Course Schedule

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. 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. Further, students will perform parole advocacy on behalf of survivors of domestic violence who are in prison due to their victimization.  Prerequisites: Students enrolling should not be on scholastic probation. No other clinics may be taken at the same time as this clinic. APPLY ONLINE: https://law.utexas.edu/clinics/application-information/

Taught by Heather K. Way and Frances Leos Martinez. The Clinic is open to students who have completed their first two semesters. 6 credits (pass/fail) — offered in the Fall and Spring. Students must register for Law 697C.

The Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic provides students with a unique opportunity to develop business law and problem-solving skills while representing entrepreneurs, 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

The Clinic also provides interested students with the opportunity to represent clients on public policy issues impacting small businesses and community organizations. Prior projects have included drafting state legislative reforms to assist low-income homeowners access property tax exemptions, testifying before local and state legislative bodies, and advising clients on regulatory barriers.

Clinic students learn how to represent their clients through clinic classes, weekly team meetings with their clinic supervisor, and independent research and initiative. 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 from 2:15-4:15 pm (a few classes run until 5:15 pm), and also on Thursday mornings from 9:10 to 10:00 am for case rounds. There is a mandatory orientation class on the first Friday of the semester, from 9:00 am – 1:30 pm. In addition to class and case rounds, students are required to keep a weekly schedule of eight in-clinic office hours. The Clinic is a significant time commitment. Students are expected to devote an average of 17-20 hours a week to the Clinic, including class time and in-clinic office hours. There are no prerequisites for this clinic, although a background in business law (such as business associations, real estate, or tax law) or policy work will come in handy.

Enrollment is by application only. Students are encouraged to apply for the Clinic during early registration, 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.

Please note: Students may not enroll in both the Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic and the Texas Venture Labs at McCombs School of Business concurrently.

To apply for the Clinic, please submit the online application, available on the UT Law Clinical Education homepage (https://law.utexas.edu/clinics/application-information/). For additional information, you may contact the Clinic Co-Directors, Heather K. Way (hway@law.utexas.edu, 512-232-1210) and Frances Leos Martinez (fmartinez@law.utexas.edu, 512-232-1222), or the Clinic Administrator, Sarah Beach (sbeach@law.utexas.edu, 512-232-1564).

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

Students in the Environmental Clinic work with non governmental organizations and underserved communities throughout Texas to advocate for solutions to today’s pressing environmental problems, including environmental injustice and climate change.  Students in the Clinic learn to think creatively about how to use the law to protect and improve environmental quality and public health. 

Students work on cases in teams, under the supervision of clinic faculty, and should expect to spend 10-12 hours per week working on clinic cases. Recent clinic projects have included:

• civil rights complaints,
• environmental enforcement in federal courts,
• permitting and rulemaking proceedings before courts and administrative agencies,
• nuisance actions,
• community education,
• pollution monitoring, and
• environmental policy research.

Through their work on cases, students in the Clinic have gained practical experience with factual investigation and analysis, community education, administrative research and advocacy before regulatory agencies, and legal drafting and litigation support.

Students also participate in a weekly two-hour seminar in which you will gain practice navigating enviormental statutes and rules and discuss environmental laws, environmental justice, the role of lawyes in social movements, 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. 

To apply for the Clinic, please submit the online application.

For additional information regarding the clinic, contact Clinic Director Kelly Haragan (kharagan@law.utexas.edu, 512-232-2654) or Clinic Administrator Sarah Beach (sbeach@law.utexas.edu, 512-232-2454).

This is a four-credit hour clinic. It is offered only in the spring. Students in this clinic represent low-income families on their housing-related legal problems. 

