompass; whether property rights should be conceived as natural or conventional in character; how the recognition and enforcement of property rights can best be justified; how property rights may be legitimately acquired and transferred; the status of property rights relative to other considerations and the permissibility of interference with property by the state or other private actors; the kinds of things that it is appropriate or desirable to treat as property; and the merits of private ownership as compared to alternative systems of resource management. We will engage with both classic philosophical treatments of property and recent theoretical work on the law of property.

Have you wondered how it is determined that some crypto-currency activities violate the securities laws?  Or what might make trading in meme stocks subject to enforcement action?  The objective of this course is to illuminate such questions by giving students a practical appreciation of both the process through which securities law enforcement decisions are made, and the way in which the reach of the securities laws has developed as a consequence.  We will cover two broad areas.  First, the mechanics of the securities enforcement process and the roles played in it by government lawyers, defense lawyers, the Commission, and the courts.  The goal is to provide an “insiders” appreciation of how enforcement decision-making occurs, and how it operates as a significant driver in the development of the substantive securities law.  The second part of the course will be a deep dive into substantive areas of the securities law that are particularly shaped by enforcement decision making, including, for example, the prohibitions on insider trading, foreign corrupt practices, financial fraud, market manipulation and the emerging regulation of crypto-currencies.   A consistent theme will be the utility and consequences of developing law through ad hoc enforcement decisions. The professor had a 35-year securities enforcement career that included positions as a senior SEC enforcement official and as a partner in a global law firm representing clients in defense of securities enforcement investigations, and has deep experience with these issues from both perspectives.  

This is a writing seminar designed to teach key features of the doctrines developed in connection with 42 U.S.C. 1983, the primary vehicle for federal civil rights litigation in connection with constitutional violatoins by state and local officials. The readings will present the opportunity to learn the mechanics of Section 1983 litigation, and also scholarly and policy critiques of the doctrinal landscape. Topics will include state-action doctrine, qualified and absolute immunity, municipal liability, damages and attorneys fees, and additional issues. Class sessions will typically include both discussion of cases and scholarship pertaining to the assigned topic, but also discussions with practitioners in the field. Students are expected to participate actively in each week's discussion, to submit brief reading reflections/questions on a weekly basis, and to complete original research which may take the form of either traditional legal scholarship or a policy brief.

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.

"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 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.

What is a “tragic choice”?  In this course we will discuss the dilemmas surrounding the decisions by societies to distribute various goods and bads in different ways.  Among these allocations are: who gets expensive medical care and transplants; what protocols are put in place to stem a pandemic; who gets drafted; who is given the right to have children; priorities for immigration; the administration of the death penalty; distributing food in a famine or water in a drought; the ransom of hostages.  In every society, citizens hold competing and incommensurable values.  Tragic choices highlight---and sometime hide or suppress—the conflicts that such choices pit among these values.

The principal text is Tragic Choices: the conflicts society confronts in the allocation of tragically scarce resources by Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt (Norton, 1978).

This two credit hour course provides an overview of practical school law (Kindergarten-Grade 12) with a focus on school district policy and governance, student and employee rights, and current issues facing public schools. Taught by a practicing school attorney, the course has no formal prerequisites, but will build on principles of federal civil procedure and constitutional law. School law cases frequently rely on these principles as courts strike a balance between the federal and state policy priorities, civil rights, and personal liberties colliding dailing in our public schools. Students will read leading education-related precedents from the U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit courts, focusing on a different topic each week. At the start of each class session, a subset of students will prepare a briefing and lead the class in discussion of an assigned current event related to the week's topic. Our class discussions will most certainly be "ripped from the headlines." Grading will be a mix of class participation, current event briefings (written and oral), and a short, predictable traditional final exam. 

Secured Credit is a key class for many types of students. It's essential for student heading into transactional careers or those in litigation in commercial law. It is also crucial for litigators, including public-interest attorneys, who win cases and want their clients to actually collect the money they've won. It is important for other students as well because credit is one of the major systems underlying the U.S. and global economies. Top legal professionals - as Texas Law graduates will be - must have a familiarity with it. This course covers a breadth of credit systems: consumer, business, secured, and unsecured – with a significant emphasis on commercial secured lending. This course also covers a fundamental question not addressed elsewhere in law school curriculum: once you win that big court case, how do you collect money from the other side? (Or, once you lose that big court case, how do you avoid paying?) Students will engage with real-world-based problems, financial current events, and practical strategies for addressing financial problems in consumer, small business and corporate contexts. The course's primary body of law is Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, but it also touches on bankruptcy topics and real estate law.

