Course Schedule

Limits of liability and methods of establishing liability for intentional and unintentional injuries to persons or property.

Trademark law is a species of intellectual property and unfair competition law. Trademarks represent the goodwill (or reputation) of a business and its products/services. Businesses rely on trademarks to identify their products/services, to indicate the source of those products/services, and to distinguish those products/services from the competition. Consumers rely on trademarks to distinguish products/services among competitors and as assurances of quality. Needless to say, trademarks are among a business’s most valuable assets.

This course delves into the fundamentals and modern-day application of U.S. trademark law. We will study the underlying principles of trademark law, the different types of trademarks, how trademark rights are acquired and lost, the scope and limits of those rights, the standards for determining whether a trademark violates the rights of another or deceives the public, the defenses and remedies available to parties in an action for trademark infringement or dilution, and an overview of the federal trademark registration process. Time permitting, we will also study closely related topics like trade dress, cybersquatting, counterfeit and gray market goods, false advertising, and the right of publicity.

This course focuses on real contracts with real risks.  During the course will study a guaranty, a promissory note and a deed of trust.  These agreements are commonly used for financing.  A prominent local law firm has provided materials for our use in class.  We will also study a merger agreement, an asset acquisition agreement and a joint venture agreement.  The merger, joint venture and asset acquisition agreement were prepared by committees of the American Bar Association.  We will also study a confidentiality agreement, non-compete agreement, a waiver of liability and several other commonly used agreements.  Finally, we will study an intellectual property license.  Many of these documents are lengthy.  We will study them in detail, particularly the liabilities in each agreement. 

This course does not focus on commercial matters, such as profit/loss.  

Prerequisite: First year torts and first year contracts.  

This short course will take a tour of the U.S. Supreme Court’s institutional history from its earliest days—back when Supreme Court Justices had to travel the countryside to hold trials and were required by law to stay in public lodgings—up to the present, where Justices exercise enormous and momentous power.  Over four sessions, we will explore how the Court has evolved over 230 years from a small and weak institution into one of the dominant forces in American law and society.  We will focus on topics including the following, in each instance tracing the development from the Court’s early history to its modern incarnation: 

• the obligations of a Supreme Court Justice and the annual cycle of the Court’s work;
• how ordinary Americans have seen or interacted with the Court throughout its history;
• how the Court has handled (or mishandled) politicized moments;
• the Justices with the greatest impact in transforming the Court into what it is today;
• the kinds of cases the Court takes, and why;
• how the Court conducts oral arguments;
• how the Court reaches its decisions internally and communicates them externally;
• how Presidents have chosen Justices, and how the Senate has responded;
• how Justices have interacted with their colleagues and their staff;
• how Justices have departed the bench;and
• other related topics, including any that might be of special interest to the students in the class.  

We will end the course with a look forward to the challenges yet to come.  The instructors are both former U.S. Supreme Court clerks who both have argued cases before that Court and who both are currently serving judges, one on the Fifth Circuit and the other on the Texas Supreme Court.  The chief learning objectives include developing a deeper appreciation for the Supreme Court’s history and the way the Court has influenced and been influenced by larger American society.  Ultimately, this course aims to give future lawyers insight into how and why the Supreme Court functions the way that it does and to empower them to place the Court’s work product in greater historical context.  

     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.

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 and waste-to-energy.  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.