Course Schedule

Promulgation, interpretation, and administration of substantive laws of crime; constitutional limitations and relevant philosophical, sociological, and behavioral science materials.

This course deals with the judicial phase of the criminal justice process, beginning from the initial decision to bring criminal charges, through the pretrial and trial processes, and concluding with sentencing.  The major focus is opinions of the United States Supreme Court imposing federal constitutional limitations on criminal procedure.  Course coverage includes the following topics: the decision to initiate prosecution; bail and pretrial detention; the grand jury; the right to the effective assistance of counsel; the right to a speedy trial; discovery and disclosure of evidence; plea bargaining; the right to an impartial trial; the right to a jury; double jeopardy; and sentencing. Study of decisions of the United States Supreme Court is supplemented by examination of selected provisions of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, typical federal and state statutes, and opinions of the lower federal and state courts. In addition to regular class preparation and participation, students will be required to complete an experiential assignment, in which they will witness some aspect of criminal adjudication relevant to the course and reflect on that experience in writing. This course satisfies the Con Law II requirement.

This course addresses the constitutional limits on police investigations. It focuses primarily on the Fourth Amendment law governing searches and seizures, as well as on the constraints that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments impose on police questioning. Topics include the meaning of the terms “search” and “seizure” (especially in an era of electronic surveillance); the warrant requirement and its many exceptions; the rules governing stop-and-frisk and police use of force; the rules governing police interrogations (including the rights to remain silent or to have a lawyer present); and the available legal remedies for constitutional violations. The course will be graded on a letter-grade basis for all students and will satisfy the constitutional law II requirement. Grades will be based upon an open-book, in-class final exam.

This class will introduce students to the intersection of blockchain technology, law, and policy. This entails a brief overview of blockchains and cryptocurrencies, as well as some of their most popular applications (DeFi, NFTs, etc) - students need not know anything about these technologies (or any technology) in advance. Students will also learn about: (1) the role of various regulators like the SEC and the Treasury Department, and how those regulators might think about cryptocurrencies; (2) the idea of code as a regulating force; and (3) the national security and foreign policy implications of cryptocurrencies. This class is designed to expose students to the breadth of issues coming out of blockchain technology, and will be focused on discussion rather than lecturing or presentations. 

The past two years have highlighted the growing cyber threat to entities of all types: corporations, hospitals, government institutions and small businesses, to name a few.  The day that attack comes is nothing short of a crisis, requiring all the right teams to assemble and navigate the obstacles such an attack may present.  Cyber response was once thought as the province of the information security department, but it has grown to include leaders from key departments such as law, human resources, public relations, business teams, compliance, risk, and privacy.  Additionally, vendors, such as a technical incident response firm and a crisis communications firm must be identified and engaged to help supplement existing resources.  This is the time for legal counsel to shine, as the lawyer's role is central to many of the most critical workstreams.    This practical skills course will provide an in-depth review of incident response and counsel's role.  Students will partake in a tabletop exercise to kick off the course and identify the areas of incident response.  Subsequent sessions will review each area through group discussions in a small-class setting.   Guest speakers will include seasoned incident response experts from the FBI or Secret Service, crisis communications firms and regulators.

This course will consider recent developments in federal Indian law, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Haaland v. Brackeen and McGirt v. Oklahoma, and the ongoing litigation in Apache Stronghold v. USA through the lens of selected treaties, Acts of Congress, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions from 1763 to the present.

The term “dignitary torts” is sometimes used to encompass defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and perhaps also certain instances of battery, assault, and false imprisonment. The label is meant to reflect that in these areas tort law protects not only against more concrete forms of injury and loss, but also against various infringements of individual dignity simply as such.

This course will be organized around two objectives. The first is to acquire a deeper understanding of the doctrinal structure and current state of development of the dignitary torts, with particular attention to defamation and invasion of privacy.