A secured loan is one in which the debtor and lender agree that if the debtor does not pay, the lender can take specific items of property from the debtor. This property is called collateral, and the lender is said to have a security interest in the collateral. The collateral may be tangible property such as inventory, equipment, and consumer goods, or intangible property such as stocks and bonds or the debtor's right to collect from people who owe money to her. This Secured Credit course examines how secured transactions are structured and why they are structured that way. It covers the mechanics of making secured loans, the rules that govern repossessing the collateral if the debtor doesn't pay, and what can happen to security interests if the debtor goes bankrupt. It also examines the priority rules that rank competing claims to the same collateral. Through the problem method, students will learn skills that can be applied to a variety of statutes in law school and many types of legal careers.

Securities law is important, not only for litigators and transactional lawyers at law firms and in in-house positions, but also for policy-makers, enforcement lawyers, and others in government service. Corporations, be they small start-ups or long-established entities, raise capital in public and private offerings of securities. The offerings are subject to securities statutes and Securities and Exchange Commission rules and policies. Moreover, whether or not they are raising capital, all publicly held companies must observe a variety of disclosure and related requirements flowing in large part from securities statutes, rules, and policies. Failures to comply can result in highly consequential private litigation and public enforcement. Broadly speaking, federal securities regulation is displacing state corporate law as the primary legal influence on how publicly held corporations function and is also a focal point for the governance of financial markets. Topics will include the preparation of disclosure documents, exemptions from disclosure requirements, and liability under anti-fraud rules. This course will also consider such related matters as how market forces influence corporate governance and how financial advances (such as the efficient markets hypothesis) and financial innovation are affecting corporations, investors, and capital markets. No prior business or financial background whatsoever is required. The only prerequisite is: Business Associations or Business Associations (Enriched).

Virtually any raising of capital implicates the securities laws. The goal of this course, then, is for students to learn the mechanics of public and private offerings of securities, and to understand the reporting and disclosure requirements that issuing securities entails. This course is particularly important for students who expect to work either in business litigation or transactional law. Topics include public offerings, exempt (i.e., private) offerings, public company regulation and exemption, and, to the extent time permits, secondary market issues such as securities fraud, insider trading, and the regulation of financial intermediaries (such as broker-dealers and investment advisers). Please be aware that this course makes use of economics and math (this is not an arbitrary imposition: courts deciding securities cases make use of economics and math, such as net present valuation and the Efficient Capital Markets Hypothesis). No prior background, beyond a reasonable high school education, in these areas is required -- concepts will be introduced as needed -- although a willingness to engage economics and math is absolutely necessary. Absent special circumstances, students are strongly encouraged to have completed “Business Associations” or “Business Associations (Enriched)” before taking this course.

This course is intended for students in their third years at the School of Law.  Although not a requirement to register for the course, it would be ideal for students taking the course to have completed the basic Oil and Gas Law course.  Students taking the course will also likely find it helpful to have completed the Business Associations and Federal Income Taxation courses.   

This course will offer students detailed practical exposure to the manner in which complex acquisition and disposition (“A&D”) transactions are structured, documented, and consummated.  Since the instructor’s practice has focused, for more than 45 years, on energy-related transactions, the template transaction for the course will be the sale of a substantial package of upstream oil and gas assets.  During the 14 class sessions, we will cover a diverse array of topics, including: (a) basic contract drafting principles; (b) transaction structuring; (c) the structure and content of common agreements preliminary to the sale transaction, such as confidentiality agreements and letters of intent; and (d)  a deeper dive into various aspects of the asset purchase and sale agreement (“PSA”), including (i) identifying and describing the assets to be sold, (ii) determining and adjusting the purchase price, (iii) the obligations ordinarily assumed by the buyer and those retained by the seller, (iv) common representations and warranties, (v) the different types of fraud and how parties try to insulate themselves from resulting liability, (vi) termination of the PSA for failure to satisfy the conditions precedent, (vii) post-closing indemnity obligations, and (viii) categories of damages and proper structuring of damages limitations provisions.

