Course Schedule

This course provides an introduction to legal doctrines and policy questions relating to the organization and operation of the administrative state. The focus is on federal administrative law, with significant attention devoted to judicial review of agency action, structural constitutional questions of separation and balance of powers, and procedural requirements under the Due Process Clause and Administrative Procedure Act. Students are required to participate in class on "on call" panel days. Grading will be based on satisfaction of the panel requirement and performance on a one-day, take-home examination.

Anything that happens on or near a body of navigable water is liable to call forth the admiralty jurisdiction of the federal courts and the application of the federal maritime law. The practice of admiralty and maritime law is somewhat specialized--admiralty lawyers still like to call themselves "proctors"--but any lawyer who practices in a port city (on an ocean, river, or lake) or who handles international transactions of any sort is likely to run into admiralty problems. (Yes, there is a lot of admiralty in Baton Rouge, plenty of it in Cincinnati, and probably still a little bit in Ogallala.) England had a specialized admiralty practice, and our Constitution set up admiralty and maritime law as a separate subject in this country by explicitly vesting the federal courts with full (but not exclusive) power over "all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction."  Understanding admiralty and maritime law accordingly entails some historical inquiries as well as a significant re-education in aspects of constitutional law affecting the division of power between the national and state governments. But the focus of the course is predominantly modern law, and the course materials consist in major part of recent judicial decisions and oft-litigated statutes.

This course delves into issues presented by injuries to maritime workers (including the Jones Act and the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act); injuries to ship passengers and recreational boaters; carriage of goods under private contracts of carriage (charterparties) and under bills of lading (including the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act); collisions between vessels; marine insurance; and forum shopping in maritime cases. The emphasis is on the present-day problems of maritime lawyers and judges as reflected in current litigation. The name "admiralty" may conjure up images of antiquity, but the practice and study of maritime law is a thoroughly modern matter. There are no prerequisites.

This course is a broad survey of three main types of legal writing: objective analysis, persuasive analysis, and transactional drafting. The course will also cover many other topics crucial to high-level professional writing: use of forms, advanced legal citation, the plain English movement, advanced grammar and punctuation, document design, legal usage, and editing. Students will receive individual critiques of their writing, and lectures will use model answers and sample critiques.

The course will cover topics not usually covered in patent law courses. For the first eight weeks, the course will address advanced topics and new developments in the law. The topics will be addressed in more depth than in typical courses and will include policy considerations. There will likely be one guest speaker that will present on a special topic. For the rest of the term, the students will select topics, choose the readings, and lead the discussion. Topic selection will require instructor approval. Students will also be expected to write a term paper on the same topic as the one chosen for presentation. Prerequisites: The student should have taken or be concurrently taking a course that includes patent law (which could be a survey course).

A course focusing on real-life cases and key strategic decisions made immediately before and during trial to position you for success. Nationally renowned trial master, David Beck, will demonstrate, share secrets and teach strategy. This is an advanced course. Texas Civil Procedure and Advocacy classes are recommended prior courses.

American water law, floated by its policies and rationales, evolved under opportune circumstances that bestowed on this young country abundant seasonal rainfall; thousands of mighty and contributory surface waters; and multitudes of sub-surface geologic formations that discharged and recharged, over the unhurried course of geologic time, providing seemingly limitless quantities of naturally-cooled and filtered stores of water from underground. These gifts of a palpably benevolent natural order--and the supportive understanding that water is a renewable resource-- helped to root pragmatic societal optimism regarding the use of water "from sea to shining sea", in accord with the popular anthem "America, the Beautiful". The rights, rules, and regulations that came to embody water law were stood up under these conditions.

The local-to-global conditions that account for the stocks and flows of water resources today, including the accelerating changes in when and how it "renews", have shifted massively since our water ownership and management regime evolved. It is evident that, under current and continuing challenges, the regime needs to evolve faster and further than it has ever done before. Why and how?

In this new course, we will take a close look at several of the challenging conditions that are putting immense pressure on water resources, our understandings of them, the legal management of them, and the values and principles that ought to drive inquiries into our short- and long-term goals. As to each such major undertaking within the course, we will explore the newest ideas for regime-change--and possibly shape some of our own.  

Subjects we are likely to take up in a slow sequence to allow for the extended consideration of some of these topics includes: consumptive water use for data centers; the re-use of "produced water" (especially in Texas) for irrigation and other purposes; the federal and state regulation of toxic chemical introduction into water bodies; the de-salination alternative; and the management of water under conditions of severe drought and severe flood. At least one topic will include international waters and the special challenges for management that they pose (likely, our topic will involve the Rio Grande River.) 

The productive dividends on offer include collaborative inter-disciplinary engagement; the careful construction of factual as well as legal understandings; outside expert participation; and writing with and without the use of AI. There will be no final exam. There is no prerequisite for this course.

You spent the first year of law school analyzing published cases. The emphasis of much of your reading was on the results of published cases and the legal principles each case teaches. Importantly, while trial court judges can publish written opinions on discreet issues, most of your previous reading focused on appellate court opinions. Every appellate court opinion begins with a narrative of the facts. The facts are critical in developing the legal opinions pronounced by the opinion. The way the facts are recited often allows the reader to begin developing a just result in the case simply by the way the facts are presented. But what does the first year of law school teach you about developing facts? We certainly spend a great deal of time analyzing facts, but how do you produce them? How do facts become evidence? Why do some facts seem to matter more than other facts? At a time in our society when it is hard to find common ground on what constitutes an objective fact, how do current attitudes (and social media) affect our profession where so much of the law depends upon the facts? And nestled somewhere between Evidence and Federal Courts perhaps our Course Catalog will one day have a class devoted entirely to Facts. Because no matter what type of law you practice, you’re going to have to deal with the facts of your case. You’re going to have to deal with the good facts, the bad facts, and the ambiguous facts. Whether you practice Admiralty Law or Wills and Estates, you must wrestle with disputed facts. And mostly importantly you, the lawyer, must find facts. Facts do not announce themselves, and rarely does the judge or jury understand the significance of any fact. Like latent fingerprints, we often see only remnants and traces of facts. These facts are never reviewed by an appellate court unless they are collected, preserved, interpreted, presented, and introduced as evidence. It is our job to find truth and extract justice for our clients by distilling the vapor of nuance from these latent facts. This class is a guide to that process. This class has a mandatory evening skills component (Monday or Wednesday evening). Students must register for both the lecture (376M) and either Monday or Wednesday evening skills portion (176N) of the class. Please note, the evening Skills portion of the class will not begin until week 5 or 6 of the semester and will run for eight weeks. Advocacy Survey is designed for all law students. While focusing primarily on trial skills, the course will also cover topics such as transactional practice, motion practice and alternative dispute resolution. By combining theory through the lecture sessions with technique training in skills sessions, students are able to practice what they learn. Students get hands-on practice in areas such as opening and closing statements, the use and relevance of technology in litigation, transferable skills for a transactional practice, and the basic skills necessary to try a case. The skill sessions will end with the trial of a case. Students will examine a case file from pretrial motions, transactional, ADR, arbitration, voir dire, and trial. This is a 4-credit series (1 credit pass/fail, 3 credits graded). Prerequisite or Concurrent: Evidence.

Students get hands-on practice in areas such as opening and closing statements, the use and relevance of technology in litigation, transferable skills for a transactional practice, and the basic skills necessary to try a case. The skill sessions will end with the trial of a case.

Students get hands-on practice in areas such as opening and closing statements, the use and relevance of technology in litigation, transferable skills for a transactional practice, and the basic skills necessary to try a case. The skill sessions will end with the trial of a case.

This course will examine how the U. S. Supreme Court sets its agenda. It will also examine agenda setting in other legal institutions , e.g, the office of the US. Solicitor General, State Solicitors General, and perhaps private legal practices. Students will be expected to come to class well prepared to discuss readings including weekly 1-2 page papers reflecting on the readings. Students will write a modest research paper on a topic of their choice related to agenda setting that is approved by the professor.

This course focuses on the changing health and supportive care needs of an aging metropolis. We examine the influences of political and economic forces that shape public policies related to health and social welfare policy using Austin as a case example. Potential topics to be covered are affordable housing, homelessness, transportation, medical care, social services, access to electronic media, and income supports. One potential way of addressing this new reality that the instructor has been involved with in recent years is intergenerational day centers (IDC) that combine adult day health care and childcare services.

ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION (3 HOUR COURSE) The Alternative Dispute Resolution Survey course is designed to provide a broad-based introduction to negotiation, mediation, and arbitration, for students interested in either advocacy or transactional practices. ADR methods are now more common than the courtroom for resolving civil disputes; more than 99% of civil cases are settled before trial, if cases are even filed at the courthouse. Many commercial agreements now contain mandatory mediation/arbitration provisions, and statutory and case law both favor ADR. This course will examine the policy and business reasons for the rise in ADR; explore the various ADR methods; discuss negotiating and why lawyers must learn successful negotiating skills; and provide students with an opportunity to experience these concepts through class exercises. The professor is a 30+year litigation attorney with substantial experience to both trial and ADR disputes, and she brings a practical, real-world approach to the lectures and exercises. There will be no exam, but a final written project is required. Grading will be based upon class participation, attendance, and the final paper. Please note: Students may only miss two classes per semester, additional absences will be reflected in a lower grade.

This course is designed to familiarize you with the abundance of topics and legal issues within the field of animal law. In addition to relevant statutes and case law, we will examine the extent to which jurisprudence, legal systems, litigation, legislation, and societal values impact how practitioners, lawmakers, the judiciary, law students, legal scholars, and lay people perceive animals. In doing so, this course will not only facilitate learning substantive law in the field, but also help you understand the framework of claims and assumptions (both explicit and implicit) against which animal law legislation, litigation, and decisions are made.

Textbooks:

Bruce A. Wagman, Sonia S. Waisman, & Pamela D. Frasch, Animal Law: Cases and Materials (6th ed. 2019).        

AND        

Yong, Ed, An Immense World. Random House, 2023.    

The course studies the development, interpretation, and application of the antitrust laws of the United States, specifically the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, FTC Act and other laws designed to protect consumers by ensuring competition in the marketplace. Specific topics include dominant firm behavior and exclusionary conduct, agreements among competitors, mergers, and vertical agreements (such as agreements between a supplier and a distributor). The course examines Supreme Court case law, recent and influential lower court decisions, and modern enforcement practice at the Federal Trade Commission and United States Department of Justice. Although basic economic concepts are integrated throughout the course, no background in economics is required or assumed. The class will begin with a brief primer on the most important economic concepts we will use in the course in order to make the course accessible to all interested students.

This dynamic, practical class will help set students up for long-term success in private practice and position them for leadership opportunities and community engagement. Billable hours are important, but they don't tell the whole story. We'll delve into the intricacies of billable hours and law firm economics to learn how and why billable hours matter. Then we'll look beyond the clock to explore how you can create a more fulfilling and impactful practice. Through hands-on sessions and select guest speakers, we will cover topics such as professional and business development, leadership opportunities, community engagement and non-profit board service, as well as navigating life and career changes. This class aims to equip students with the knowledge and skills to take control of their professional journeys, balancing the demands of billable hours with a holistic, big picture approach to professional growth.

This is the basic introductory course in business organizations. It considers issues relating to the selection of business form (partnership, limited partnership, corporation, and limited liability company), as well as the formation, financing, operation, and control of business entities. Primary emphasis is placed on conducting business in the corporate form, including closely-held and publicly-held corporations. Issues discussed in connection with public corporations include registration of securities, proxy regulation, and derivative litigation. Corporate Governance is examined in light of the collapse of Enron and other public companies. Problems in the supplementary materials demonstrate how the statutes and common law principles covered in the course apply in a real world setting. A student may not receive credit for both Corporations and Business Associations or Business Associations (Enriched).

This course is an introduction to the basic legal rules governing corporations. The course will focus on publicly held corporations. Among the topics covered will be fiduciary duties, conflict-of-interest transactions, reorganizations and control transactions, shareholder voting rights, and shareholder derivative suits. Issues relating to partnerships and securities law may also be reviewed. Corporations and Business Association, Business Associations, and Business Associations (Enriched) may not be repeated for credit.

This is an enriched, five-unit version of the basic introductory and survey course in the corporations/business organizations area; there are no prerequisites whatsoever. This course considers issues relating to the selection of business form (e.g., partnership, limited partnership, corporation, and limited liability partnership), as well as the formation, financing, operation, and control of business organizations. Primary emphasis is placed on conducting business in the corporate form. The course examines corporate governance and other matters associated with both closely held corporations and publicly held corporations. Corporate governance stems from the interplay of market forces and the legal landscape; the latter stems in part from a mix of common law principles, state and federal statutes, and Securities and Exchange Commission rules, and shareholder litigation. Certain litigation, market, regulatory, and transactional issues covered in this Business Associations (Enriched) course are not covered in either Business Associations or Corporations. This course also has a greater focus on publicly-held corporations and modern corporate and financial developments. This enriched course does NOT require any prior business-related undergraduate coursework or any work experience in business-related matters. Corporations and Business Association, Business Associations, and Business Associations (Enriched) may not be repeated for credit.

Many law school courses deal with either (1) asserting or defending against responsibility for something that went wrong—the contract that was arguably breached, the board of directors that may have failed in its responsibilities, the can of soda that exploded, the title to property that was defective, or (2) the “plumbing” of the legal system—civil and criminal procedure, evidence, remedies, appeals and the like.  This course has some of those elements, but also some fundamentally different elements: it deals with the internal control functions—described by one author as the functions that establish and confirm “conformity between . . . action and a rule or standard,” the latter being determined by law, regulation or an organization’s policies. These roles within an organization—compliance, internal audit and many parts of the legal department— principally focus on gaining an awareness of potential problems and establishing processes to avoid them, thereby avoiding resultant crises for the organization.

