Course Schedule

No scheduled meeting time. Internship – APPLICATION REQUIRED. Contact the instructor for information about applying. Students must register for both Semester in Practice internship courses (one for 8 credits and one for 2 credits – for a total of 10 credits). Students must intern in-person at their field placements for this course, no remote internships will be approved. Students in this clinical internship immerse themselves in practice, developing their professional skills and studying the role of lawyers and legal institutions. The course addresses topics relevant to public service lawyering in varied settings, including professionalism, ethics, advocacy, access to justice, the legal profession, and legal institutions. For placements in the U.S., students intern have the opportunity to intern full-time in government, nonprofit and legislative offices located outside of the Austin area. For placements outside the U.S., students have the opportunity to intern full-time with specialized courts, international institutions, and nongovernmental organizations. Placement supervisors are experienced attorneys who expose students to the legal activities of their offices, oversee varied and demanding assignments, and provide regular feedback on student performance. Each student consults with the instructor to arrange his or her field placement, and each placement and supervisor must be approved by the instructor prior to registration. An international placement may be arranged in consultation with the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice or arranged independently Students are required to intern for 500 hours and may not receive a salary for their internship work, although they may receive a modest stipend to offset unusual living or travel expenses. Students are expected to complete a number of written assignments and maintain close contact with the instructor during the internship. Interested students should review the course website (https://law.utexas.edu/internships/application-information//) and then email the instructor (Eden Harrington, eharrington@law.utexas.edu) to arrange a time to discuss the course.

Instructors: Captain Andrew Lane and Prof. Susan R. Klein

This program offers students the opportunity to apply for “for-credit” externship positions with the United States Army Trial Defense Service or Prosecution Service, Fort Hood Field Office. Students earn two-credits “pass-fail” for the semester. While this program is not available during either summer session, students are welcome to apply for non-credit summer internship positions directly with that office. Students may apply for the externship for a single semester.

Students will assist prosecutors or defense counsels (and paralegals) in administrative separations and criminal proceedings pursuant to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Fort Hood Legal office is the largest and busiest office in the Army. Attorneys there have federal felony jury trials monthly, similar to those seen in a Federal District Court but often with crimes and facts unique to the military. Army JAG officers regularly change jobs, working as prosecutors, magistrate judges, defense attorneys, national security attorneys, and trial/appellate judges. This creates a level of collegiality and rapport not seen in criminal justice practice elsewhere.

Applicants may benefit from upper-level criminal law courses such as Adv. Fed. Crim. Prosecution & Defense, Federal Criminal Law, National Security Law, Cybersecurity Law, Criminal Procedure, and Evidence. None of those courses are required.

The externship requires 10 hours per week for the 14-week semester, though most hours can be completed outside of the office. Students should expect to spend one day every other week at Fort Hood Trial Services, 330 761st Tank Battalion Ave., Fort Hood, Tx 76544, working in the office or in court. Ft. Hood is located about halfway between Austin and Waco, a bit over an hour’s drive from the law school or about 50 minutes from Georgetown.

The application deadline for Spring 2026 is October 20, 2025. Interviews are conducted at the Career Services Office or over Zoom. 

Additional information about the U.S. Army Trial Defense Service, is available at: Trial Defense Service Public (army.mil).

No class meeting information is available for this class. Students will arrange their work schedules with their supervisors. They are expected to work about 10 hours per week during the fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters.

Exams:            None

Registration Information:

This course is restricted to upper class students only. U.S. Attorney Internship – APPLICATION REQUIRED. Application and/or instructions on how to apply for this internship can be accessed on the web: https://law.utexas.edu/internships/u-s-attorney-internship/course-information/

To apply, please e-mail a copy of your cover letter, resume and transcript (unofficial is fine) to Professor Klein and AUSA Daniel M. Castillo. Please also send copies of the above to usatxw.staffing@usdoj.gov. Students interested in the internship are encouraged stop by Prof. Klein’s office at TNH 3.207 (her office hours Wed. from 4:00 to 5:30 pm). You may call or text her at (512) 203-2257, or send her an e-mail at sklein@law.utexas.edu. Alternatively, you may call Daniel Castillo at (512) 916-5858, or send him an e-mail.

** This course meets the Professional Skills requirement for graduation. **

Course Description:

This internship program offers students the opportunity to apply for “for-credit” internship positions with the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division. This course offers students a two-credit internship to be completed over the fall 2024 semester and a two-credit internship to be completed over the spring 2025 semester, resulting in a total of 4 credits (pass/fail) for the academic year. This internship program is not available during either summer session. Students are required to commit to a full academic year.