The second objective is to consider a puzzle posed by Kenneth Abraham and Edward White, who have observed: “The absence of a robustly-articulated conception of the interest in dignity that tort law protects is puzzling. Why have notions of dignity and dignitary torts been little more than labels, reflecting a value that has gone unanalyzed and undebated, despite its obvious and growing importance?” We will investigate the nature of the interest in dignity that tort law purportedly protects, and consider whether the concept of dignity is suited to serve as a point of reference for understanding the “dignitary torts” and guiding their future development.

This overview course will principally focus on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the most important federal law prohibiting discrimination against individuals with disabilities. We will discuss the ADA’s place in the disability-rights and disability-justice movements, and its analytical relationship with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and with the antidiscrimination provisions in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. We will also explore the Act’s definition of disability (including the subsequent ADA Amendments Act of 2008), and the provisions outlawing discrimination, and requiring accommodations, by employers (Title I), government services and programs (Title II), and private businesses (Title III). To sample the breadth of the ADA, we will discuss the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision guaranteeing community integration, as well as the ADA’s application in the contexts of, e.g., education, housing, healthcare, the criminal legal and carceral systems, immigration, and technology.

This course will provide an in-depth examination of the battered women’s movement and its impact on the legal system’s response to domestic violence. We begin with law and the social context of battering, including how the experience of abuse and the response to abuse is shaped by race, cultural identity, economic status, sexual orientation, and disabilities. Criminal law aspects are addressed within the role of protective orders, prosecution, and defense (including self-defense for victims and ethical representation of batterers). We next view how civil family law recognizes domestic violence in custody, divorce, visitation, and child protection matters. Among other topics, the course will examine specialized areas of the law, which include tort liability for batterers and third parties (police, employers, etc.) and federal remedies under the Violence Against Women Act. The class will discuss emerging issues like violence against women as a human rights violation and evolving sexual assault laws to identify the challenges of theory vs. practice. The focus of the class is to examine current gaps and barriers in the legal response to intimate partner violence and propose systemic change through a social justice lens.

This unique 3-hour course explores the hottest topics in litigation today: electronic evidence and digital discovery (including emerging roles for AI). Evidence is information, and nearly all information is created, collected, communicated and stored electronically. Thus, the ability to identify, preserve, interpret, authenticate and challenge electronically stored information is a crucial litigation skill.

This course seeks to reconcile the federal rules and e-discovery case law with the sources, forms and methods of information technology and computer forensics. Students will explore the roots of information technology, learn to "speak geek" see information with "new eyes" and acquire hands-on, practical training in finding electronic evidence, meeting preservation duties, guarding against spoliation, selecting forms of production, communicating and cooperating with opposing counsel and managing the volume and variety of digital evidence and metadata. You will use real world software tools and emerge with an understanding of the nuts and bolts of information technology and discovery,  No prior background in law, computing or technology is required to succeed. 

Grading is based on five self-administered, timed quizzes via Canvas at roughly two week intervals and class participation. You must also submit written exercises on approximately a weekly basis.  There is no midterm or final.  Note: the course has been reconfigured for 2025 to scale back the workload and better accommodate competing demands on students' time.

If you have questions about the course to decide if it's for you, I can be reached via email as craig@ball.net or by phone at 713-320-6066.

This course explores emerging issues in sexuality, gender identity, and the law. We will study and discuss the constitutional, statutory and common law that impacts the lived experience of LGBTQ+ people and people living at the intersection of LGBTQ+ identities, including people who are living with a disability, people who identify as BIPOC, and undocumented/under-documented immigrants.  We will also discuss how civil rights organizations are using impact litigation, public policy and education to ensure equality and access to equal opportunities for LGBTQ+ people in society.  The course will conclude with a mock litigation exercise.

Two top litigators teach practical skills and tips on everything from social media to managing massive discovery.  If it's new in litigation they know it. We will be discussing the use of technology in all aspects of litigation, including virtual trials and hearings.

Three key components of the class are;

• Cover various persuasive techniques used in contested matters, with an emphasis on real-world examples of effective advocacy;
• Using factual scenarios from actual cases, we will discuss the use of demonstratives and other methods of visual persuasion in contested matters;
• Each student will learn how to craft effective arguments and will be required to present them to the class as a whole.

