Course Schedule

The process of forming and capitalizing private equity and venture capital funds is a foundational first step to an understanding of how private companies are financed globally. Over the course of the semester, students will develop an understanding of each player in the fund formation process (e.g. limited partners, general partners, lawyers, placement agents, etc.), each party’s leverage points, and how each party is necessary for a successful fundraise. We will also walk through all of the necessary documents in a fundraise (e.g. limited partnership agreements, private placement memorandum, side letters, etc.) and, through the use of example provisions, learn the various negotiation points that each party is focused on.

This survey course on lawyers' professional responsibilities is centered on two premises: (1) The practice of law is a business as well as a profession, and economic incentives therefore matter; and (2) more than 90 percent of all lawsuits settle. Thus, we will give special attention to the economic aspects of the attorney-client relationship and the various incentives that existing ethical Rules provide both lawyers and clients. We will also pay particular attention to a wide range of ethical issues surrounding the settlement process. The course will cover approximately 85% of the material that is typically tested on the MPRE. In previous years, students all reported feeling well prepared for, and doing well on, the MPRE. This course fulfills the Professional Responsibility requirement for graduation. The exam format will be an in-class, 3-hour, exam consisting of 2-hours of objective questions (multiple choice and true-false) and a one-hour, word-limited essay question. The exam will be closed note, closed internet, but open "Professional Responsibility Rules."

This course will introduce students to core concepts and doctrines in the field of professional responsibility. It will touch on all of the subjects needed to prepare for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination. The class will be taught through case examples and problems. Students will take an in-class examination. This course fulfills the Professional Responsibility requirement for graduation. 

A survey of interests in land and limited topics involving chattels, estates, cotenancy, landlord and tenant issues, conveyancing, private and public control of land use.

A survey of interests in land and limited topics involving chattels, estates, cotenancy, landlord and tenant issues, conveyancing, private and public control of land use.

A survey of interests in land and limited topics involving chattels, estates, cotenancy, landlord and tenant issues, conveyancing, private and public control of land use.

This course explores the principles and challenges that define public health law. Students will examine how the state's public health powers and duties are weighed against individuals' legally protected rights, developing an understanding of where and when these interests align and where they conflict. Topics covered include infectious disease control, population health policy, emergency preparedness, family and individual privacy, law's role in shaping healthy behaviors and choices, public health surveillance, and health disparities.

This seminar will consider the ways in which different legal regimes and agencies shape innovation in the biopharmaceutical sector,  broadly understood to include therapeutic drugs, medical devices, and combination products such as GLP-1 injectors like Ozempic. Through readings comprised of scholarly articles, policy documents, and book excerpts, we will explore how various bodies of law—including patent, FDA, consumer protection, and antitrust—each influence the development of biopharmaceuticals.  We will consider what constitutes meaningful innovation in the biopharmaceutical sector.  We will study both moments when these systems operate in silos and when they collide, and consider how those dynamics affect innovation in the biopharmaceutical space.

Class discussions will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different institutional approaches and explore what kinds of structures best promote innovation.  The course will also draw on select current events as case studies to illustrate the opportunities and challenges that arise when multiple institutions and domains regulate innovation simultaneously.  Throughout the semester, students shall engage in theoretical, economic, and policy analysis. 

Students will complete a final research paper on a topic agreed upon by the student and instructor.  Class time will also be devoted to instructor-student meetings on paper development as well as to student paper presentations.   No science background is necessary.  There are no prerequisites.

This workshop seminar will focus on cutting-edge research in business law and economics. Most weeks will feature a leading outside scholar presenting a work-in-progress relating to current issues in business law. The range of subject matter includes economically-oriented work on business law, securities regulation, tax, or commercial law. Many of the papers presented will likely deal with normative questions of private ordering versus public regulation, and will examine problems that arise in both the private and public law spheres. Similarly, it is expected that many of the papers will consider social welfare effects, such as the effect of law and regulation on entrepreneurship, innovation, capital formation, and financial markets. Students will be responsible for written assessments of the paper being presented, and will be evaluated based on their writings and their participation in the workshop. Students' critiques may be made available to the speaker.

This seminar will examine historic and contemporary issues of race and the death penalty within American law and jurisprudence. Through this course, students will learn substantive principles; study the growing body of critical legal scholarship covering the matter; and examine the potential (and limits) of the law. By the end of the course, students will be able to analyze the interplay between race and the death penalty; acquire tools to think critically about its legal framework and engage with the role of racialized identities in its use. Utilizing – among other things – case law, statutory interpretation, statistical data, legal scholarship and legislative efforts, the course will undertake the project of grappling with a real-world example of the racialized nature of the death penalty.