Students may wish to enroll in the fall three-unit Adv. Fed. Crim. Prosecution & Defense seminar, co-taught by Prof. Klein and Aleza Remis. Students may also be interested in the three-unit Federal Criminal Law course taught by Prof. Klein in the spring and the seminar taught by Judge Robert Pitman. Applicants may benefit from having completed either Criminal Procedure course, Evidence, any upper-level criminal law course, and any internship or clinic in the criminal justice field. None of those courses are required.

The internship component requires a commitment to work 10 hours per week for each semester, though not all hours must be completed at the office. The U.S. Attorney's Office is downtown at 903 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 334, Austin, Texas, 78701. Students will assist in the prosecution of federal criminal cases under the supervision Daniel M. Castillo and other Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Students should expect to spend at least one day per week at the office or in federal court.  Students must commit to both semesters.

The application deadline for the next academic year is Monday, March 25, 2024. Interviews are conducted at the Career Services Office or over Zoom. Though students will know whether or not they are admitted before fall registration, the unique registration number for the fall 2023 internship will not be available until April 15, 2024.

Additional information on the U.S. Attorney’s Office is available at: www.usdoj.gov/usao/txwd/.

Students may also review https://www.justice.gov/legal-careers/job/law-student-volunteer-academic-year-2024-2025.

Jurisdiction & Judgments is a course in Conflict of Laws. Conflict of Laws addresses issues that may arise when a dispute or transaction has connections with more than one state or country. The subject is generally divided into three interrelated topics: (1) territorial jurisdiction (and related doctrines), (2) choice of law, and (3) recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. This course focuses on the first and third topics: specifically, territorial jurisdiction, forum non conveniens, forum selection clauses, and the recognition and enforcement of judgments rendered by the courts of other states and countries. Choice of law is the focus of a separate course titled “Conflict of Laws,” and is covered in Jurisdiction & Judgments only to the extent necessary to fully understand the topics that are the focus of this course. At the end of the semester, students should have developed a sound understanding of the law governing jurisdiction and judgments, including policy considerations that may shape further development of the law.

An introductory survey course about general jurisprudence and the rule of law, which asks questions like, "What is law? What distinguishes legal institutions from other ones? What, if anything, makes a legal claim true? And what does it mean to be governed by the rule of law?" Readings will include HLA Hart, Lon Fuller, and Ronald Dworkin.

This course will examine selected labor law topics, with the primary aim of providing an overview of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, as amended, which, after many decades of American working people’s struggles to devise and establish collective means for improving their wages and the conditions in which they worked, committed the United States to fostering collective bargaining in the private sector.  The course will take a look at some tools Congress put in the tool box it set up for workers and unions, including enforcement tools, and whether those tools have yielded as much encouragement of collective bargaining as the Act said that Congress intended.  This look will include topics such as the history leading up to the Act’s passage; what, when and how workers and employers are allowed to communicate about working terms and conditions; the Act’s prohibition against company unions; its prohibition against discrimination for exercising the Act’s rights; the ways in which workers can form unions and compel collective bargaining; and enforcement of collective bargaining agreements.  The course also will touch on the implications for achieving the Act’s stated purpose that arise from recent Supreme Court and Appellate Court decisions, from cases pending before the Supreme Court in its 2025-2026 term, and from a recent Executive Order.

A secondary aim will be to provide a look at some of the laws and tactics public sector unions rely upon to represent workers, particularly public sector unions in Texas where collective bargaining is statutorily forbidden for most public sector workers.

An underlying objective will be to give students a glimpse of what union representatives and labor lawyers actually do. To this end, there will be some guest speakers.

Data-centers, including their extreme water-use, in the Arizonan desert or in arid West Texas or in rural Tennessee or in all of the above?

Alfalfa grown west of Phoenix for export for Saudi cattle or the Minnesota dairy industry or metastatic residential development?

Groundwater retention for East Texas communities or the long-haul conveyance of massive groundwater volumes from there to Dallas-Fort Worth and the north?

West Texas frack water ("produced water") for irrigation re-use? Fracking or watershed protection in Pennsylvania and New York?

Hydropower for Idaho and Nevada or dam removals for the long-delayed benefit of certain tribes?

Extravagant land and water uses for industrial hog and poultry production in Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina, and Texas or potable water protections (and clean air) for cities and towns?

Off-shore "farming" or pollution controls in the sea?