In this advanced property-law class, you will learn about eminent domain—the power of the government (and those with its delegated authority) to take private property and convert it into public use in exchange for paying just compensation to the property owner. Most lawyers get just one or two days of class about eminent domain in law school. This course aims to fix that shortcoming.

The subject is fascinating as a matter of theory, as it deals with the power of a tribe (the community) to take property away from its members. And eminent domain is becoming more and more important in practice. Take Texas, for example. The Lone Star State is home to eight of the nation’s 15 fastest-growing cities and boasts five of the top 10 cities in the total number of new residents. The need for infrastructure has skyrocketed, both to accommodate the explosive population growth and to support Texas's ever-expanding oil-and-gas industry. In light of these developments, we as a community need to work out how to deal with growth while still honoring constitutional values and individual rights.

Class discussions and reading assignments will explore whether the current eminent domain framework in the U.S. properly protects property owners and the public. The subject is generally divided into two interrelated parts: (1) the origins of eminent domain, public use, and public necessity and (2) “just compensation," including evidentiary and procedural issues that arise in disputes about compensation. Throughout, the class will explore the relationship between theory and practice.

This course explores the foundational pieces of employment law, including (1) Distinctions between “employees” and other types of workers, and why they matter; (2) The "default rule" of employment-at-will and the ways it can be modified; (3) The additional rights and responsibilities of government employees (e.g., free speech & due process rights, limitations on political rights); (4) Laws protecting employees from discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics (e.g., race, national origin, sex, sexual harassment, age, disability), and their enforcement schemes; (5) The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and its minimum wage & overtime premium protections; (6) A look at employees’ duties to their employers, including the duty of loyalty, duties involving trade secrets, and obligations not to compete.  It will also explore a host of contemporary employment law issues.   

This course examines in detail the regulatory regimes governing the sale and delivery of energy in American energy markets. Students will develop a working understanding of electricity and gas markets, how federal and state regulatory commissions regulate price and competition in those markets under the Federal Power Act, the Natural Gas Act, and analogous state laws. We will also address topical issues associated with the rapid technological and economic changes underway in the electricity and gas markets, including the effects of the rapid growth in renewable generation, disputes over the pricing and regulation of distributed energy resources (such as rooftop solar or demand response), the move toward increasing competition and market pricing, legal rules governing the siting of natural gas and electric transmission lines, and more. This class will be based in the Law School, but also open to students from the McCombs School, the Jackson School, and the LBJ School, and will mix traditional lecture and discussion with small group work in multidisciplinary teams. This is a companion course to (but not a prerequisite for) Energy Law: Regulating Energy Production.

The TVL Energy Ventures Practicum is an opportunity for teams of law students, business students, policy students, and technologists to build up skills, capabilities and contacts to create a new venture in the energy sector. Objectives of the class are to provide a framework for commercializing innovations in the energy sector, and the tools that entrepreneurs need to frame and build businesses for this purpose.

This 3-credit course examines the regulation of toxic substances in both the common law and federal regulations.  The course begins with an examination of statute-based regulatory programs governing toxic risks.  These include a study of regulations governing toxins in workplaces (the Occupational Safety and Health Act), wastes (the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act), and in products, broadly defined (Safe Drinking Water Act; the Toxic Substances Control Act; and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act), as well as in right-to-know laws.  The course will then shift to an exploration of how the legal system enforces these laws, including through citizen suits and environmental justice claims, but also by holding wrongful actors accountable through the common law and toxic torts.  The course will conclude by reflecting on the complementary roles that the common law and regulatory law play in endeavoring to better control the indiscriminate release of toxic substances and considers reforms for the future.  The basis of evaluation will be a 24 hour, open book examination. Prerequisite: None

4 hour course covering both the Federal and Texas rules of Evidence with emphasis on application of the rules in litigation. Topics include include relevance, hearsay, the Confrontation Clause, character evidence, impeachment and rehabilitation of witnesses, the best evidence rule, lay and expert opinion, and privileges.