These functions are responsible for establishing policies and procedures designed to avoid, or detect at an early stage, instances in which personnel fail to conform to mandates established by law, regulation or organizational policies. As such, the functions include counseling personnel when questions arise and establishing “early warning” systems to detect and respond to instances of variance from required standards. They, but especially the compliance function, increasingly provide high-level, challenging employment opportunities for lawyers.

The course will examine the roles of these functions within an organization and their relationships to other organizational roles and to regulatory agencies. It will also examine a number of current or recent situations in which problems—crises for the organizations involved—have been uncovered and will consider how more effective programs might have unearthed them earlier, in time to avoid the crisis. Quite often (and contrary to the popular image), the best service a lawyer can perform for her client, but one that is invisible to public awareness, is to foresee a potential issue and counsel practices that avoid its occurrence. This course will provide tools that are important to that endeavor. The course will require a final exam (open book without internet access). Course materials will be provided by the instructor and there will be no casebook.

While the cannabis industry continues to grow across the US, cannabis regulation has never been more in flux at all levels of government. This course will discuss the central legal issues in the creation, growth and adaptation of the state-authorized THC-cannabis and Hemp-cannabis industries in the US.  This course will explore the patchwork of licensing regimes and regulatory requirements for THC-cannabis and Hemp-cannabis businesses.  This course will also explore the tension that exists between federal and state laws and how this tension creates unique challenges in farming, manufacturing, distribution, advertising, and banking among other issues of commerce.  This course will also discuss the challenging future of cannabis regulation from a federal, state, and local perspective.  Students will be expected to participate in discussion each week and in group projects taking place during class.  This course has no textbook and no specific prerequisites.  No technical background is required.  This course is designed for students to gain a practical understanding of how attorneys and other professionals work in these new and growing industries that are subject to ever-changing laws.  

This course will examine some general jurisprudential and moral issues related to the American system of capital punishment. The course will focus primarily on the development of the law governing capital punishment in the United States since 1970. Some of the main themes include: the legal structure of the Supreme Court's post-1970 death penalty jurisprudence, the scope of available appellate and post-conviction review in capital cases (particularly federal habeas review), the ubiquitous problems surrounding the representation afforded indigent capital defendants, proportionality limits on the imposition of the death penalty for various offenders (e.g., juveniles and persons with mental retardation), the role of racial discrimination in the administration of the death penalty, and the likely trajectory of the American death penalty. The course will be graded on a letter-grade basis for all students. This course will satisfy the constitutional law II requirement.

Introduction to the civil adjudicative process, primarily that of the federal courts, including jurisdiction, pleading, dispositive motions, discovery, and trial procedure.

Introduction to the civil adjudicative process, primarily that of the federal courts, including jurisdiction, pleading, dispositive motions, discovery, and trial procedure.

Introduction to the civil adjudicative process, primarily that of the federal courts, including jurisdiction, pleading, dispositive motions, discovery, and trial procedure.

Introduction to the civil adjudicative process, primarily that of the federal courts, including jurisdiction, pleading, dispositive motions, discovery, and trial procedure.

Introduction to the civil adjudicative process, primarily that of the federal courts, including jurisdiction, pleading, dispositive motions, discovery, and trial procedure.

Introduction to the civil adjudicative process, primarily that of the federal courts, including jurisdiction, pleading, dispositive motions, discovery, and trial procedure.

Introduction to the civil adjudicative process, primarily that of the federal courts, including jurisdiction, pleading, dispositive motions, discovery, and trial procedure.

ACTUAL INNOCENCE CLINIC IS A 6-HR. CLINIC. Students investigate claims by inmates that they are actually innocent of the offenses for which they are incarcerated. While investigating cases, students typically interview witnesses, research cases and issues of forensic science, and review trial transcripts and other court documents. The weekly clinic class addresses topics relevant to actual innocence law and procedure. An application is required.

This clinic provides students with the opportunity to assist in the representation of indigent criminal defendants charged with or convicted of capital offenses. Students work under the supervision of attorneys on death penalty cases at the trial, appellate, and post-conviction stages of the legal process. Students perform various tasks that are integral to death penalty representation, including visiting clients on death row; interviewing witnesses and conducting field investigations; drafting motions, appellate briefs, and habeas petitions; and assisting attorneys in the preparation for trials, evidentiary hearings, and appellate arguments.

Clinic students are expected to devote an average of 10 hours of work per week to their clinical responsibilities during the semester, though the workload in any given week will vary, depending on the needs of the case to which the student is assigned. Investigative work on some cases may require out-of-town travel. The Clinic meets once a week as a class (two hours) for training and practical skills sessions related to death penalty representation. Attendance at these sessions is mandatory.

As a prerequisite to enrolling in the Clinic, students are required to take concurrently, or to have taken previously, the Capital Punishment course (Law 278R / 378R). First-semester second-year students are welcome to enroll in both the Clinic and the Capital Punishment course, which takes as its subject the substantive and procedural law governing death penalty trials and appeals. A background in Texas and federal constitutional criminal procedure is also extremely helpful, but not required, to enroll in the Clinic. Grading is pass/fail. There is no paper or examination.

An application is required.

This clinic provides students with the opportunity to assist in the representation of indigent criminal defendants charged with or convicted of capital offenses. Students work under the supervision of attorneys on death penalty cases at the trial, appellate, and post-conviction stages of the legal process. Students perform various tasks that are integral to death penalty representation, including visiting clients on death row; interviewing witnesses and conducting field investigations; drafting motions, appellate briefs, and habeas petitions; and assisting attorneys in the preparation for trials, evidentiary hearings, and appellate arguments.

Clinic students are expected to devote an average of 10 hours of work per week to their clinical responsibilities during the semester, though the workload in any given week will vary, depending on the needs of the case to which the student is assigned. Investigative work on some cases may require out-of-town travel. The Clinic meets twice a week as a class for training and practical skills sessions related to death penalty representation. Attendance at these sessions is mandatory.

As a prerequisite to enrolling in the Clinic, students are required to take concurrently, or to have taken previously, the Capital Punishment course (Law 278R / 378R). First-semester second-year students are welcome to enroll in both the Clinic and the Capital Punishment course, which takes as its subject the substantive and procedural law governing death penalty trials and appeals. A background in Texas and federal constitutional criminal procedure is also extremely helpful, but not required, to enroll in the Clinic. Grading is pass/fail. There is no paper or examination.

An application is required.

Students in the Children's Rights Clinic represent allegedly abused or neglected children in Travis County as their attorney ad litem. The cases are brought by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). The state may intervene in a family in a variety of ways, including seeking temporary or permanent custody of a child or termination of parental rights and adoption.

Two very experienced attorneys, Clinical Professors Lori Duke and Leslie Strauch, supervise the representation of clients by the student attorney. The supervising attorneys sign pleadings drafted by the students and accompany them at every court hearing, deposition, and trial on the merits. However, within a week or two, a student can expect to "sit first chair" at hearings, and also is expected to research and prepare the case.

Each student attorney will be assigned a mix of newly filed cases and other cases in various stages of development. If the case goes to final hearing, student participation in the trial will vary from partial to extensive. Each student will have multiple opportunities to appear in court during the semester. Some students will have the opportunity to participate in a bench trial. Occasionally students will participate in a jury trial. Students are likely to participate in mediation.

In representing clients, students meet with a wide variety of persons, including medical and mental health professionals, teachers, foster parents, caseworkers and social workers, attorneys, layperson CASA volunteers who may serve as guardians, and police officers.

Court is generally Tuesday morning. The class meets once a week to focus on substantive law, procedure, and ethics, as well as child welfare policy. In addition to the classroom component, each student should expect to average about 12-15 hours per week on clinic work. The weekly workload varies.

Students are required to visit their child clients. Sometimes these client visits require travel outside of Travis County (with travel reimbursed). There are no prerequisites for the course. Students, however, must meet Texas requirements for the participation of qualified law students in the trial of cases under rules promulgated by the Texas Supreme Court.

The course is pass/fail. There is no paper or final exam. The course counts toward the ABA Experiential Learning Requirement. An application is required.

Students in the Civil Rights Clinic represent clients in civil rights matters. Such matters include police misconduct, jail mistreatment, housing justice, unlawful immigration detention, worker’s rights, and disability discrimination. Students work on cases and law reform advocacy projects with co-counsel from civil rights organizations and attorneys across the country, under the supervision of clinic faculty. Through clinic work, students hone lawyering skills, including fact investigation, drafting pleadings, discovery and depositions, legal research and writing, case development and selection, and client or witness interviewing. Students work on cases in teams, meeting with supervising clinic faculty on at least a weekly basis. Students also participate in a classroom seminar, in which students learn relevant substantive and procedural law, discuss the political and social contexts of civil rights cases, and think through how to resolve legal problems effectively and ethically. The seminar meets twice a week. The supervising Clinic faculty member is Clinical Professor Lia Sifuentes Davis. The clinic is offered in the fall and spring, for six (6) credits, pass/ fail. The Clinic is open to students who have completed their first two semesters. Students should expect to devote an average of 10-12 hours per week for casework and seminar preparation. For more information, see https://law.utexas.edu/clinics/civil-rights/. An application is required.

Students, working pursuant to the clinical practice rule and under the supervision of CDC faculty, primarily represent people charged with misdemeanors in Travis County. Students function as lead counsel, working directly with clients to identify goals for the representation and develop strategies to achieve the best possible outcome. Students maintain a primary role at all court appearances, whether those appearances involve negotiations, discussions with a judge, evidentiary hearings, or trial. Depending on the stage of assigned cases, other responsibilities often include investigation, discovery practice, and drafting of motions. In a new pilot project, students may also represent clients who face revocation of their parole. Students may not be enrolled in another clinic while they are enrolled in the CDC. An application is required. Additional mandatory, in-person sessions will occur on Friday, August 28 (12 pm-6 pm), and Saturday, August 29 (9 am-6 pm).

What is the DRC? 

Students in the Disability Rights Clinic (DRC) represent clients with disabilities in a variety of legal contexts.  Students represent low-income parents of children with disabilities in cases brought against school districts that have violated state and federal special education and anti-discrimination laws. 

What kind of experience will I gain? 

DRC students draft civil complaints, develop expert testimony, mediate their cases, and try them when necessary.  Students work in teams on one to three cases, depending on their areas of interest, client need, and capacity. 

Will I work to resolve disputes?

Significant focus and attention is given to ADR in DRC. Students serve as lead student counsellors in formal mediation of their complaints before mediators on contract with the Texas Education Agency.  Through this model, students develop skills common to both litigation (drafting, discovery, witness prep) and transactional (negotiation, line-editing, creative problem-solving) practices.

Will I have much client contact? 

Yes! Students practice the skills involved in building trust with their child clients and families through regular counselling by phone, zoom, and sometimes through in-person home visits. The DRC emphasizes the art of making the law accessible to nonlawyer parents and, where possible, their children.  

How does DRC get its clients?

Families needing DRC legal services are selected primarily through a medical-legal partnership with the Dell Children’s Medical Group and other state-wide partners.  Many of the children served live in under-resourced rural communities, and a majority are young children of color.  Some children are in foster care or have experienced housing instability, and a large number have been identified as having autism.

What kinds of situations do DRC clients confront?

DRC students have worked on cases in which educators have physically abused or neglected children with disabilities, put into segregated and locked education settings kids whose conduct was driven by unmet disability-related need, and failed to therapies and other critical related services necessary for kids' inclusion in school. Many of our cases have involved kids whose behavior has become challenging because of the lack of appropriate services, and some have involved contested hearings in the suspension and expulsion contexts.  

Who should take this clinic?

Students who want to gain experience in litigation and/or mediation, and those who would like to go on to represent children or people with disabilities in either a pro bono or public interest practice, should consider this clinic.  DRC partners with it several of its graduates in Big Law to broaden its reach. Graduates of DRC have worked in large law firms supporting special education work as a pro bono focus, in mid-size firm practice representing school districts, as lawyers in nonprofit settings representing persons with disabilities, in juvenile and criminal defense work, and in governmental entities requiring expertise in education or disability law.  

What are the course requirements?

The Disability Rights Clinic meets twice per week. Grading is on a pass/fail basis for this six-credit hour clinic. There is no final exam or paper. Students should expect to spend 10-15 hours per week on clinic work, including class time. 

Roughly one-third of class time is devoted to understanding and discussing substantive education law and how it plays out "on the ground" in Texas school districts.  Additional class sessions are used to teach and practice specific skills involved in identifying and analyzing the strength and weakness of legal claims, drafting, working with experts, negotiating, conducting formal mediation, and putting on witnesses at hearing.  Each week, students deepen their understanding of special education law practice by presenting their case developments and giving feedback through case rounds.   

Students are encouraged to apply for the Clinic early as enrollment is limited and faculty permission is required to register. Students should submit an electronic application by the end of the application window. For more information, contact Professor Lucy Wood at lwood@law.utexas.edu or at (512) 626-2060.

Taught by Professor Lucy Wood 6 credits (pass/fail) — offered only in the Fall. The clinic is open to students who have completed their first two semesters.

 An application is required.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CLINIC IS A 6-HR. CLINIC.  Grading is Pass/Fail.  The clinical component of this course will involve student representation of domestic violence survivors in a myriad of legal problems, including custody, divorce, visitation, housing, protective orders, parole advocacy and occasionally in consumer and public assistance matters. Students will also perform parole advocacy on behalf of survivors of domestic violence who are in prison due to their victimization as well as litigate in Travis County courts. Law students work alongside social work intern partners from the Steve Hicks School of Social Work to provide clients with holistic services for better outcomes.