Compact- and treaty-based water entitlements or the radical remaking of rights regimes from the past? "Buy-and-dry" covenants, silent deeds, tort invocations, statutory restrictions, Commerce Clause delineations--new-fangled legal strategies or nay?

As you can see, the dominant speech-part powering these capsule illustrations of our field of inquiry in this Workshop is the conjunction "or". It is here to reflect that land and water use in our times is, increasingly, and at an accelerating pace, the site of conflicts arising from lessening supplies against increasing demands for land and water: This is a story of our times and, as the outcomes of these conflicts shape alternative paths of growth and development for localities and regions, of the future, as well.

In grappling with the attendant issues, we'll make use of familiar conceptual and practical frameworks: visions pertaining to social and economic welfare, global capital markets and their influential appetites, private versus public goods, states' versus federal rights, the quickening pulse of populist preferences and the failing pulse of regulation; technocratic problem-solving-- and the shifting dynamics of conflict-resolution and justice-seeking that are playing out in many of these settings on account of the sought-for interventions of  public and private law.   

As to the law: I have conceived of this short course as a miniature capstone for law students, as our subjects will mirror the kaleidoscopic ways that law, its ideals and structures and institutions (note the use of "and"), come to bear on the infinite doings of everyday, conflict-generative life.

Beyond the law: I have also conceived of this short course as a welcome landing place for insights and knowledge from a diversity of the disciplines outside of the law from which our appreciation of these challenging social, economic, and geophysical issues might gain.  

                                  I hope the work will be interdisciplinary to the core. That's why students from other university departments and units are being invited to join.

                                                                                               *

Course requirements:

1--The class will meet in four Friday sessions of three hours each. Full attendance at every class is mandatory.

     "Full attendance" includes reasonable attentiveness to the contributions of others involved in class discussions, as well as active participation in them on a reasonable basis that consists of apt commentary clearly informed by the course readings. The sharing of pertinent outside knowledge, such as that derived from other courses, other readings, and from volunteer and professional experience is encouraged.

2—For Law students, the course is offered pass/fail.

3—Students from non-Law departments and programs may take the course pass/fail or for one graded credit.

4--All students will complete a very brief written exercise. No AI is to be used in the production of what is turned in.

     Credit will also be given for class participation, so long as it meets the expectations described above at (1).

This course provides students with a foundational understanding of Latin American legal traditions. It is designed for those who may encounter Latin American law in their professional paths as lawyers, international civil servants, business executives, or diplomats, among others. For too long, the dominant perception from north of the Rio Grande has been that Latin American legal institutions are, if not wholly irrelevant, at least extremely weak. Such conventional wisdom often fails to distinguish among countries and overlooks significant recent developments in many of them. The course pursues three objectives: (1) to provide future U.S.-based practitioners with a realistic, historically and politically informed perspective on Latin American legal systems; (2) to offer future Latin American practitioners a comparative framework through which to view their own legal systems; and (3) to give any interested student a solid grounding in contemporary legal developments in the region. Rather than attempting to cover every substantive legal area, the course introduces the overarching approaches and defining characteristics of Latin American law. Students will be introduced to civil law regimes, recognizing that common law education alone is insufficient to grasp the complexities of Latin American legal systems. This perspective is particularly relevant given the challenges faced by many American corporations and investors when navigating domestic legal risks without expert counsel. The course also emphasizes the importance of effective communication with Latin American peers. To achieve these goals, topics will include the civil law tradition in Latin America, constitutional law, human rights, civil and commercial codes, remedies in civil law, criminal law, civil and criminal procedure, and business law. The course will use Oquendo, Latin American Law, 3d ed. (Foundation Press 2017), complemented by additional reading materials.

Prerequisite: Legal Analysis and Communication

This course is restricted to upper division students who have completed the first year, two semester, Legal Analysis and Communication course or who otherwise obtain the permission of the instructors. LLM and Exchange Students interested in taking the course should first contact the instructors to discuss whether their prior coursework includes instruction similar to a first year, two semester, Legal Analysis and Communication course. 

This one credit, pass-fail, seven week course will solidify and build upon legal research skills acquired during the first year of law school. It will focus on the identification and evaluation of relevant primary and secondary sources and efficient information retrieval. Students will learn how to design a research strategy that effectively integrates using online tools with an underlying understanding of traditional print resources.  Students who successfully complete this course will gain a thorough understanding of the use of legal information and research resources in diverse contexts. Emphasis will be placed on U.S. federal sources, but Texas materials will be referenced in the course, and will serve as a model for research in the legal materials of other states. 