Come explore emerging space-related issues currently under discussion internationally and domestically! The course will blend lecture, discussion, and group work in a seminar-like format. We will examine the following topics:

Module 1: Lecture, Introduction to the course and the basics of space law

Norms Development: Bottom up, top down, and points in the middle

Bilaterals, Multilaterals, and the role of consensus  

Module 2: Discussion of readings and lectures

Module 3: Application to Emerging Issues

teams to pick from a list of topics and prepare a mixed media presentation.

Possible topics:

The Yin & Yang of Space: Peaceful Purposes and National Security issues

Can we get there from here? Orbital Debris, Space Situational Awareness, and Space Traffic Management

Micro -> Macro: very small sats and very large constellations

In Situ Resource Utilization  

Students will be graded on group presentations and an exam in Canvas.

This course will concentrate primarily on the legal regulation of major professional team sports in the United States. Topics will include contract enforcement, player movement and restraints, team movements and restraints, the powers of the commissioner, and the (limited) regulation of agents. To a much lesser extent the course will deal with NCAA regulation (especially eligibility and gender equity) and individual sports. Labor Law and Antitrust are helpful, but not required. This is a course best taken in the student's third year. A knowledge of (and enthusiasm for) sports will be assumed.

When we speak of "government" in the law school curriculum, we too often forget that public governments in the United States include those of the 50 states and their more than 90,000 political subdivisions: 3,000 counties, 19,500 municipal corporations, 16,000 townships, 12,800 school districts, and 38,000 special districts. This offering focuses on America's sub-national governments in discussing questions such as: How should our local "communities" be defined in practice, and who should decide? What is and should be the relationship that states and localities have with the federal government, their citizens, and other states and localities? Which level of government (if any) should provide a particular good or service or regulate activity in a particular area? How should the goods and services provided by states and localities be paid for, and who should decide? In addition to traditional legal materials such as cases, statutes, ordinances, constitutional provisions, and law review articles, we will draw upon materials from a wide range of other disciplines: political theory, public choice theory, public finance, and political economy. Aspiring governors, senators, mayors, city council members, state attorneys general, and school board members welcome! Written requirements: One short paper (4-5 pages) and a 3-hour, in class, essay examination. Casebook: L. Baker, C. Gillette & D. Schleicher, Local Government Law: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press; 6th edition 2021). Prerequisite: None; 4 hours credit.

This course introduces the basic statistical concepts economists and social scientists use to analyze data to provide statistical evidence. The course is intended to provide a sound foundation of introductory-level quantitative reasoning while using real-world examples to illustrate concepts and applications. With the emergence of big data and advances in algorithmic computing, lawyers are being asked more often to understand empirical methods, whether they are preparing a motion or brief, cross-examining experts in the courtroom, or evaluating the effect of a law in a legal or policy setting. In this course, students will learn how to deal with conflicting statistical evidence, use statistical evidence to evaluate the application of laws or policies, and how to deal with expert witnesses providing statistical evidence. The goal of this course is to equip future practicing lawyers with the skills necessary to be an informed consumer of statistics. The course does not require any background in math or statistics; however, students may feel better suited with a basic understanding of algebra. 

This course focuses on the problem of making the best sense of statutes and regulations. Students will practice interpreting statutes both as judges and as advocates, learning skills that will help them in practice. In addition to pragmatic questions, the course will address prominent theories of statutory interpretation and debates about which approaches to interpretation are or are not appropriate. Students will occasionally be asked to interpret statutes and defend those interpretations as part of in-class group exercises.  

In Taking Depositions and Handling Expert Witnesses, students will learn how to prepare for, take and defend depositions of lay and expert witnesses. This is a skills-based course where students will actually take depositions and work with experts. This is a short course and will move quickly and have strict attendance policies.

Three key components of the class are:

• Prepare and evaluate expert reports;
• Preparing and presenting expert witnesses in hearings, depositions, and trial
• Taking depositions of “real” expert witnesses (psychiatric residents at Dell Medical School; non-law students)

Suggested prerequisites or concurrent: Evidence, Advocacy Survey, ADR courses.