The class sessions will cover the matters relevant in civil domestic violence cases: safety planning, comprehensive intake, case analysis and handling, investigation, negotiation, trial preparation, discovery, and temporary and permanent orders, including protective orders.   

In addition to regular class time, there are five additional mandatory time commitments for participation in the Domestic Violence Clinic:

1. Mandatory extra class session on Saturday, August 29, 2026 from 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM. You may not participate in the Clinic if you do not attend the extra class. 
2. A one-hour weekly meeting with the supervising attorney.
3. You will be scheduled for 4 hours per week office hours/phone duty at the Clinic.
4. You will be expected to document an average of eleven hours per week on your cases towards the hours required for clinic credit.
5. This is a litigation clinic, and you will be first chairing your cases. Court appearances may require that you miss class.

Due to these requirements, you may not take another clinic or internship at the same time that you take the Domestic Violence Clinic.  

Prerequisites: Students enrolling should not be on scholastic probation. An application is required.

The EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS CLINIC IS A 6-CREDIT HR. CLINIC. Students in this clinic will represent low-income workers, who labor in Texas, in legal actions to recover unpaid wages for work they have performed, to combat workplace discrimination, and to enforce other basic employment rights. The clinic gives students hands-on experience with civil litigation, basic employment law, public interest practice, and the evolving fields of immigrant employment rights and transnational migrant worker rights.

Clinic students will serve as primary legal counsel representing immigrant and low-wage working people in federal and state employment litigation and administrative actions. Students will get the experience of working inside an independent public interest law firm and will be supervised and mentored by several expert low-wage employment lawyers. Depending on the requirements and the current litigation stage of each case, students will variously: interview and advise clients; investigate cases and develop legal action strategies; initiate and manage active litigation; negotiate with opposing employers and their lawyers; prepare litigation documents in the student's cases including pleadings, motions, and briefs; conduct discovery in the student's cases including written discovery and the taking of depositions; research legal issues; develop damages calculations; represent clients in hearings, court proceedings, and mediation; and negotiate and manage the final legal settlement or recovery of damages in the case.

The Employment Rights Clinic is conducted in partnership with the Equal Justice Center (EJC), a nonprofit public-interest law firm, based in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio. The EJC is the leading law firm in Texas specializing in advocating for the rights of low-wage workers.

In this clinic, students devote the bulk of their clinic hours each week to handling active cases for real clients. This case work includes regularly scheduled office hours at the nearby Equal Justice Center office; regularly scheduled remote office hours in the EJC's remote law practice; regular case reviews with supervising attorneys; and essential conferences with clients. During the first week of the course, before starting their casework assignments, students will receive an intensive classroom orientation on low-wage employment litigation practice. Throughout the semester, the students' principal casework will be complemented with a regular classroom session that meets once a week for approximately two hours. The classroom sessions will explore various deeper aspects of employment law, rights of immigrant workers, effective litigation practice, and special topics in employment law practice for immigrant and low-wage workers. Classroom instruction will address the challenges of adapting U.S. law and legal practice to our increasingly transnational labor market. Subtopics include: U.S. labor and immigration policy; wage laws, employment laws, and contract law as they affect transnational workers; the tension between immigration laws and labor rights; rights of transnational "guest workers"; civil litigation and representation skills specific to immigrant worker cases; employment law practice as viewed from the perspective of practicing lawyers; ethical issues in employment rights representation; and evolving mechanisms for the enforcement of worker rights.

The clinic is open to students who have completed the first year of law school. While Clinic clients include U.S. citizens and immigrants from a wide array of continents and countries, a majority of clients are Spanish-speakers from a variety of Latin American countries. Spanish proficiency accordingly is very useful but is not in any way required. Questions about the clinic may be directed to Christopher Willett at christopher.willett@austin.utexas.edu. Please put "Employment Rights Clinic" in the subject line of any communication.

An application is required.

Taught in the Fall by Frances Leos Martinez, Clinic Director. The Clinic is open to students who have completed their first two semesters. 6 credits (pass/fail) — offered in the Fall and Spring. The Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic provides students with a unique opportunity to develop business law and problem-solving skills while representing clients operating community enterprises -- small businesses, entrepreneurs, creatives, nonprofit organizations, and community groups. Students learn how to represent their clients on a broad variety of transactional business law matters. Typical legal matters include: assisting businesses with choice of entity decisions forming for-profit and nonprofit entities applying to the IRS for tax-exempt status drafting and negotiating contracts providing legal advice to nonprofit boards of directors and staff drafting lending and real estate documents assisting with intellectual property matters assisting with personnel policies Clinic students learn how to represent their clients through clinic classes, in-person teamwork, weekly team meetings with their clinic supervisor, and research and initiative on their cases. The Clinic classes emphasize the applicable substantive law; the larger social and theoretical context of the Clinic’s work; and the development of practical lawyering skills including interviewing, counseling, negotiating, contract drafting, and public speaking.

The Clinic class meets on Monday afternoons 2:30-4:30 pm. Four classes will run to 5:30 pm. There is a mandatory orientation class on the first Friday of the semester, from 12:00-3:30 pm. In addition to class, students are required to keep a weekly schedule of 8 in-clinic office hours, over the course of three days from Monday through Friday, between 8:00 am-5:00 pm. The Clinic is a significant time commitment. Students are expected to devote an average of 17-19 hours a week to the Clinic, including class time and clinic case work. Attendance is required at the orientation and all classes and case rounds.

Students should also note that teamwork is a key component of clinic case work. Students will be assigned to a team partner with whom they will work during the semester. Clinic casework is conducted in teams and students will be assigned to the same team for the semester. Enrollment is by application only. Students are encouraged to apply for the Clinic during the priority deadline as the Clinic fills up quickly. Students may request to be placed on a waiting list if space is unavailable during registration.

Grading is on a pass/fail basis for this six-credit hour clinic. There are no prerequisites for this clinic, although a background in business law (such as business associations, real estate, or tax law) will come in handy. An application is required. For additional information, you may contact the Clinic Director Frances Leos Martinez (fmartinez@law.utexas.edu, 512-232-1222), or the Clinic Program Coordinator (ecdc@law.utexas.edu).

ENVIRONMENTAL CLINIC – 6 credits, pass/fail (application required)

Students in the Environmental Clinic work with clients, including underserved communities throughout Texas, to advocate for reduced pollution, cleanup of existing pollution, access to infrastructure (such as clean drinking water), and climate change adaptation.

Students work on cases in teams, under the supervision of clinic faculty, and should expect to spend approximately 12 hours per week working on clinic cases. Clinic students have worked on civil rights complaints, environmental enforcement actions in federal court, ensuring access to clean drinking water, permitting and rulemaking proceedings before administrative agencies, community education, pollution monitoring, and environmental policy research. Students gain practical experience with factual investigation and analysis, administrative research and advocacy before regulatory agencies, and legal drafting and litigation support.

The weekly two-hour seminar's topics include representing environmental clients, navigating administrative law and agencies, and the efficacy of current laws for protecting health and the environment.

The Clinic is open to students who have completed their first two semesters. There is no prerequisite for the clinic. An application is required. For additional information regarding the clinic, contact Clinic Director Kelly Haragan (kharagan@law.utexas.edu, 512-232-2654) or Clinic Administrator Rita Stramel (environmentalclinic@law.utexas.edu).

Students in the Housing Policy Clinic work on cutting-edge policy projects aimed at advancing low-income individuals’ access to affordable, just, and secure housing.

The Housing Policy Clinic offers law students:

• In-depth engagement with the housing policy and law reform landscape
• Opportunities to develop public policy solutions and legal reforms addressing the nation’s most pressing housing challenges
• Development of a broad range of lawyering skills, including creative problem-solving, law and policy analysis, interviewing and counseling, and oral and written advocacy

HPC students work in teams of two to three students on one to two policy projects, working closely with the clinic faculty, clients, and other stakeholders, including housing advocacy organizations, government officials, and community organizations. Students complete a number of written deliverables for their clients, such as policy briefs, research reports, know-your-rights materials, model laws, and regulatory guidance. Students also have the opportunity to hone their oral communication skills such as through presentations to stakeholder groups, in-class exercises, and testimony to legislative and regulatory bodies.

Classroom

In the classroom, HPC students engage in discussions on current and emerging housing law and policy issues, hear from guest speakers actively working in the housing policy space, and participate in hands-on lawyering skills exercises. Class time includes opportunities to work in teams on clinic projects, although students should expect to dedicate additional time outside the classroom to their projects.

Time commitment

HPC students should expect to devote an average of 11 hours a week on their policy projects along with an additional 4-5 hours a week for the clinic seminar and seminar preparation.  

Additional information

This six-credit hour clinic is offered only in the fall semester (although students who have completed the clinic may apply to participate as advanced clinic students for the spring semester). Grading is on a pass/fail basis.

There are no prerequisites for this Clinic, but an application is required. Students are encouraged to apply for the Clinic early, as enrollment is limited.

For more information, please contact Professor Heather Way at hway@law.utexas.edu.

Students in the Immigration Clinic represent vulnerable low-income immigrants from around the world before the immigration and federal courts and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Students gain hands-on experience by taking on the primary responsibility and decision-making authority for their cases under the mentorship of the Clinic faculty. The Clinic’s caseload varies each semester but focuses on deportation defense and asylum claims, including for detained persons. The Clinic has handled cases for clients from, among other countries, Afghanistan, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Eritrea, Mexico, and Pakistan. The Clinic represents clients of all ages, including unaccompanied children and families. Students also engage in national and international advocacy projects to improve the rights of immigrants in the United States.

Through client representation and advocacy as well as the classroom component of the Clinic, students learn substantive immigration law, develop client relationship skills, and practice a variety of legal advocacy skills and techniques. The Clinic allows students to explore different models for effective and collaborative lawyering, including interdisciplinary practice with social work student interns and expert witnesses from medical, social science, and mental health backgrounds.

Immigration Clinic students work on their cases collaboratively in teams. The Immigration Clinic meets for class two times per week for an hour and a half. As an orientation, the first two classes of the semester are extended in length, and an extra session is held on Wednesday evening during the first week of classes (1.5 hours). Grading is on a pass/fail basis for this six-credit hour clinic. There is no final exam or paper; instead, students receive feedback throughout the semester from faculty and peers and conduct a self-evaluation at the end of the semester that is discussed with faculty.

Students should expect to spend approximately 20 hours per week on Clinic work, including class time and office hours in the Clinic suite. Work on cases and projects may be required over breaks (Thanksgiving or Spring Break). Participation in the Clinic is generally not compatible with participation in moot court or other competitions that require travel during the semester, and personal travel may need to be limited in light of case and project obligations. Students will occasionally travel to area immigration detention facilities and to San Antonio where the Immigration Court and DHS offices are located, sometimes including early morning departures and unavoidable absence from other classes.

An application is required, and students are encouraged to apply for the Clinic during the early registration window as enrollment is limited. For more information about the Immigration Clinic, contact Denise Gilman (dgilman@law.utexas.edu) or Elissa Steglich (esteglich@law.utexas.edu).

Students in the Law & Religion Clinic represent vulnerable individuals and groups of all faiths who face challenges to their religious liberty. This will involve a diverse array of clients, including, among others: prisoners, mosques, students, employees, churches, teachers, faith-based schools, sanctuary churches, synagogues, and immigrants. Students can expect to work on cases involving the Free Exercise Clause, the Establishment Clause, similar state constitutional provisions, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, its state equivalents, antidiscrimination statutes, Title VII, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

Under the direction of clinic faculty, students will have the opportunity to be first chair on some matters or serve as co-counsel with various civil rights organizations and law firms on others. Through that work, they will develop lawyering skills they can apply in nearly any type of legal practice they pursue, including analyzing potential cases, client interviewing, fact investigation, representing and advising organizations, negotiation, drafting pleadings, dealing with opposing counsel, discovery and depositions, trial advocacy, and appellate work.

Students will work on cases in teams and will meet with Professors Greil and Collis as a group multiple times a week: to discuss their cases and in a classroom seminar where they will learn the substance and complexities of religion law (this will include some readings from a packet of key material). They will also have one-on-one sessions with the Professors to discuss how their lawyering skills are progressing and to counsel on other issues.

The Clinic encourages students from all backgrounds, ideologies, religions, and beliefs to join. The clinic is offered in the fall and spring, for six (6) credits, pass/fail. The Clinic is open to students who have completed their first two semesters. You can find a broader description of the clinic and the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center at https://law.utexas.edu/first-amendment-center/. There are no prerequisites for this clinic. An application is required.

SUPREME COURT LITIGATION CLINIC IS A 6-CREDIT COURSE that provides students the opportunity to work on cases pending before the United States Supreme Court. Students will be assigned to represent actual clients that are before the Court as petitioners (those seeking review of adverse lower-court decisions), respondents (those defending favorable lower-court decisions), or amici curiae (those participating in other parties' cases because their interests could be affected by the Court's decision). Cases may be at either the certiorari or the merits stage and may be in almost any substantive area of law. Clinic cases may involve a wide range of issues, including federal statutory issues and constitutional issues.

As part of their Clinic work, students will learn about Supreme Court procedures and the strategic considerations relevant in Supreme Court practice. Students will evaluate their clients' substantive positions, research the relevant issues, participate in strategic planning, and help draft the briefs or other documents to be filed with the Court. They also will participate in identifying potential cases for the Clinic to handle. And they may have the opportunity to moot advocates scheduled to argue before the Court.