Students will be required to complete both in- and out-of-class exercises throughout the course, but there is no final examination.

This one credit, pass-fail course focuses on research resources used in business law and corporate transactional practice. The emphasis of the course is on identifying sources and efficiently undertaking corporate, securities, and general business law research. It is not a class on the substantive aspects of corporate and securities law except as those aspects relate to the finding and interpretation of legal materials. Aspects of professionalism will also be addressed in the course. Students will be be evaluated on take-home and in-class research assignments.

This seven-week course will focus on the resources and methodology used in performing legal research in Texas. Through a series of lectures and assignments, students will become familiar with the various types of legal research, including statutory law, case law, administrative regulations, and secondary practice materials. The course is offered on a Pass/Fail basis. Students are required to complete in-class and out-of-class exercises throughout the course, but there is no final exam.

This course is designed to acquaint students with the various genres of legal scholarship that can contribute both to the understanding of our legal system and to the practice of law. Three broad categories of legal scholarship will be read and discussed: (1) jurisprudential scholarship about the correct way to determine the internally-right answer to any legal-rights question in our legal system as well as about the existence of internally-right answers to legal-rights questions in our legal system, (2) analyses of the internally-correct answer to particular legal- rights questions or more general doctrinal questions, and (3) external-to-law analyses of the causes, consequences, "nature," or attractiveness of given bodies of law or legal-decisionmaking processes. To a significant extent, the course will be concerned with the contribution that philosophical, historical, sociological, and economic approaches can make to the study of these issues. The class will meet for three hours once a week. Each session will be divided into two 75-minute, related halves. Most weeks, the two halves will be taught by different presenters or sets of presenters who will discuss articles typically that they have written or occasionally that someone else has written that fall into a particular category. (In addition to the listed instructor, the course will be taught by something like 20 members of the law faculty and possibly some members of other faculties.) Each session will address not only the articles assigned themselves but wider issues the relevant genre of scholarship raises—for example, the jurisprudential assumptions behind a particular doctrinal article, the circumstances in which economic or historical analysis is internal-to-law and external-to-law, the prescriptive-moral relevance of economic-efficiency conclusions. In addition to having an obligation to participate orally in the class, students will be required to write four five-to-ten-page papers on the readings for particular weeks (that can address questions the presenters will pose in advance) and a longer (15-25 page) paper at the end of the course on one or more issues raised during the semester, on how (if at all) and why the course has or has not changed their view of legal education or their professional plans, and/or on anything else related to the course to which the instructor agrees. Within limitations associated with the value of spreading each student's writing evenly throughout the semester and the goal of having the same number of papers written each week, short-paper assignments will be based on student preferences. Short papers will not be assigned for the first two sessions or the last session of the course.

There is more to legal writing than the appellate brief. Legal Writing, Adv: Litigation introduces the types of documents used in civil litigation, such as the complaint and answer, discovery requests and objections, and jury instructions. All students will be required to write several litigation documents, evaluate documents written by others, and lead class discussions.

The course focuses on the structure and style of contracts and agreements with a focus on modern drafting conventions. Students will practice revising and drafting various kinds of transactional documents.

The course focuses on the structure and style of contracts and agreements with a focus on modern drafting conventions. Students will practice revising and drafting various kinds of transactional documents.

This course examines the problems and issues that arise when state and federal legislative bodies exercise their power to conduct oversight and investigations of the public and private sector by focusing on the scope and nature of formal and informal processes such as oversight hearings, specialized studies, citizen and select study committees, legislative agency activity, subpenas and examinations, legislative review of administrative rules, and the removal of executive and judicial officers by the legislature. The course includes an examination of how legislative fact-finding compliments and collides with other law enforcement investigations and prosecutions and unique attorney-client privilege issues.

This course is a focused examination of mediation processes. We will take the topics from the Alternative Dispute Resolution course and extend our understanding with practical exercises. The student should leave this course better equipped to represent clients at mediation. This is a skills-oriented course that requires active participation, with the goal of immersing you in the developing realities of mediation.

This course is a focused examination of mediation processes. We will take the topics from the Alternative Dispute Resolution course and extend our understanding with practical exercises. The student should leave this course better equipped to represent clients at mediation. This is a skills-oriented course that requires active participation, with the goal of immersing you in the developing realities of mediation.

This course focuses on a deep dive into the practice of mediation, with specific regard to mediations as part of family law litigation. We will discuss the rules, procedures, and ethical responsibilities associated with participating in mediation, as both a practicing attorney representing family law case litigants and certified mediator. We will also study the specific interpersonal dynamics involved in mediating a family law case, including situations involving custody battles, complicated marital estates, and domestic violence. This course is intended to enhance negotiation and case management skills, and so will require active and consistent participation in class exercises throughout the semester.