This is a colloquium-style writing seminar on cutting-edge research and issues involving complex litigation.  In half of the classes, we will host a workshop during which a leading scholar, typically from another University, will present a paper on which the speaker is currently working.  Students are required to write short critiques of each of the speakers’ papers, and the critiques typically will be provided to the speaker.  Students receive detailed comments from both professors on each of their papers. 

This course surveys legal and economic analyses of the criminal legal system, exploring areas related to policing, prosecution, and incarceration. The topics of this course are structured in three parts. The first part, “How Did We Get Here,” will explore pre-1960s policies and examine how laws, policies, and institutions conditioned U.S. society for mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal legal system. Students will learn basic statistical concepts for quantitative reasoning and evaluation of statistical evidence. The second part of the course, “Domestic Wars and Racial Disparities,” focuses on the War on Crime and the policies and legal precedents that led to the War on Drugs. This includes legal precedent related to discretionary policing, collective bargaining and police protections, as well as the change from indeterminate to determinate sentencing guidelines, all of which have been linked to racial disparities in the criminal legal system. Lastly, we will examine several current equity-focused reforms to reduce racial disparities in the criminal legal system. This includes bail reform, algorithmic risk assessment, and community-oriented policing. Students should be prepared by reading all assigned materials and be willing to engage in active class discussion. Students will be asked to write short papers in response to readings and will be required to write a policy brief or create a proposal for criminal justice reform.

This seminar focuses on different types of environmental litigation, including: permit hearings and appeals; enforcement hearings and litigation; rule-making and appeals; citizen suits; Superfund litigation; commercial litigation involving environmental issues; and toxic tort litigation. The purpose of the course is to provide practical guidance on litigation aspects of a substantive environmental practice. The course will address procedural and administrative law issues as well as substantive issues. The course will discuss the use of expert witnesses and will touch on public policy and ethical considerations. Grading will be based primarily on a 30-page term paper on a topic selected by the student in consultation with the instructor. For the first ten weeks or so, there will be weekly reading assignments and class discussions based on that reading. From time-to-time, there will be guest speakers representing agency and public interest perspectives; in the remaining sessions, students will present their draft papers. Prior experience or class work in environmental law is helpful, but is not a prerequisite.

SEMINAR: EXPLORATIONS IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW & POLITICS AROUND THE GLOBE This seminar will explore some of the most important constitutional issues around the globe today. We will start with fundamental questions of constitutional design. How should constitutions be enacted? Who should participate in the framing and ratification of the constitutional text? How difficult should it be to amend a constitution? One big challenge is the creation of a durable framework for liberal democracy in the context of nations emerging from tyranny and/or violent ethno-racial conflict. Constitution-framers have debated and sometimes adopted direct forms of ethno-racial group representation in national legislatures, as well as federalism arrangements that give rival groups their “own” territorial based states or provinces. What are the pros and cons of such devices for overcoming deep conflicts? Not every effort to constitutionally weld together different ethno-racial groups or “nations” succeeds. The fragility of some efforts gives rise to the recurrent problem of secession. Should constitution-framers make any provision for it? And whether they do or not, how should courts address the issue when it arises – as it has in the recent past, in Canada and in parts of Europe? We will also take up a variety of cutting-edge issues in the domain of constitutional rights and their interpretation and enforcement by courts. Here we will discuss different ways of structuring the judiciary in a number of countries. We will also examine such topics as the ways constitutional systems treat “hate speech,” the ways they address lawmakers’ efforts to outlaw various forms of public religious observance like the wearing of the veil or burka, and the ways that courts seek to enforce so-called “positive” or “social” rights like the rights to health, housing, welfare and education. A further topic concerns the mechanisms democracy can use to protect itself against erosion caused by internal forces. How tolerant should democracy be towards anti-democratic groups? We will also discuss how globalization has affected the ability of national governments to pursue domestic policies for the common good. How should international organizations be structured, and how should they interact with national authorities, to better serve the interests of the people? Note: This seminar will be taught during the first half of the Spring Semester, but the final paper will not be due until the end of the semester.

The seminar on Food Safety Law will explore evolving concepts of food safety as implemented through federal regulatory programs. During the first eight weeks, seminar participants will read and discuss books and articles on risk assessment and risk management generally and on three regulatory programs aimed at ensuring food safety. After an introductory session on concepts of risk assessment and risk management in the context of risks posed by infectious microorganisms and chemical contaminants in food, the seminar will focus upon the following regulatory programs: (1) the Department of Agriculture's food safety and inspection program for beef; (2) the Environmental Protection Agency's program for establishing pesticide tolerances in foods, with a particular focus upon the risks that pesticides pose to children; and (3) the Food and Drug Administration's program for ensuring food safety and approving food additives, with a particular focus on that agency's program for regulating genetically modified foods. During the remainder of the semester, seminar participants will present seminar papers on a wide variety of topics related to food safety. Participants may draw paper topics from a wide variety of subject matter areas, including federal regulatory programs, state regulatory programs, and tort law.