Students will work closely with other students, and under the supervision of experienced members of the Supreme Court bar (who will assume final responsibility for all documents filed with the Court). An application is required.

Commercial Leasing: A practical perspective. Whether you are a lawyer in a private law firm, in house counsel for a hospital, or a business owner operating a restaurant, you will likely come across a commercial lease at some point in your career. This practicum will guide students through real examples of lease negotiations, litigation strategies, and risk mitigation techniques. Students will review case law, learn how to analyze and draft lease provisions, discuss evolving real estate use in various market scenarios, and how to think outside of the box to complete the transaction. We will use recent developments in case law to develop a working checklist when analyzing a commercial lease.

This course will examine international and domestic treaties, statutes and regulations governing commercial spaceflight activities, including rocket launches, human spaceflight, satellites and exploration activities. Students will be provided the opportunity to explore the various U.S. government agencies that regulate commercial space activities, how domestic laws comply with international treaty obligations, and the means by which commercial companies provide services to US government and commercial customers.

This course focuses on Article Two of the Uniform Commercial Code, which governs sales (as opposed to leases or gratuitous transfers) of goods (as opposed to services or personal/real/intellectual property).  Sales used to be a required first-year course; later, it was incorporated into first-year Contracts; now it is often ignored, even though it has significant practical application in the real world and is tested regularly on the bar exam.  Essentially, Sales is an advanced course in Contracts.  We will cover the special Article 2 rules governing contract formation, modification and termination; the need for a writing; implied terms; warranty liability/privity of contract; risk of loss; title; performance and breach; and remedies.  To help you gain a working knowledge of Article 2, problems will be assigned for each class.

Overview: A nationally known, plaintiff’s commercial trial lawyer will provide students with an introduction to complex financial litigation, including claims arising out of financial fraud, Ponzi schemes, business mismanagement, and fiduciary self-dealing. Students will study the common types of financial litigation that are pursued by equity holders, creditors, and other victims of financial wrongdoing as well as litigation professionals, such as bankruptcy trustees, receivers, and foreign liquidators against fiduciaries (e.g., directors and officers), professional services firms (e.g., law firms and accounting firms), banks, and other participants in financial transactions. Although the course will focus on the plaintiff’s side of financial litigation, it will also cover common defenses and the strategies that defendants often utilize in such litigation. Students will review actual complaints and study real cases. Students will have to think strategically through real-world fact patterns, consider potential claims and defenses, develop litigation strategies, and learn how to think like practicing lawyers. In doing so, students will draw on the knowledge they have learned in a variety of other classes, including contracts, torts, civil procedure, business associations, bankruptcy, and remedies. Grading: Each student will be graded their written work product, which will include claims analysis. Course Materials: Course materials will be provided via Canvas. There is no textbook.

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 exclusively on choice of law. Most of the course focuses on the sources from which state courts draw in choosing the applicable law. But the course also covers (1) constitutional limits on state choice of law, (2) the rules governing the choice of state law in federal court, and (3) the principles that determine whether and when a federal statute may be given extraterritorial effect. By the end of the course, students should have developed a sound understanding of the methodologies that influence choice of law in the United States and the policy considerations that will shape further development of the law in this area. The first and third topics in Conflict of Laws are covered in a separate course entitled “Jurisdiction & Judgments” that is scheduled to be taught in the spring.

The course will focus on constitutional interpretation involving the Religion Clauses, the Expression Clauses, and the Right to Bear Arms. Both interpretive and substantive issues will be addressed to question what the scope of each constitutional provision should be and whether that scope should be interrelated with the scope of other provisions. Specific topics will include: gun control, dollars to religion, school, prayer, criminal advocacy, pornography, hate speech, and new communications technologies.

This course will focus on the design, history, practice, and theory of constitutional amendment in the United States. Students will explore key questions, including: (1) What does the US Constitution require for a constitutional amendment?; (2) Are there limitations on what may be amended into or out of the US Constitution?; (3) What is (or should be) the role of courts in constitutional amendment?; (4) What values are reflected in the architecture of the country's constitutional amendment procedures?; and (5) Why doesn't the US Constitution make anything unamendable, in contrast to many other countries in the world which protect human dignity, civil rights, and fundamental freedoms against amendment? Readings will be complemented by class visitors, including a Justice of a Constitutional Court and authors of some of the scholarly publications we will read and discuss. Evaluation will be based on a take-home examination inviting students to answer their choice of open-ended essay questions relating to the central themes in this course.

This course explores the law governing politics and elections in the United States. We will examine a variety of topics, including: the Constitution and its protection of the right to vote, reapportionment, the Voting Rights Act, gerrymandering, the constitutional rights of political parties, campaign finance regulation, and election administration. We will also consider the relationship between these topics and partisanship. A serious interest in Constitutional Law is strongly recommended.

The course begins by developing my position on legitimate and valid legal argument in the United States. That position is based on (1) the postulate that to be morally legitimate the use of a legal argument must be consistent with the moral commitments of the society in which the legal argument is being made and (2) an "empirical" conclusion that the United States is a liberal, rights-based society (i.e., a society whose members and governments draw a strong distinction between moral-rights discourse and moral-ought discourse, are committed to moral-rights conclusions) trumping moral-ought conclusions when the two conclusions favor different outcomes, and derive their moral-rights conclusions from a basic commitment to treating all moral-rights- bearing entities for which they are responsible with appropriate, equal respect and concern. The combination of the above postulate and empirical finding lead me to conclude that (1) arguments derived from the liberal principle just articulated are not only inside the law but are the dominant mode of legitimate and valid legal argument in the United States (dominant in that they operate not only directly but also by determining the legitimacy, legitimate variant of, and legitimate weight to be given to the other modes of legal argument that are actually made in our society) and relatedly (2) there are internally-right answers to all legal-rights questions in our society. The second part of the course then explores a variety of moral-philosophical and jurisprudential alternatives to my own. The third part analyzes from my and various alternative moral and jurisprudential perspectives a variety of various judicial opinions that deal with these issues. The fourth part executes parallel analyses of a variety of "appropriate, equal concern"- real Constitutional Law issues and judicial opinions. I expect to focus particularly on affirmative action, the right to die, right to a liberal education, and the possible right to a minimum real income or minimum share of the societal-average minimum real income.

This course is about reproductive rights under U.S. law and reproductive justice in U.S. policy and practice. We will consider sex, parenting, pregnancy, labor & delivery, reproduction, and contraception as rights and as targets of regulation. We will also learn to analyze issues of law and policy through a reproductive justice framework. We will consider and evaluate reproduction as experienced by racial minorities, LGBTQ populations, incarcerated women, and disabled people, among others.

The course is an examination of the Consitution as a document of law, political theory, and politics. Focus is primarily on federalism, separation of powers, and some aspects of due process and equal protection. Much effort is put into helping students learn how to think about constitutional law as future lawyers and as citizens. It is taught largely with by the Socratic Method.

This course will analyze theories of liability and defenses in the area of construction dispute resolution, with particular emphasis on Texas law. It involves participation in several case studies, which will include extensive discussion of the practical aspects of resolving construction disputes through litigation and arbitration. The class participants will study case materials involving property damage, personal injury, and claims for delay and payment. The semester will conclude with a mediation exercise with one of the leading construction mediators in Texas. The teaching goal is to furnish students with the basic tools to evaluate and handle a variety of construction related disputes.  

An introduction to the law governing contracts and the methods by which rights and duties of promissory and quasi-promissory origin are created, transferred, limited, discharged, breached, and enforced.

The course covers the basic elements of copyright law. Special emphasis will be put on the interaction of copyright law with various new technologies including the Internet. In addition to the relevant legal doctrines, the class will survey policy considerations and the normative justifications--economic and others--that underlie these doctrines.

The first objective of the course will be to help prepare future corporate and non-profit Directors to fulfill their fiduciary duties of care and loyalty to the organizations that they will serve. We will do this by examining a wide variety of issues that Directors must deal with on a regular basis. These include balancing efforts between establishing quarterly and yearly performance targets and building strong companies that can sustain above-market financial performance in the future. Directors must also manage business and political relationships, initiate and integrate acquisitions, create/change corporate culture, continually align the organization structure to the business strategy, allocate resources for a variety of corporate initiatives, deal with issues of corporate governance, succession planning, executive compensation, and learn to navigate through potential public relations disasters. We will examine as many of these topics as time permits.

The second objective of this course will be to understand the nature and scope of corporate Boards from the perspective of society, social and economic interest and what can be done to prevent some of the more publicized corporate governance failures. We will examine several of the more highly publicized corporate failures as well as what action Congress has taken to address corporate malfeasance, and the recommendations that have been made by social critics. The course is directed primarily at graduate business students and law students who expect to serve either as advisors to Boards of Directors or on Boards of Directors of public companies or non-profit organizations. While most of the course will focus on established public companies, much of the course content will be useful to those individuals who are primarily interested in entrepreneurial organizations, family corporations, or public sector non-profit entities. This course will have three distinct instructional formats. Professor Cunningham will lecture to the class to help provide all of the students with a fundamental knowledge of how Boards of Directors function in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. He will also focus on the different roles the Boards play in both large and small organizations.

The third format of the class will be to invite guest speakers to address the students who are involved in a wide variety of real world governance issues. The guests will be encouraged to provide ample opportunity for questions during their presentations. The individuals that will be invited to speak to the class will include a mix of entrepreneurs, senior executives from major corporations, directors of public and private entities, politicians, leaders of non-profit entities, corporate lawyers and partners of major accounting firms.

Learning Outcomes

Eleven of the key learning outcomes that we will focus on in class are listed below. 

1. The role of corporate boards in a capitalistic economy.
2. The duties of corporate directors.
3. The relationship between the corporation and the board.
4. Effective structure of corporate boards.
5. The importance of legal constraints on director’s actions.
6. The design of an impact of constructive corporate culture.
7. Identification of the macro environmental factors.
8. The creation of the succession process for management and the board.
9. Management of corporate crises.
10. The structure and compensation program for executives and directors.
11. The role of activist investors.

Optional Lunch on Wednesday, October 16 at Noon

There will be an optional lunch with Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Dr. Goodwin worked in the Johnson administration and assisted President Johnson in writing his best-selling memoir Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.  She was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.  She also earned the Lincoln Prize for her book Team of Rivals and the Carnegie Medal for her book The Bully Pulpit.  Invitations to the lunch will be sent closer to the date. 

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

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

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

This is a course about substantive criminal law. We will be discussing what conduct should and should not be considered a crime as well as how we define various crimes. We will spend considerable time reading and learning how to interpret statutes.

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.

In recent years, public education has taken on a significance in the nation’s dominant political discourse not seen in a generation. The truth of this can be seen in the increased attention public education has received in our state and federal courts. This course will explore contemporary case law governing the administration and role of public education in the United States, with a focus on First Amendment rights, the various stakeholders in public schools and the pressure points of conflict that have emerged between them. We will also discuss the future of public education and the various options for future education law policy in a field where every day might present a new Constitutional question.

Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Jeff Rowes will teach students how public-interest lawyers devise and litigate strategic cases designed to set precedent. The class will examine major cases from the perspective of the lawyers who fought the battles, and consider questions like how do you select the right client, identify the right claims, and file in the right jurisdiction. The class will also talk about the right moment in history to bring suit. Students will learn how to use the media effectively. There will be particular emphasis on teaching real-world litigation skills and professional judgment. Each student will write an appellate brief as the final assignment. But to make the brief writing more collaborative, as it is in actual legal practice, students will be asked to submit draft sections throughout the semester and incorporate feedback from the instructor. Although the instructor is an attorney at the Institute for Justice, which has a libertarian orientation, he strongly encourages students of all perspectives to join the class. We will look at cases across the ideological spectrum (and discuss how good constitutional lawyers build alliances across ideological boundaries). There is no exam. Pass/fail allowed.

This course is a deep dive into a broad range of legal and policy issues associated with cybersecurity. It is intended as a comprehensive introduction to the nature and functions of the various government and private-sector actors associated with cybersecurity in the United States, the policy goals they pursue, the issues and challenges they face, and the legal environment in which all of this takes place. The course is the cornerstone of the Strauss Center's "Integrated Cybersecurity Studies" program, which is a Hewlett Foundation-funded project to increase interdisciplinary education relating to cybersecurity. Anyone interested in the course might also be interested in the Center's "Cyber Fellows" program, which you can explore here. The course also counts as the cornerstone for the LLM program's cybersecurity concentration, as well as for a planned graduate portfolio in cybersecurity studies. No technical background is required or assumed. Graduate students from across the campus are encouraged to enroll, too, as you do not have to have prior legal or policy knowledge. In recent years, the class has drawn a substantial number of law students and LBJ students, as well as cohorts from computer science, engineering, the iSchool, and McCombs. To get a full sense of the course, check out the free course eBook, which Prof. Chesney wrote specifically for the course. You can find it here (an updated version will be available before the course begins). These materials have been shared and adopted widely around the nation.