This course combines all the traditional knowledge and theory of a traditional evidence class but adds the layer of applying the rules in practice. Students practice arguing evidentiary motions, have weekly application exercises and explore issues of memory, false confessions, digital evidence and the future of evidence and technology. This course is for students who intend to practice civil or criminal litigation and want a deeper understanding of how judges interpret the rules and how lawyers use the rules to their advantage. 

Students who have taken Evidence may not take Evidence for Litigators.

This is the classic law school course exploring the powers of and limitations on the federal courts, including (1) how federal powers are shared with the political (nonjudicial) branches and (2) how federal judicial power is limited by laws and norms about federalism. That generalized subject matter necessraily covers questions about litigant standing, the original and appellate jurisdictions of various federal tribunals, Congressional control over that jurisdiction, the content of law that federal courts can and must apply in various cases, federal tribunals other than Article III courts, federal common law, sovereign immunity, "implied" causes of action and remedies, and habeas corpus.

Federal courts is a complex and challenging course that I teach as a blend of upper level civil procedure and civil rights litigation.

This is a one-semester three-unit course about substantive federal criminal law. This course will detail the prosecution and defense of criminal offenses in federal court, focusing on the more frequently employed and complex areas, and on current hot topics. Class time will be devoted to mail, wire, bank, and health care fraud, public corruption, money laundering, administration of justice offenses, the Controlled Substances Act, immigration offenses, and terrorism and weapons offenses. Students will be alerted to the manner in which federal sanctions can be employed against lawyers, banks, and corporations, and the bases of federal criminal jurisdiction. If time permits, we will review the federal plea bargaining and sentencing systems. Your grade will be based primarily upon a floating open-book essay exam, and in small part upon class participation.  If we have no more than 14 students, the grade in this class will not be on a curve, and you will be required to complete at least one in-class group project. Second-year students interested in the United States Attorney’s Office or Federal Public Defender's Service internships for their third year should consider taking this class first. This class does not significantly overlap with my Advanced Federal Criminal Prosecution & Defense seminar, Judge Pitman's Fed. Crim. Law seminar, or Mr. DeGuerin's Adv. Fed. Defense seminar.

Federal Income Taxation (FIT) presents an overview of the federal income tax, mostly as it applies to individuals. The aim of the course is to present the fundamental principles and policies underlying the federal income tax and to convey the style and flavor of tax law thinking. As a survey, FIT will touch on all the major issues, such as what is gross income, what expenditures are deductible, what is the appropriate taxable unit, what is the function of "basis," and what is the appropriate timing of income and deductions. Specific topics that will be covered in reasonable depth include: the definition of gross income, including the specific inclusion and specific exclusion provisions, business and investment expense deductions, the exclusions for gifts, bequests, and recoveries for personal injuries, income attribution, the taxation of the family (including divorce taxation), the tax treatment of loans, capital expenditures, methods of capital recovery, capital gains and losses, tax-free exchanges, and various tax policy issues (including horizontal and vertical equity, economic efficiency, optimal tax theory, the tax expenditure concept, and a comparison of an income tax base with a cash flow consumption tax base). The grade for this course will be based entirely on a final, open book examination.

Required Textbooks:

(1) Joseph M. Dodge, J. Clifton Fleming, Jr., Francine J. Lipman & Robert J. Peroni, Federal Income Tax: Doctrine, Structure, and Policy (Carolina Academic Press 5th ed. 2019)—ISBN 978-1-5310-1311-0

(2) Federal Income Tax—Code & Regulations—Selected Sections, Robert J. Peroni, Coordinating Editor (Wolters Kluwer/CCH 2024-2025 ed.) OR Selected Federal Taxation Statutes and Regulations, 2025, Daniel J. Lathrope (West Academic 2025)

Recommended Textbooks (Optional):

(1) Marvin A. Chirelstein & Lawrence Zelenak, Federal Income Taxation (West Academic/Foundation Press) (Concepts and Insights Series)

(2) Donald B. Tobin & Samuel A. Donaldson, Principles of Federal Income Taxation (West Academic) (Concise Hornbook Series)