This seminar, “Inside Texas Government: How It Really Works,” furthers the public service mission of The University of Texas School of Law by endeavoring to help law students who aspire to become lawyers who practice law in and around Texas state government, or enhancing the understanding of those students who are just interested in politics and government. The School of Law already offers courses that deal with the legislative branch of the Texas state government and how to navigate it, and virtually every class at the School of Law studies the judicial branch and decisions made by it and their impact. However, there is no course offering that specifically focuses on the executive branch and its interaction with the other two branches of Texas state government, especially the legislative branch. This seminar seeks to provide such a focus. The course teacher, Adjunct Professor Randy Erben, possesses unique expertise, experience, and perspectives into state government. He served as Gov. Abbott’s first legislative director, has run two state agencies, was a registered lobbyist with a broad variety of clients for over 20 years, and served as chair and commissioner on the Texas Ethics Commission. The course will study the constitutional and statutory powers of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, and other officials and agencies. Class topics include legislation (including legislative procedure, special sessions, emergency proclamations, and vetoes); separation of powers; the state budget; state agency regulations; appointments to boards and commissions; litigation; orders, proclamations, and opinions; and other topics. This seminar reviews and analyzes the powers and duties of the various executive branch offices and applies them to real-life situations. The seminar consists of fourteen classroom seminar sessions, covering the specific mechanisms the various executive branch agencies utilize to project power within the constitutional, statutory, and regulatory limitations constraining them.

This 3-credit, colloquium-style seminar focuses on scholarship relating to legal regimes such as intellectual property (IP) that interact substantially with concerns relating to innovation, whether in the use or advancement of science and technology or in connection with other creative, information-oriented, or commercial arts. Assigned readings will include background material relating to IP and six draft articles by leading scholars who will visit the class as guest speakers. Each student will be expected (1) to participate in class discussion; (2) to complete short writing assignments in response to a subset of assigned readings; (3) to participate on student teams that present and lead discussion on guest-speaker papers; and (4) to complete a final-paper project through both written work and an in-class presentation. Neither technical training nor any specific course is a prerequisite.

This seminar surveys international humanitarian law, also known as the international law of armed conflict. We will study such topics as the regulation of various means and methods of warfare, the treatment of war victims (such as POWs and civilians), the application of the law of war to non-state actors (such as terrorist organizations and corporations), and various enforcement mechanisms (such as international criminal tribunals and US military commissions).

This seminar will focus on cutting-edge research in law and economics. In most of the classes, we will host a workshop during which a leading scholar will present a paper. In the weeks in which there is no outside speaker, two groups of students will each present one to the two papers that will be presented by the outside speakers in the next two workshops. All students are required to write short critiques of most of the speakers’ papers. Your critiques will be graded and made available to the speaker.

Law and Religion in the Modern Middle East is a seminar that examines the laws that govern religion and religious expression in Middle Eastern national constitutions, with a special focus on both the free exercise and establishment clause of Islam as the religion of the state. We shall analyze emerging legal understandings of authority and rights, and explore the interconnections of “religion” and “law”—as traditions of thought as well as sets of practices, modes of relation as well as constellations of values. In this seminar, we will consider what counts as religion for constitutional and legal purposes. Participants will be expected to read academic legal commentary on the formulations of religion in the modern Middle East. The seminar will provide extensive case-law from lower and higher courts addressing issues that affect Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other faith communities. To better situate the classroom discussions, students will read historical, anthropological, and sociological studies on the topics of family law, international religious freedom law, and leading religions’ doctrines and teachings concerning religious freedom.

How we live and act together is not a matter of law alone: informal social norms bring order where law is absent, in its shadow, and at its deepest foundations. Smugglers, merchants, neighbors, presidents, and senators all follow rules no legislature enacted and no court enforces. How do communities along the Anglo-Scottish border contain violence through norms of retribution? Why do diamond traders take their disputes to their own private arbitration boards rather than to a judge? Do informally shared narratives and myths shape constitutional meaning? How do merchants maintain shared norms as they trade between disparate religious and linguistic communities? How do ranchers settle disputes over stray cattle without turning to the law? This writing seminar takes up these questions through a series of case studies, read alongside works in social and legal theory asking what social norms are, why they matter, and how they relate to law. By studying communities that keep order without courts, officials, or statutes, students will gain a sharper sense of what law offers, what it displaces, and how legal doctrine depends on informal norms for its meaning and force. The seminar will interest students drawn to legal theory as well as those who want to bring its insights to bear on fields such as constitutional, commercial, and international law. Students will be evaluated based on class participation, in-class presentations, and a final research paper fulfilling the Law School writing requirement.