This course will examine the correct (useful) way to define the concept "the impact of a choice on economic efficiency," the economically-efficient approach to take to predicting or postdicting the economic efficiency of any private or governmental choice, the relevance of the economic efficiency of a choice to its justness or moral desirability (rights-considerations aside), and the relevance of the economic efficiency of an interpretation or application of the law to its correctness as a matter of law. The course will also criticize canonical writings that articulate or manifest conclusions on these matters that differ from the Lecturer's. Although several weeks of the course will be devoted to the definitional and relevance issues, the majority of the course will address the economically efficient way to predict or postdict the economic efficiency of a choice in an economy that inevitably contains large numbers of Pareto imperfections of all types and uses resources in a large number of ways. More specifically, the course will consider in detail the negative implications of The General Theory of Second Best for the way in which economists approach economic-efficiency analysis and develop and apply a so-called distortion-analysis approach to economic-efficiency analysis that the Lecturer believes responds defensibly to the interconnections whose importance Second-Best Theory highlights. No background in economics, moral philosophy, or jurisprudence will be presupposed, though students without such backgrounds will have to work harder in the sections of the course to which these fields are relevant. There will be a mid-term as well as a final examination.

This class is designed to give students a basic understanding of elder law and its increasingly important role in our society. Students will learn how to manage legal issues and family dynamics around care of the elderly, understand the oversized role of financing care, and explore the interplay of elder law with estate planning and governmental benefits programs. Fundamental to the practice of elder law is understanding how to pay for care as well as spotting and addressing abuse of the elderly.

It will be helpful but not necessary to have taken Wills and Estates.

Textbook information:Mastering Elder Law, Ralph Brashier, available on Amazon (Second Edition)

This interdisciplinary course will introduce students to the legal, business, and technical facets of energy development and entrepreneurship. The course is structured around five potential development sites—two wind development projects (a coastal and a north Texas site), a west Texas solar project, and two natural gas combined-cycle plants (a new combined heat and power plant in Houston and a conventional plant in San Antonio). The key stages of project development will be covered, including site selection, life cycle analysis, due diligence, permitting, contracting, and financing. The case studies are designed (1) to provide real-world conditions for understanding project development, (2) to allow students to engage in practical problem solving, and (3) to enable government policies to be evaluated in context. Course work will be complemented by regular discussions with leading experts in the utility and renewable-energy sectors. Students will work in interdisciplinary teams of graduate students from law and business to develop a project proposal based on a mix of renewables and natural gas generation. In addition to short exercises during the semester (e.g., permitting negotiations, financial modeling), each student team will prepare a project prospectus and presentation on the business and legal aspects of their project proposal. The course will culminate with each team presenting their proposal to a corporate investment panel, which will be made up of local energy experts. Course evaluation will be based on class participation, a mid-semester project memo, and the final team presentation and project prospectus.

This course will explore the rules and principles governing the proof of facts in the courtroom, with special focus upon the Federal Rules of Evidence. Planned topics include relevance, hearsay, the Confrontation Clause, character evidence, impeachment and rehabilitation of witnesses, the best evidence rule, lay and expert opinion, and objections practice.

This course provides an overview of the legal regulation of intimate relationships. Substantial time is devoted to the incidents of divorce (including property division, spousal support, child support, and custody), and the regulation of prenuptial and postnuptial agreements. The course will also cover issues related parenthood, alternative reproductive technologies, and same-sex marriage.

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.

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 2025-2026 ed.) OR Selected Federal Taxation Statutes and Regulations, 2026, 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)

(3) Alstott, Income Taxation in Six Concepts (Core Concepts Series) (Foundation Press 2025) (ISBN No. 9798892092821)

The class is designed for law students of all interests, including those who are undecided and those who are focused on a particular area such as litigation, public interest law, family law, regulatory work, criminal law, or business law. Financial Methods for Lawyers covers time value of money, expected value decision making, and investment in enterprises. It also covers the basic financial statement components: balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements. The class is only available on a pass/fail basis. It is designated as a skills course. Students earn points toward a passing grade through online quizzes, Excel spreadsheet and other exercises, and regular attendance.

This course examines the constitutional and legal framework governing governmental investigations, with a particular focus on congressional investigative powers–both over the private sector, and over the executive branch. Students will explore the separation of powers doctrine as it applies to investigations and the inherent tension it creates between the executive and legislative branches, the scope and limits of congressional oversight, executive privilege, and the investigative authority over private entities. Through analysis of landmark cases, practical applications, and case studies of major congressional investigations, students will gain a sophisticated understanding of this complex, growing, and evolving area of law. Students will be evaluated based on research and writing assignments of modest length, in-class exercises, and class participation.

This is a course in the substantive law regulating immigration to the United States and the regulation of non-citizens in the United States. Topics covered include the constitutional basis for regulating immigration, the roles of federal agencies in immigration adjudication, the immigration and removal (deportation) process, entry, relief from removal, general regulation of non-citizens, the refugee and asylum processes, and new developments. Students should expect to participate in in-class discussions and exercises. The final exam will be open book. LLM students will be required to take the exam; there will be no paper option.

In Federal Indian Law you will learn about the legal relationship between American Indian nations and the United States, including implications for states and individual citizens. American Indian tribes have a legal status that is unique, both within our legal system and the rest of the world. The U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed the status of tribes as semi-independent sovereign nations with rights to self-governance, yet it has also acquiesced in the unilateral Congressional abrogation of various aspects of that sovereign status. This class examines the historical basis of modern Federal Indian Law through its foundation and historical development, before shifting to Federal powers and obligations and tribal rights and functions. This class will contain a component related to mineral development on Indian lands. Time permitting, water rights, criminal jurisdiction, and Indian gaming will also be considered.

America incarcerates people at a rate higher than most countries in the world and those incarcerated are disproportionately low-income and from communities that have been historically neglected and oppressed. Course materials will examine how the socio-economic and racial disparities in the population of people incarcerated in America reflects this country’s history of poverty, slavery, and segregation. The course will cover several theories about the drivers of mass incarceration and the legal and philosophical foundations of public defense. This course will explore theoretical, philosophical, and practical elements of indigent criminal defense, exploring questions such as: How do criminal justice theory and practice interact? What can an individual lawyer do to further her client's interests within this context? What is the role of the public defender in criminal justice reform? How does a public defender maintain the long view on mass incarceration and socio-economic and racial inequalities in the criminal justice system while advocating for her individual clients? What roles and tools are available, besides line public defense, for future lawyers to fill and utilize in enacting the promise of Gideon? Weekly reading assignments will explore these topics and students will be required to discuss their reflections during class discussions.

This course will survey the four main fields of intellectual property law: copyright law, patent law, trademark law, and the law of trade secrets. In addition to legal doctrines, the course will examine economic and philosophical justifications to allow a better grasp of current law and possibilities for its reform. The course will also explore intellectual property issues raised by recent technological developments, especially in the digital and internet environments.

If you loved Advocacy Survey and want to spend your career in the courtoom (or just want to be as prepared as possible for the occasional times that you will spend in the courtroom), this class is for you. Intensive Litigation Advocacy Skills is designed for the student interested in improving advocacy skills through intensive training exercises and immersion into trial skills. Here, students work all together but are also weekly divided into small groups allowing them to focus on the distinct skills you will need in a future litigation career. The course is almost exclusively experiential (i.e., skills-based), with students receiving constant feedback in a fun, safe environment. The class provides networking and possible employment opportunities with typically more than 20 attorneys and judges who serve as instructors and guests each semester. This class is restricted to 3Ls only. Prerequisites: Advocacy Survey and Evidence.

Discover how to price transactions between subsidiaries of multinational corporations buying and selling goods, services, intellectual property and other assets in light of tax obligations and other considerations.

International arbitration specialist practitioners, experienced in international disputes worldwide, provide students with legal knowledge and practical skills to navigate all aspects of international commercial arbitrations. Those include forum selection, analysis of various nations' arbitration laws, planning and drafting, arbitrator selection and challenges, enforcing arbitration awards. International commercial transactions almost invariably require international arbitration of disputes, so a lawyer who intends to practice across borders should know this area of practice. International arbitration is one area where states have delegated a judicial function to private individuals. Those individuals (arbitrators) enjoy wide discretion, act as judge and jury, and render globally portable awards that national courts review (for the most part) deferentially. Understanding that delegation, which can differ from country to country, allows students to appreciate what can, and should, be left to private ordering of disputes. The course will address the major topics in international arbitration: its contractual nature; the “who (court or arbitrator) decides” question; choice of law; arbitrator selection; the role of international treaties; and review and enforcement of arbitration agreements and awards. Student performance is evaluated on a final exam, but a substantial portion of the final grade depends on class participation.

This course will explore the theoretical and practical problems involved in the concept, types, venues and strategies of international human rights litigation. It takes a critical look at international human rights litigation to hold States accountable before regional bodies (the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission and Court, the African Commission and Court of Human and Peoples Rights) and universal mechanisms (the treaty body and special mechanisms of the United Nations). The course examines the steps involved in litigation, such as case selection, client care, and forum choice, as well as the specific legal stages and requirements such as admissibility, exhaustion of domestic remedies, evidentiary rules and merits arguments. The course will evaluate the process of litigation before these bodies and their jurisprudence, as well as their role in promoting (or undermining) justice. Case studies will examine how to build a strong evidential record in support of the case, how to develop campaigning and advocacy to raise awareness of the issues involved, and how to implement a successful judgment. The course places litigation in its social and institutional context exploring issues of its legitimacy, as well as the ethics and accountability of human rights lawyering. The course relies on examples from various jurisdictions in the world illustrating the possibilities and limitations of international human rights litigation in theory and practice.

This course examines the U.S. income tax laws and policies relating to the taxation of foreign persons' investment or business activities in the United States ("inbound") and U.S. persons' direct or indirect investment or business activities in other countries ("outbound"). After an introductory overview, it addresses the taxation of inbound activities, covering, principally, the topics of residence, the source of income and deductions, the taxation of investment activities (including portfolio investment and real estate investment), and the taxation of U.S. business activities of foreign persons. The subsequent consideration of the taxation of outbound activities concentrates primarily on the foreign tax credit system, the 100% deduction for certain foreign-source dividends received by a U.S. corporation from a foreign corporation, and the various anti-deferral regimes (principally the rules for Subpart F income and global intangible low-taxed income ("GILTI")) that apply to certain U.S. shareholders of foreign corporations. Throughout, the course examines the relevant U.S. domestic law and treaty provisions. Because class enrollment is limited to 14 students, the Law School's grading curve will not apply (except that A+ grades are limited to no more than 6% of the students in the course, rounded up to the next whole number, meaning that only 1 A+ is allowed in the course). 

Prerequisite: Federal Income Tax

Required Textbooks:

(1) Robert J. Peroni, Karen Brown & J. Clifton Fleming, Jr., Taxation of International Transactions: Materials, Text, and Problems (5th ed. 2021) 

(2) International Income Taxation—Code & Regulations—Selected Sections, Robert J. Peroni, Coordinating Editor (Wolters Kluwer/CCH, 2023-2024 edition)

Recommended Textbooks (Optional):

(1)  Mindy Herzfeld, International Taxation in a Nutshell (West Academic, 13th edition, 2023)

(2) Joseph Isenbergh & Bret Wells, International Taxation (West Academic/Foundation Press, 2022 edition) (Concepts and Insights Series)

This is a law school course that prepares students to: (1) understand the core legal frameworks that govern the Internet (whether drafted with or without consideration of the Internet); and (2) issue-spot and provide pragmatic advice to technology clients on key digital legal issues.

The corporate counsel internship course has two components: (1) a weekly class, and (2) an internship with a corporation or business that involves delivering in-house legal services and performing other law-related tasks under the supervision of an experienced lawyer employed by the organization. Students engage in legal work on substantive issues commonly encountered by in-house counsel, gaining hands-on experience that they reflect upon and analyze in class through discussions, presentations, exercises, and real-world case studies. Assignments address topics relevant to the legal profession and professional identity, including ethics and advocacy skills, professional self-development, and effective communication in the business context. 

Specific topics may include: identifying the client, confidentiality and preserving privilege, transaction matters, corporate governance, effective communications compliance issues, and statutory/regulatory hot topics. 

In their internships, students will develop practical lawyering skills important to their current stage of professional development. Placement supervisors are experienced attorneys who broadly expose students to the activities of their offices, oversee varied and demanding assignments, and provide regular feedback on student performance. Students are required to work at least 150 hours at their internships during the semester, and students may not receive financial compensation for their internship work. The internship must involve the student and the supervising attorney working in person at the placement office, and most of the student’s internship work must be completed at the placement.

The classroom component of the course is designed to enhance the educational experience of students by giving them the opportunity to reflect on their internship and to understand the broader landscape in which their internship is situated. Through the seminar, students will deepen their understanding of in-house lawyering, ethical issues that confront in-house lawyers, and how the role of in-house lawyers blends both law and business. 

Application Requirements: Students must submit an application for permission to register for the course. The course is open to students who have completed the first two semesters of law school. Before applying for the course, a student must first arrange a qualifying internship based in the Austin area. The instructor is available to consult with students about possible placements, and some organizations post opportunities on TEX. Each placement and supervising attorney must be approved by the instructor prior to registration. A student who wishes to participate in the course must obtain the internship and apply to the instructor before the first class meeting.