 This course is designed to give students an introduction to the real world experience of the dealmaking process, from the first contact between the parties to drafting and negotiating the documents that govern transformational corporate transactions. Over the course of the semester, we’ll break down the main agreements involved in a hypothetical deal with a view to developing a fundamental understanding of how those components interact with the overall business arrangement and deal dynamics. You will analyze and learn to understand how the key provisions of these transaction agreements are negotiated with a view to value maximization for the client and appropriate risk allocation among the parties to a deal. We will also discuss the less tangible aspects of dealmaking that take place outside the four corners of the transaction agreements but are no less important, including the economic and personal motivations of the various parties involved and the psychology and group dynamics of a deal process. As the deal world is an ever changing environment, we’ll look to bring current real world examples into the classroom. Students will engage in-class group practice assignments, including drafting (or “marking up”) transaction documents and preparing issues lists in the context of a prepared fact pattern. Subject matter experts from K&E will be presenting special topics, including financing strategies, navigating deal litigation and public disclosure issues.

Moot Court Advocacy is a course focusing on the appellate advocacy skills used in moot court competitions. Open to students who are on an interscholastic moot court team this year, the course will be co-taught by Texas Law’s interscholastic moot court coaches.

Students will perform skills weekly on different aspects of appellate advocacy focusing on oral and written advocacy skills. Students will have multiple in-class oral advocacy skills assignments and will have one written appellate advocacy assignment, as well as the opportunity to read multiple real and moot appellate briefs to improve their written advocacy skills. 

The course is a short course [first 7 weeks of the spring semester].

The course is pass/fail.

This course will introduce students to the different avenues and theories movement lawyers can utilize to conceptualize and achieve social change. Through readings, discussion, engagement with speakers and project development, we will explore past, present, and future movement lawyering strategies and concepts. We will examine the ways social justice lawyers engage with communities, clients, and political causes, as well as the ethical issues that may arise when advocating on behalf of class members with divergent interests. We will discuss the role of law in social change, its effectiveness and limitations. This course will help students articulate goals for movement lawyers and the need to work in partnership with communities, organizers, and policymakers to achieve justice. To that end, discussion will include how legal assistance is funded and delivered; different substantive legal arenas in which movement lawyering is pursued; the civil rights movement; emerging legal scholarship on Afrofuturism; and the diverse ways in which individuals can work in and outside the courtroom.

Music Law:  Contract Negotiations and AI is a practice-based course designed for law students interested in music law, tech policy, and entertainment business affairs. Students explore the legal, economic, and policy dimensions of key music industry agreements—recording artist, producer, publishing, and digital platform deals—while developing hands-on skills in drafting and negotiation. Students will also gain a working knowledge of the key regulations governing the functioning of the music industry, particularly for mechanical royalties and the role of the Copyright Office and the Copyright Royalty Board.  The course features team-based simulation exercises, in-class deal memo drafting, and a final paper focused either on the Copyright Royalty Board’s 2026 Phonorecords V proceeding or emerging AI licensing frameworks. Topics include mechanical royalty rate-setting, collective rights management, metadata, and the impact of AI on copyright and NIL rights. Students will also examine real-world copyright litigation against AI platforms and leading legislation to regulate AI. Guest speakers provide practical context. No prior music law experience is required. This course is ideal for future music attorneys, policy advocates, or startup counsel in the music-tech ecosystem.

Professional athletes have had a right of publicity – the right to profit from their name, image, and likeness – for decades.  Until recently, college athletes did not have this right, but recent court cases and state laws have changed this.  This course will analyze the new rights granted to college athletes, how the athletes can benefit from their name, image, and likeness, and how the new rules - including the portal allowing transfers - have changed and may in the future change the landscape of college sports. This course will also address the history and role of the NCAA, the role of the government in college sports, and how lawyers and lawsuits have dramatically affected the changes in college sports.

This course will survey the bodies of law and government institutions involved in counterterrorism. These include intelligence and surveillance law, criminal law, international humanitarian law (including rules for detention and targeting), public international law and U.S. Constitutional law relevant to the use of military force against terrorist groups, and others. It will also consider contemporary debates over domestic terrorism, online content moderation and mandatory takedowns, and encrypted communications, while enriching these discussions with international comparisons and guest speakers from the world of practice. Students will be evaluated based on a final exam and class participation.