Students who have previously received credit through any of the other internship courses (nonprofit, legislative, judicial, etc.) are eligible to enroll in this course. Credits: 4 (graded pass/fail)

The Judicial Internship Program lasts for one semester and includes a weekly class and a concurrent internship in an approved court placement. Students research complex legal questions and draft memoranda, opinions and orders under the supervision of judges and their staff attorneys and law clerks. Students apply and extend their substantive legal knowledge and further develop their analytical, research, writing, and oral communication skills. Students also observe court proceedings and learn about court procedure and legal advocacy. A fall or spring internship must extend over a period of at least 10 weeks between the first and last class day of the semester. Students work at the internship placement for at least 150 hours. Students who also enroll in the 1 credit Judicial Internship Program Supplement complete an additional 50 hours of work at the internship placement, for a total of at least 200 hours. Within these parameters, each intern arranges a mutually agreeable work schedule with the court. The internship must involve the student and the supervising attorney working in person; regular remote work is not permitted. Students and supervisors are expected to work together at their placement offices. The weekly class covers a variety of topics relevant to the judicial process and working at a court, such as goal setting and reflection, judicial ethics, writing and communicating in chambers, judicial decision-making, statutory construction, and the organization and operation of the courts. Course requirements include reading assignments, class presentations, court observations, short reflective writing assignments, self-assessments, and timesheets. There will be a course packet available for purchase at the start of the semester. In addition to class meetings, students meet individually with the instructor several times during the internship to discuss their goals and review their progress. Application Requirements: An application for approval to register is required. A student may not register until the instructor has approved the application. Before submitting an application to the instructor, a student must first apply for and obtain a judicial internship with an approved court in Austin. The student must be assigned to a specific judge on the court who agrees to participate in the Texas Law program. Approved courts include the Texas Supreme Court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the Texas Third Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court (including the active and senior district court judges and the magistrate judges), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the Texas State Office of Administrative Hearings, and the Travis County Probate Court. Many of these courts post internship openings on the Career Services Office's Job Bank on Symplicity. Others post information about internships on the court's website. Apply as soon as possible. Most courts accept applications and select interns for the fall semester during the prior spring semester, some as early as March. A few make their selections closer to the start of the semester. A student who wishes to intern for academic credit must obtain the internship and apply to the instructor in time to attend the first class meeting. For the application for approval to register and more information about the Judicial Internship Program, go to https://law.utexas.edu/internships/judicial-internship/. This program is open to students who have completed the first two semesters of law school. Interns who receive academic credit may not be compensated. Students may enroll only once in a judicial internship for academic credit.

The Judicial Internship Program lasts for one semester and includes a weekly class and a concurrent internship in an approved court placement. Students research complex legal questions and draft memoranda, opinions and orders under the supervision of judges and their staff attorneys and law clerks. Students apply and extend their substantive legal knowledge and further develop their analytical, research, writing, and oral communication skills. Students also observe court proceedings and learn about court procedure and legal advocacy. A fall or spring internship must extend over a period of at least 10 weeks between the first and last class day of the semester. Students work at the internship placement for at least 150 hours. Students who also enroll in the 1 credit Judicial Internship Program Supplement complete an additional 50 hours of work at the internship placement, for a total of at least 200 hours. Within these parameters, each intern arranges a mutually agreeable work schedule with the court. The internship must involve the student and the supervising attorney working in person; regular remote work is not permitted. Students and supervisors are expected to work together at their placement offices. The weekly class covers a variety of topics relevant to the judicial process and working at a court, such as goal setting and reflection, judicial ethics, writing and communicating in chambers, judicial decision-making, statutory construction, and the organization and operation of the courts. Course requirements include reading assignments, class presentations, court observations, short reflective writing assignments, self-assessments, and timesheets. There will be a course packet available for purchase at the start of the semester. In addition to class meetings, students meet individually with the instructor several times during the internship to discuss their goals and review their progress. Application Requirements: An application for approval to register is required. A student may not register until the instructor has approved the application. Before submitting an application to the instructor, a student must first apply for and obtain a judicial internship with an approved court in Austin. The student must be assigned to a specific judge on the court who agrees to participate in the Texas Law program. Approved courts include the Texas Supreme Court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the Texas Third Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court (including the active and senior district court judges and the magistrate judges), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the Texas State Office of Administrative Hearings, and the Travis County Probate Court. Many of these courts post internship openings on the Career Services Office's Job Bank on Symplicity. Others post information about internships on the court's website. Apply as soon as possible. Most courts accept applications and select interns for the fall semester during the prior spring semester, some as early as March. A few make their selections closer to the start of the semester. A student who wishes to intern for academic credit must obtain the internship and apply to the instructor in time to attend the first class meeting. For the application for approval to register and more information about the Judicial Internship Program, go to https://law.utexas.edu/internships/judicial-internship/. This program is open to students who have completed the first two semesters of law school. Interns who receive academic credit may not be compensated. Students may enroll only once in a judicial internship for academic credit.

APPLICATION REQUIRED. Instructors: Robert Kepple and Erik Nielsen. The objective of this course is to educate students on the law and legal issues commonly encountered in criminal prosecution, and to familiarize the students with the unique duties and responsibilities of a criminal prosecutor not simply as an advocate, but as a minister of justice. The course consists of a 2-credit classroom component and a 3-credit internship program in the Travis County District Attorney’s Office. All credits are pass/fail. The course is open to students who have completed the first two semesters of law school, but enrollment is limited and preference is given to students who have completed 43 credit hours or who are in their second semester of their second year of law school, and who would be eligible to appear in court for the State under the supervision of a licensed prosecutor. It is recommended that students have completed Evidence prior to this internship. The classroom component of the course will require students to study substantive and procedural law and issues commonly-encountered by criminal prosecutors, covering topics such as charging instruments, discovery, search and seizure, jury selection, public integrity prosecution, trial tactics, evidence, post-conviction DNA, and oral advocacy. Students will also spend significant time discussing the unique ethical responsibilities and duties of a public prosecutor, with focus on the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct and the National Prosecution Standards. Each student will also be assigned to a trial court prosecution team or to the Special Victims Unit in the District Attorney's office and will be supervised by prosecutors assigned to the court and the Unit. Students can expect to gain active experience in all aspects of the day-to-day functions of the public prosecutor, including the charging decision, pleading, discovery, motions to suppress evidence, motions to revoke probation, and the trial of the case. Commensurate with experience and opportunity, students may have the opportunity to actively participate in the courtroom proceedings. Students are required to fill out applications for admission to the course and will consult with the instructors in advance regarding their court placement. Students must complete 150 hours of placement work for their internship. Each student will arrange a mutually convenient work schedule with their supervising attorney. Students may not receive compensation for their internship.

This public service internship course has two components: (1) a weekly class, and (2) an internship with a government or nonprofit organization that involves delivering legal services and performing other law-related tasks under the supervision of an experienced lawyer employed by the organization. Students engage in legal work in public service offices, gaining hands-on experience that they reflect upon and analyze in a weekly class. Assignments address topics relevant to the legal profession and professional identity, including ethics, advocacy and communication skills, and professional self-development.

In their internships, students will develop lawyering skills important to their current stage of professional development. Placement supervisors are experienced attorneys who broadly expose students to the activities of their offices, oversee varied and demanding assignments, and provide regular feedback on student performance. Students are required to work at least 150 hours at their internships during the semester, and students may not receive financial compensation for their internship work. The internship must involve the student and the supervising attorney working in person; regular remote work is not permitted. Students and supervisors are expected to work together at their placement offices.

The classroom component of the course is designed to enhance the educational experience of students by giving them the opportunity to reflect on their internship and to understand the broader landscape in which their internship is situated. Through the seminar, students will deepen their understanding of public service lawyering, ethical issues that confront public sector lawyers, and the role of lawyers in increasing access to justice.

Application Requirements: Students must submit an application for permission to register for the course. The course is open to students who have completed the first two semesters of law school. Before submitting an application to the instructor, a student must first arrange an in-person government or nonprofit internship based in the Austin area. The instructor is available to consult with students about possible placements, and some organizations post opportunities on TEX. Each placement and supervising attorney must be approved by the instructor prior to registration. A student who wishes to intern for academic credit must obtain the internship and apply to the instructor before the first class meeting.

Students who have previously received credit through any of the other internship courses (nonprofit, legislative, judicial, etc.) are eligible to enroll in this course. Credits: 4 (graded pass/fail)

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.

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.

Registration Information:

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

To apply, please e-mail a copy of your cover letter, resume and transcript (unofficial is fine) to Prof. Susan Klein at sklein@law.utexas.edu and to Captain Michael Green at michael.a.green315.mil@army.mil if you are interested in Trial Defense Services, and/or to Prof. Susan Klein and Lieutenant Scott Goble at scott.1.goble.mil@army.mil if you are interested in the Prosecutor’s Office. Students interested in the externship are welcome to stop by Prof. Klein’s office at TNH 3.207 for additional information. Her office hours are Wed. from 4:00 to 7:00 pm, or by appointment. You may call or text her at (512) 203-2257 or send her an e-mail. Alternatively, you can reach the Fort Hood Trial Defense office at (254) 287-0476, and the Ft. Hood Prosecutor’s Office at (254) 553-2524.

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

Course Description:

This program offers students the opportunity to apply for “for-credit” externship positions with the United States Army JAG Corps, 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: Investigation, Crim. Procedure: Prosecution (bail to jail), 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 per week at the U.S Army Trial Defense Service, 330 761st Tank Destroyer Blvd., Fort Hood, Tx, 76544, or at the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, Building 1000, 761st Tank Battalion Ave., Ft. 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 Fall 2026 is Monday, April 13, 2026. The application deadline for Spring 2027 is Monday, October 19, 2026. Interviews are conducted at the Career Services Office or over Zoom. Students will receive the unique registration number for the Spring 2026 semester once they are accepted into the program.

Additional Information

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

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

To apply, please e-mail a copy of your cover letter, resume and transcript (unofficial is fine) to AUSA Daniel Castillo at daniel.castillo@usdoj.gov, Prof. Klein at sklein@law.utexas.edu, and the staffing office at usatxw.staffing@usdoj.gov. Students interested in the internship are encouraged to stop by Prof. Susan Klein’s office at TNH 3.207 for additional information. Her office hours are on Wednesdays from 4:00 to 7:00 pm, or by appointment. You may call her at (512) 203-2257 or send an e-mail. You may also contact AUSA Castillo at (512) 916-5858 or via email.

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

Course Description:

This program offers four or five students internship positions with the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division. Students are expected to work 10 hours per week for each semester. The office is located at 903 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 334 Austin, Texas 78701. Some of those hours can be completed at school or at home. Students will assist in the prosecution of federal criminal cases under the supervision of Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Students will receive two credits "pass-fail" for the internship for each semester, for a total of four credits. Information on the U.S. Attorney’s Office is available at: www.usdoj.gov/usao/txw/.

Students may wish to enroll in Adv. Fed. Crim. Prosecution & Defense, Federal Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure: Investigation, Criminal Procedure: Prosecution (bail to jail) and Evidence. However, none of those courses are required.

The application deadline for the next academic year is Friday, March 27, 2026. Though students will know whether they are selected for the program before fall registration, the unique number for the fall 2026 internship may not be available then. Interviews will be conducted at the Career Services Office or via Zoom.

 Additional Information

 Additional information on the U.S. Attorney’s Office internship program may be reviewed at

 https://www.justice.gov/legal-careers/job/law-student-volunteer-academic-year-0.

This course examines a range of contemporary issues in policing, prosecution, and punishment through the lens of a series of documentary films and related short reading assignments. Through class discussion and exchange of short response papers to the films, students will explore and critically examine a range of issues and controversies in the American criminal justice system, including the expansion in the role and powers of the police resulting from the War on Drugs; the use of racial profiling, no-knock warrants, and other policing practices; officer-involved shootings and the doctrine of qualified immunity; the "school-to-prison pipeline; sex offender registries; the prosecution of juveniles in criminal court; and long-term solitary confinement, among other issues. Students will discuss and explore the feasibility of alternative approaches to these practices and examine the legal, political, and practical obstacles to reform.

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 introduces you how to use economic reasoning to analyze legal issues. The course will focus on the common law areas of property, contracts, and tort as well as the legal process and criminal law. Economic analysis of law analyzes legal rules with one main question in mind: how will people and firms respond to a given legal rule? That is, rather than look at the inherent "fairness" or "justness" of a legal rule, law and economics focuses on the incentives that a legal rule creates. The normative aspect of law and economics then asks how legal rules should be structured to create the most desirable incentives.

Explore intermediaries in the capital markets. Examine institutional workings of the securities business and its legal regulation including recent developments and interesting economic problems.

A survey of a range of core legal practice areas, including copyright, trademark, insurance, employment, immigration, contracts (with artists, sponsors, vendors and others), and working with municipalities using the backdrop of a live festival event. Expect guest lecturers from within the industry.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

This course uses law-practice simulation to teach students legal analysis and communication skills. The course covers legal research, predictive written analysis, oral presentation of research results, effective communication with different audience members, and writing mechanics.

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 hour, pass-fail course focuses on research resources used in business and commercial practice. The emphasis of the course is on identifying sources and efficiently undertaking corporate, securities, and general business and commercial 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. 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 assignments throughout the course, but there is no final exam.

The sources and methods of research in foreign and international law are largely excluded from the first year training in legal research. Yet, both international law and the law of foreign countries are today of ever-increasing significance to American lawyers. The purpose of the course is to introduce the information sources in these fields and the ways of doing research in them, tailored to the needs of American law students and lawyers. Areas covered include: public international law, including treaty research; documentation of international organizations, including the UN and the European Union, particularly as available on the WWW; the law of other countries, with the emphasis on jurisdictions that American lawyers are likely to encounter, e.g., Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany; selected topics with an international component, e.g., commercial arbitration, intellectual property, international litigation. The grade is based on the completion of research exercises. There is no exam. This is a one-credit, mandatory Credit/No Credit course. It is taught during the first seven weeks of the semester. Prerequisite: A law school course with an international or comparative focus, which may be taken simultaneously. Familiarity with online legal research, including Westlaw, Lexis, and WWW.

Advanced Legal Writing: Analysis and Process covers legal analysis, organization, clarity of expression, and writing mechanics, as well as managing research-and-writing projects. A key focus is on producing professional written work on the job.

Advanced Legal Writing: Analysis and Process covers legal analysis, organization, clarity of expression, and writing mechanics, as well as managing research-and-writing projects. A key focus is on producing professional written work on the job.

This course focuses on analytical legal writing. Students will practice the skills of writing and critiquing written legal analysis and will receive instructor feedback on their writing and critiquing. Two credits, pass-fail. Enrollment is restricted to Teaching Quizmasters.

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.

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 problems in complex mass tort litigation that emerged during the 1980s and now have become a permanent part of the litigation landscape. Initially, the course surveys the paradigmatic mass tort cases such as those involving the Dalkon Shield, Agent Orange and asbestos litigation to understand and define the peculiar problems arising in the context of mass tort litigation, as opposed to simple two-party tort litigation. During the course we also will examine other mass tort cases involving mass disasters such as Bhopal, Three Mile Island, the Hyatt-Regency Skywalk collapse and the Dupont Plaza Hotel fire; and mass products liability litigation involving bendectin, DES, the silicon breast implant litigation, defective heart valve litigation, repetitive stress injury litigation. We will discuss the evolution of mass tort litigation over a span of fifty years, examining the most recent resolution of the NFL Football League Concussion Litigation. In the first section of the course we deal with jurisprudential issues, including the debate between proponents of aggregative procedure versus litigant autonomy. In an economic framework, we examine the problem of balancing justice, cost, and delay as these values relate to economic efficiency and sound judicial administration. This portion of the course examines special ethical dilemmas in mass tort litigation. The course then canvasses procedural problems entailed in mass tort litigation, including the failures and successes of federal and state procedural rules to adequately handle these massive cases through the class action rule, consolidation, MDL procedure, and preclusion doctrine. We will examine and discuss the shift of mass tort dispute resolution to multi-district litigation auspices, and the issues and problems of resolving these cases through MDL procedures. The third edition of the casebook addresses mass tort class litigation in a post-Amchem/Ortiz world. New materials have been added concerning expanded use of MDL auspices, bellwether trials, non-class aggregate settlements, the quasi-class action, the aggregate settlement rule, and the ethical duties of attorneys with clients in MDL and non-class proceedings. Two revised chapters focus on challenging issues in mass tort litigation: damage sampling; statistical proof; limited issues classes; multiphase trial plans; sub-classing; and res judicata. New cases have been added that reflect resolution of various pharmaceutical mass torts (Vioxx and Zyprexa); personal injury mass torts (the NFL and Collegiate Athletes concussion litigation); products liability mass torts (the Ford and GMC Ignition Switch litigations; heart-valve cases; tobacco litigation; the moldy washer cases); natural and man-made environmental disasters (the Hurricane Katrina and BP Gulf Oil Spill litigation), and the World Trade Center events. A new chapter includes materials on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, including the concept of the “mass action.” Finally, the third edition includes materials on so-called “fund approaches” to resolving mass tort litigation. The casebook for this course is Linda S. Mullenix, MASS TORT LITIGATION; CASES AND MATERIALS (3d ed. 2016)(West Aacdemic Publishing 2016). Prerequisites: Civil Procedure; Torts.

This course focuses on the acquisition of professional skills necessary to perform two separate roles in the mediation process: legal advocate and mediator. During the course, students will learn the social and political bases for the development of alternative dispute resolution procedures; become familiar with different models of negotiation and mediation; study the legislation regulating the practice of mediation, especially in Texas courts; increase awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses in communication and negotiation and improve those skills; acquire advocacy skills for representing clients in mediation; acquire the essential skills necessary to mediate interpersonal and legal disputes; and develop a framework for making ethical decisions as a legal advocate or mediator in the mediation process. Students will read textbooks, participate in negotiation and mediation role plays, complete exercises designed to enhance communication and negotiation skills, and prepare a reflective journal. The course is designed to fulfill the statutory minimum requirements in Texas for a basic training course in dispute resolution techniques.

 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.

This course will provide an introduction to litigating and navigating disputes between counterparties to merger and acquisition agreements. Led by Michael Holmes – who has successfully tried some of the most high-stakes Delaware M&A disputes of recent years – the course will cover the major doctrines, as well as strategic and tactical considerations. Aspiring transactional attorneys and litigators will develop a useful framework for understanding (and hopefully avoiding) areas of potential disputes. Business Associations is a recommended prerequisite.

There is no textbook. The instructors will assign cases, treatises, articles, and other reading materials on a module-by-module basis.

This course is designed to facilitate the development and refinement of knowledge and skills necessary to fulfill the mitigation function on capital or non-capital defense teams. The goals of the course are to introduce students to roles and responsibilities of mitigation specialists and sentencing advocates and facilitate the development of skills needed to work within interdisciplinary defense settings. The course will take a broad interdisciplinary approach to sentencing advocacy, providing students with an opportunity to learn legal frameworks that govern the presentation and consideration of mitigating evidence. Through both conceptual instruction and low-ratio supervision workshops, students will learn to develop a biopsychosocial history of the client, interview and forge relationships with clients and their family members, identify underlying causes of behavior, and facilitate restorative solutions for the client and community. Learning will culminate in the production of a compelling mitigation presentation. This course will bring together interdisciplinary teams of social work undergraduate and masters-level students working in combination with UT law students. Given the interdisciplinary nature of mitigation work, a small number of seats will also be reserved for students from other disciplines including communication, education, psychology, sociology, and others. Students from different educational backgrounds and concentrations will work together in small diverse groups to produce and present assignments to the larger class. The course will be taught by a combination of lawyers and practicing mitigation specialists, and will feature guest lectures and presentations by leaders in the mitigation field. Course Objectives At the conclusion of this course, students will be able to: Demonstrate engagement, assessment, intervention and evaluation skills relevant to developing mitigating evidence in a capital or non-capital case; this may include document collection, interviewing, consulting with experts and other skills related to biopsychosocial history and investigation. Understand legal frameworks for the presentation and consideration of mitigation evidence. Constructively participate as a member of an interdisciplinary team while: retaining professional identity; brainstorming issues and problems that arise in the defense of criminal cases; and developing strategies to address them. Discuss and work through ethical issues that arise in capital and noncapital cases. Demonstrate how to incorporate multimedia strategies and tools to present the most compelling mitigation presentation in a given case. Encourage creativity and interdisciplinary conceptualization of overarching themes and stories that arise in capital and noncapital cases. Critically examine the context of systemic and structural oppression and other relevant social justice issues on the micro, mezzo, and macro level.

Much of what lawyers do on a day-to-day basis involves negotiation. This negotiations course will provide you with effective, negotiation skills that may benefit you throughout your legal career.  This is a “student-participation,” experiential learning course that blends law, social science, and ethics toward the development of practical negotiation skills in a small classroom environment.  Topics covered will include negotiation theory and literature regarding negotiation of both transactional-based and litigation-based problems. The class is structured to include both classroom presentation and classroom exercises that will be performed in small groups under the instruction of your professor.  You will leave this negotiations course with greater knowledge and understanding of dynamics involved in negotiations and provide you with the skillset to successfully navigate them.

Negotiation is the most used skill of all attorneys. For litigators: Data indicates 90-95% of all civil cases settle before trial. Thus, effective negotiation skills are essential skills for litigators. For transactional lawyers: Bad negotiation skills can cause deals to blow up, and effective negotiation skills can lead to achieving the goals of your client. For criminal law attorneys: Negotiating plea bargains are key as 90-95% of criminal cases are resolved by negotiated plea bargains. For family lawyers, negotiating custody arrangements, child support, and property divisions are bread and butter of family law practice. This course will explore both the art and the science of negotiation. We will look at various styles of negotiation: distributive; interest based; and integrative. We will look at lessons from game theory; behavioral economics; and cognitive science. We will also look at the role of culture and gender as it impacts negotiating behavior. Negotiation is a skill developed by its use. There will be interactive negotiation exercises in almost every class. The negotiation exercise will either be preceded by or followed by lecture and discussion. Grading will be based upon two major negotiations in which students will negotiate real world scenarios that lawyers face, and a final essay of approximately 10 pages. The final essay, My Rules for Negotiation, will be each student's summary of lessons learned from their negotiations, and each student's toolkit for negotiating. It is my hope the final essay will become part of each student's professional workbook as they enter the practice of law. In order to prepare the essay, each student will need to keep a weekly journal of each class exercise and major exercise regarding negotiating tactics observed and lessons learned. The journal will not be graded, but based upon my experience, the more complete and analytical the journal, the better the final essay.

Negotiation is the pathway to agreement. Much of what lawyers do involves negotiation -- the structured process of communicating toward an agreement. This is a highly participatory experiential learning course with strict attendance policies that blends law, social science, and ethics toward the development of practice skills. Topics covered will include both transaction and legal claim negotiations. This class will immerse students in the reality of contemporary negotiations.

Negotiation is the pathway to agreement. Much of what lawyers do involves negotiation -- the structured process of communicating toward an agreement. This is a highly participatory experiential learning course with strict attendance policies that blends law, social science, and ethics toward the development of practice skills. Topics covered will include both transaction and legal claim negotiations. This class will immerse students in the reality of contemporary negotiations.

In this course, students will learn the basics of legislative negotiation through case studies, simulations, and exercises. This interactive approach will be enriched and supported by the study of two textbooks: "Getting to Yes," which elaborates on various negotiation concepts, and "The Texas Legislative Handbook," providing students with practical knowledge of the Texas legislative process. Taught by Jorge Ramirez, the Chief of Staff to the Dean of the Texas Senate.

Lawyers and especially litigators are professional problem solvers. Negotiation is an integral part of crafting solutions. This class is a learn by doing experiential class helping students master the negotiation skills essential for a modern litigation practice. Expect an interdisciplinary approach to finding solutions, discovering your style, managing others, reaching resolution, and maintaining personal balance. 

The course focuses on deal-making strategies, contract structuring, and dispute resolution in business transactions. The course blends legal principles with business strategy, equipping students with practical skills through case studies, simulations, and real-world negotiation exercises. Designed to prepare future lawyers and business professionals to navigate high-stakes corporate negotiations effectively.

This class provides an overview of U.S. oil and gas law. Students will gain an understanding of basic oil and gas law principles, derived from a combination of property, contract, administrative, tort, and constitutional law. The course provides an opportunity to take a law course that cuts across several core law-school subjects and from the perspective of a particular business—oil and gas, a business that deals with the most widely traded and strategically important commodity and that has important customs and practices that influence both contract and law. The law of all producing states will be considered with some emphasis on Oklahoma and Texas, the two states with large bodies of oil and gas case law and that most often provide divergent views on various oil and gas issues.

The objective of the class is to give students a hands-on experience of the major issues in patent cases from case filing and pre-trial. Students will take briefing from actual motions that were previously pending in Judge Albright’s Court. Students will prepare and argue both sides of the motions before Judge Albright as though they were arguing in court, learning over the course of several arguments how to zealously advocate for their clients while accurately recounting the facts and law. Other judges and special masters who handle certain motions and hearings will preside over some of the classes to expose the students to a wider variety of adjudicators. Additionally, in-house and outside counsel trial lawyers and experts will be available to the students to help coach them as they prepare for their hearings. To provide different experiences for the students in terms of venue, arguments will be made in the courtroom at the Austin federal courthouse. Accordingly, students should expect some non-standard meeting times. We will work with everyone in the class to ensure that any proposal to meet at an irregular time is acceptable to all students in the course. Example motions in patent cases that students should prepare to undertake are: 1. Motion to dismiss 2. Motion to transfer 3. Claim construction briefing 4. Discovery motion 5. Daubert motion 6. Motion for summary judgment

This course provides a foundation that will introduce students to the use of a variety of analytic tools employed in the policymaking process. We pay particular attention to the major players in the process, and how gender in conjunction with race and ethnicity have become more salient in policy formation. Given the centrality of health care to the modern welfare state, we will examine how gender, race, and ethnicity influence health policy. Toward that end, the class will examine the gender dimensions of health, illness, and the health care industry in the United States and other developed nations. It is motivated by the fact that health, disease, and medical care have important gender-specific dimensions that interact with other sources of disadvantage, economic and political structures, and culture. In the past the health care system often ignored gender, as well as race-and ethnic-based differences in health and health-care needs.

These gaps in knowledge concerning risks and appropriate treatments have very specific consequences that we will investigate and debate. The collection of readings will allow us to examine the social institutions that shape men’s and women’s health and health care. Specific topics will include reproductive health, single motherhood and the stress of raising children alone, welfare and health care, divorce and changes in health, certain illnesses that women experience including breast and ovarian cancer, drug and alcohol abuse, and the forces that influence research into men and women’s health problems. Furthermore, we examine the role of women as major actors in changing the health care system, reducing health risks for themselves and their families, and their roles as health care providers, public administrators, and leaders in the health care establishment.

The second objective of the course is for students to develop an understanding of the major sources of health social policy data (e.g., demographic statistics, administrative records, health surveys, etc.). Our objective is to develop a critical understanding of the appropriate use of health-related data and to determine how they can best be used to evaluate a broad array of public policies.Finally, throughout the semester we examine the role of different levels and branches of government, touch upon the role of local, state and federal agencies in health policy formation and implementation (e.g., Medicaid), the politics of the medicalization of women’s issues including childbirth, refugee and immigrant health, and more. Alternative political ideologies regarding state and private responsibility for women’s health will be compared and contrasted. This involves gauging the relative power of key non-governmental actors, such as interest groups, health care NGOs, researchers, and the media in the definition and framing of our health agenda.

Note that the book course deals with rapidly evolving issues and readings serve as a point of departure. They will be adjusted in conformity with student interests and as current events warrant.

Bird, C.E. and P.P. Rieker. 2008. Gender and Health: The Effects of Constrained Choices and Social Policies. New York: Cambridge University Press.

The purpose of the course is to expose students to contemporary policy challenges in the national security arena and, in doing so, provide the student a framework for making future decisions across the entire public policy spectrum.   You will be exposed to a variety of geopolitical scenarios and working in conjunction with a “national security team” you will develop a list of options for government leaders. The course goes beyond the theoretical and analytical to understanding exactly how national security policy is made in the most complex and politically sensitive environments.  In the scenarios, you will be confronted with the challenges of whether to conduct a drone strike in a denied area, address the development of nuclear weapons in Iran, a potential conflict between Russia and NATO, whether to intervene in a potential Global contagion and several other current international problems.  You will learn to understand the implications of U.S. actions on both international and domestic policy.  Throughout the course we will also examine the role of leadership in policy making.

This course addresses the law of privacy and personal data protection under two dominant, but quite different, legal regimes. In this course, we will review privacy fundamentals – principles, risks, and harms - within the U.S. legal framework, including federal consumer, financial, and health privacy laws, and historical and emerging state laws. We will discuss and evaluate important aspects of the evolving U.S. legal framework and the EU GDPR (and other, recent European data laws), taking into account unique challenges posed by the evolution of digital data technology such as biometric data processing, breach response, cross-border data transfers, technological automony, and artificial intelligence.

The one semester, two credit course will examine the basics of the Fifth Amendment privilege as well as each of the evidentiary privileges recognized in federal courts.  The course will examine why the societal benefits achieved by allowing persons to exercise their respective privileges outweighs the evidentiary value of introducing privileged information into evidence.  We will examine which person or party owns and may invoke each privilege, how each privilege can be lost or abused, and how lawyers must strive to protect their client’s privileges and avoid impinging on the privileges held by others. Students will examine how non lawyers often misconstrue and demean a person’s exercise of their respective privileges.    A course in Evidence is a pre- or co-requisite. While the course may be of primary interest to students intending to be civil litigation attorneys, prosecutors or criminal defense attorneys, students with non-litigation interests will also benefit from the issues discussed during the course.   

The final evaluation will require students to prepare a bench memorandum for a hypothetical federal district court judge analyzing constitutional and evidentiary privilege disputes that will be described in a factual record.

This bench memorandum should be 12 to 15 typed written pages.  Students will be given two weeks to prepare the memorandum.  Students will be permitted and encouraged to do legal research, to use spell and grammar check but will not be permitted to use AI.

This course approaches the subject of professional responsibility as a study of how society regulates the legal profession and the conduct of lawyers. First, we study the organized regulation of the profession, which includes the following topics: (1) the admission of lawyers, (2) the establishment of the legal services monopoly through unauthorized practice of law statutes, (3) the state and federal systems for disciplining lawyers, and (4) the clients. Second, we study the regulation of the conduct of individual lawyers through the transactional perspectives: (1) formation of the attorney- client relationship, (2) performance of the representation, and (3) termination of the relationship. We also spend significant time examining the three contexts of regulating lawyers' conduct: (1) the disciplinary committee, (2) the private malpractice action, and (3) judicial regulation as part of the lawyer's representation of a client. Although we discuss the Model Code and the Model Rules, this course does not focus on the rules of professional responsibility as the sole source of ethical guidelines. The course should prepare you for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam; however, it is more useful as an introduction to identifying and resolving ethical problems in practice. In addition, it is your first introduction to the practice of law as a profession. Student grades are assessed through an in class exam with objective questions and essay questions; a 5 page outside paper, and completing the multiple choice questions in the Casebook Plus online module.

This course approaches the subject of professional responsibility as a study of how society regulates the legal profession and the conduct of lawyers. First, we study the organized regulation of the profession, which includes the following topics: (1) the admission of lawyers, (2) the establishment of the legal services monopoly through unauthorized practice of law statutes, (3) the state and federal systems for disciplining lawyers, and (4) the clients. Second, we study the regulation of the conduct of individual lawyers through the transactional perspectives: (1) formation of the attorney- client relationship, (2) performance of the representation, and (3) termination of the relationship. We also spend significant time examining the three contexts of regulating lawyers' conduct: (1) the disciplinary committee, (2) the private malpractice action, and (3) judicial regulation as part of the lawyer's representation of a client. Although we discuss the Model Code and the Model Rules, this course does not focus on the rules of professional responsibility as the sole source of ethical guidelines. The course should prepare you for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam; however, it is more useful as an introduction to identifying and resolving ethical problems in practice. In addition, it is your first introduction to the practice of law as a profession. Student grades are assessed through an in class exam with objective questions and essay questions; a 5 page outside paper, and completing the multiple choice questions in the Casebook Plus online module.

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.

This course provides a comprehensive overview of federal, state, and local laws governing the possession, use, and administration of psychedelics. Students will gain a foundational understanding of the policy reform movements shaping psychedelic law across the country, with a comparative analysis of enacted and proposed legislation at various levels of government. The course will explore federally legal pathways for therapeutic participation, including ketamine treatment, drug development studies, and other research initiatives. Additionally, students will examine legal exemptions under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and related case law. Students will be expected to participate in discussion each week and in one group project taking place during class. This course has no textbook and no specific prerequisites. No technical background is required.

This course provides a basic introduction to public international law. It will survey the basic principles of international law including: the sources of international law; the law and interpretation of treaties; the relationship between international and domestic law; and jurisdictional competencies. It will also examine a number of specific subjects including: the use of force; human rights; humanitarian law; international criminal law; and terrorism.

This three-credit survey course focuses on the legal issues that pervade the conservation and regulation of public lands, wildlife, fisheries, and wetlands. These issues include, among others, competing claims of the "public interest" versus private property rights; the roles of administrative agencies and the judiciary in environmental decision making; tensions presented by the multiple use/sustainable yield standard in federal law; conflicts among and between local, state, and federal approaches to natural resource regulation; and the opposing goals of resource management espoused by fishermen, farmers, developers, environmentalists, and recreational users. These issues will be developed in the context of the regulatory schemes embodied in the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Water Act and the various statutes that govern federal public lands, such as the Wilderness Act and Federal Land Policy Management Act. The focus of the course is primarily U.S. law; however, it will touch on international law relevant to natural resources and, where appropriate, compare U.S. law to the laws of other countries.

This course introduce students to the avenues and theories lawyers can utilize to conceptualize and seek social change. Through readings and discussion, we will explore past, present, and future movement lawyering strategies and concepts, including aspects of the civil rights movement, prison abolition, and Afrofuturism. We will examine the ways 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. Although the law can serve as an effective tool for change, it has its limitations. This course will help us recognize the need for movement lawyers to work in partnership with communities, organizers, and policymakers to achieve justice. Depending on scheduling and availability, this course will incorporate guest speakers engaged in movement lawyering, community organizers, and public policy. Students will be expected to read, watch, and listen to the assigned materials and actively participate in discussion. Students will leave with a deeper knowledge of social justice lawyering, and an understanding of how to recognize the law’s limitations as a singular tool to achieve social, political, economic, and racial equality.

Real Estate Finance for Lawyers covers real estate secured credit transactions. The course does not require any mathematical calculations. Students will find some knowledge or experience in the real estate industry is helpful, but not required. Completion of or concurrent enrollment in Secured Credit (Law 380D) is helpful, but not required. The course will begin with an introduction to the real estate finance industry, including various types of loans, lenders, vocabulary and law. From there, we will cover basic versions of the most common documents used in real estate secured financings, and progress to state of the art documents for large/complex transactions. The course will cover the case and statutory law central to some of the most important provisions. The relative interests of borrowers, lenders and other parties, and possible topics for negotiation, will be discussed throughout the course. Students will find that while this course concentrates on real estate secured lending, it has broad practical application to most lending and other business transactions. Course materials will be supplied by the Professor in PDF format.

The scope of this class is both domestic and international and crosses multiple disciplines and fields of law. The course touches many aspects of the processes of creating art, buying and selling it, using it, or displaying it in a museum. Additionally, the course covers the more nefarious legal issues in art and cultural property, including forgery, theft, illegal movement, and art in war, focusing on art stolen in the Holocaust.

Recent scientific studies show that the world is on the brink of a sixth mass extinction, comparable to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs millions of years ago. But as disheartening as that conclusion is, the data also suggest that it’s not too late to avoid the extinction event by addressing the threats faced by animals and plants around the globe. This course explores law and policy around the broad themes of biodiversity, wildlife and habitat. We will examine a range of international and U.S. laws in place to conserve biodiversity and the gaps in protection that exist. We will focus on international conventions, statutes, including the Endangered Species Act, case law, environmental ethics and several current controversies to explore legal, scientific, and political strategies for protecting at-risk species and their habitats in an increasingly complex, interconnected world.

Most of the students' grade will be based on a paper on an approved topic and a presentation on the paper topic given to the class during one of the last weeks of the semester.  

This writing seminar will focus on the substantive and procedural legal issues which relate to the protection of children. The first six classes of the seminar will provide an overview of child protection issues, primarily in the Child Protective Service system. The first class will include a presentation on child abuse and neglect cases; what it is and what it is not. The distinction between criminal child abuse cases and civil child protection (CPS) cases will be discussed.  The next five classes will cover the duty to report child abuse, the removal of children from their homes, termination of parental rights, systemic problems within the foster care system, the rights of children and their parents in child protection proceedings, and the criminal prosecution of child abuse. The readings for the first six classes are posted on canvas or cites for the internet link and Westlaw are provided in the syllabus and on canvas. Students are expected to read and be prepared to discuss the assigned readings in class. Additional readings and discussion may be supplemented which could include the interplay of the protection of children with other areas of the law such as immigration, education, and family law. Students will choose a topic for their own paper, after individual discussions with the professor to that end. Grades will be based on the 1) outline, 2) first draft of paper, 3) feedback in writing regarding mandatory observation of CPS docket, 4) class participation, 5) in-class presentation of paper, 6) critique of another student's paper, and 7) 30 page final paper.

Professor Connie Rosati (Department of Philosophy & Law)

Commentators, scholars, and even Supreme Court justices often write about constitutional originalism with little understanding of the variety of originalist theories that exist. These theories, from textualism to libertarian originalism to living originalism, differ markedly.  In particular, they differ in how would handle questions concerning “implied” or “unenumerated” rights.  In this seminar, we will explore various contemporary versions of originalism, as well as some of the many criticisms that originalism has faced. 

This course is not restricted 3L students though there is some preference given; second-year law students are welcome. There is no final exam for the course, your grade will be determined by the quality of your class participation and your six written and two oral projects. We will discuss all aspects of investigating, charging, trying, sentencing, and appealing federal criminal charges. We will take attendance, and we expect each of you to attend and to participate in every class discussion. Interns enrolled in the internship program at the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas or the Austin Federal Public Defender Service are encouraged to enroll in this seminar, and will be guaranteed admission if they request it.

Guns and drugs: This seminar will traverse the litigation landscape of harms to communities resulting from the actions of the firearms industry and harmful pharmaceuticals. The first half of this seminar introduces the tort theory of public nuisance and describes the changing landscape of 21st century mass tort litigation involving public harms – including lead paint, opioids, e-cigarettes, climate change, and environmental pollution. We will explore the novel theory of public nuisance that lawyers and local governments have used to receive compensation from those who have created public nuisances. We will discuss the origins and evolution of the theory of public nuisance from the twelfth century into modern-day American jurisprudence. We will survey the conflicting judicial decisions rooted in common law and statutory interpretation and evaluate the competing arguments for and against the expansion of public nuisance law. The first portion of the course will focus on applications of public nuisance theory to resolve mass torts relating to lead paint, opioids, vaping, and environmental pollution. We will examine the competing theories arguing in favor of and in opposition to the expansion of public nuisance theory to address and remediate modern community harms. The text for this portion of the seminar is Linda S. Mullenix, PUBLIC NUISANCE: THE NEW MASS TORT FRONTIER (Cambridge University Press 2024). The second half of the course comprehensively addresses the changed legal landscape concerning the ability of governments and private citizens to sue gun industry defendants for contributing to and sustaining the gun violence epidemic in the U.S., Mexico, and Latin America. The discussion canvasses federal and state efforts to regulate firearms through gun control measures, arguing that these regulatory measures have proven ineffective to stem the tide of gun violence. We will then examine the Congressional enactment in 2005 of the Protection of Legal Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) that immunizes the firearms industry from civil liability for gun violence harms. We will discuss the extent to which PLCAA has frustrated the ability of plaintiffs to hold the firearms industry accountable through litigation. We will discuss the theory that recourse to robust consumer protection and mass tort litigation provides the optimal avenue for holding the firearms industry accountable. The analysis highlights three inflection points in the history of gun industry accountability: the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, the Connecticut Sandy Hook Elementary School litigation, and the very recent nine states’ enactment of consumer protection and public nuisance firearms statutes. These innovative statutes have created an avenue for firearms litigation that overcomes the firearm industry’s historical immunity from suit anchored in PLCAA. The text for this portion of the course is Linda S. Mullenix, OUTGUNNED NO MORE: THE NEW ERA OF FIREARMS ACCOUNTABILITY (Cambridge University Press 2025). This is a writing seminar. Each student in the seminar will be required to complete three papers during the semester. Students will choose the weeks in which they wish to submit papers. Each paper will analytically present and discuss issues or debates relating to the weekly reading assignments. Each student, at the beginning of the semester, chooses the paper topics and timing of the papers.