The primary focus of the work is helping clients to avoid homelessness and to obtain affordable housing. Students represent clients on a myriad of issues related to low-income housing programs. The work includes representing clients in threatened evictions, rent issues, threatened section 8 voucher terminations, and on denials of public housing, subsidized housing, and section 8 voucher housing. The work is especially interesting not only because of the compelling needs of the clients and the often egregious actions of the adverse party but because of the intersection of federal housing law and federal regulations, state landlord-tenant law and contract law. Moreover, many clients are persons with mental disabilities; representation requires use of the Fair Housing Act and the reasonable accommodation provision -- an area of the law that is rapidly evolving.

Two examples of cases from recent clinics: (1) One student represented a public housing client who had been on the waiting list for a section 8 housing voucher for over four years but consistently passed over because she resided in public housing. Congress has prohibited public housing authorities from penalizing families applying for a voucher because they live in public housing. The student wrote the housing authority demanding a change in the policy and threatening suit. The housing authority changed its policy -- benefiting a number of public housing families. The client was subsequently awarded a voucher. (2) Another student represented a client who had been denied a subsidized apartment on the basis of a sixteen-year old drug conviction. The student wrote a demand letter to the owner’s attorney. The attorney responded defending the owner’s policy and rejecting the efforts to resolve the case. The student drafted a lawsuit petition and filed suit before the clinic term ended. The suit subsequently settled with the landlord changing its policies and adopting reasonable criminal history “look-back periods.” These are but two examples. Other students have defended evictions, represented clients in section 8 voucher termination cases, challenged rent calculations by subsidized owners and public housing authorities, filed bill of review lawsuits challenging eviction judgments, and drafted real estate documents clearing title to property for low-income homeowners. The work is fast-paced and challenging, with a great deal of client and opposing party interaction. Most cases are completed during the semester, allowing the student to see the case from beginning to end.

A weekly class is held at the offices of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. Students must also spend a minimum of eight hours a week working on their clients’ cases at Legal Aid. Those hours must be spread over two or three different days during the week. Cases are reviewed and discussed in class. Classroom lectures focus on tenant rights under federal housing programs and Texas landlord-tenant statutes. Significant classroom time is also spent on how to represent clients with the highest possible quality and ethics. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis. Participants must have completed at least forty-three semester hours in law. Students register for Law 497C by filling out an application. The application and instructions on how to apply for this clinic can be accessed on the web.

The Human Rights Clinic works to promote and protect human rights in Texas and around the world. Through supervised practice, students learn the responsibilities and skills of human rights lawyering and advocacy. Mirroring the approach of practicing advocates, students work in small project teams, developing lawyering, advocacy and ethical skills and receiving intensive mentoring and feedback. The Human Rights Clinic’s practice spans a wide range of issues, including sexual and reproductive rights; human rights and the environment; U.N. treaty bodies and special procedures; and many more. All the cases and projects involve research, writing, and an opportunity to discuss the strategies used by human rights advocates. The cases and projects provide the students an opportunity to gain practical skills in partnering with other students, institutions, and organizations, thus forming a team of advocates. Finally, all the projects and cases allow a multidisciplinary approach and permit working across disciplines and use the perspectives of different fields to enhance the overall theoretical framework. Routinely the Clinic admits non-Law students. The Clinic employs a variety of lawyering methods that are tailored to the needs of each project. These include: Documentation and Reporting; International Litigation; Advocacy. The Clinic meets two times per week for an hour and a half. Classroom lectures and discussion focus on substantive human rights law, client interviewing, case and project preparation and strategy and review of ongoing cases and projects. In addition to the classroom component, students should expect to spend 15–20 hours per week on Clinic work. The weekly workload varies substantially, depending upon the stage of each project or case. Clinic work may include some travel. Preference is given to students who have taken a human rights course or who have other human rights or public interest experience. APPLY ONLINE: https://law.utexas.edu/clinics/application-information/

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 focused primarily on detention and deportation defense and asylum cases. The Clinic has handled cases for clients from, among other countries, Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Eritrea, Guinea, Burma and Uzbekistan. Students provide assistance and direct legal representation to women and families held in immigration detention centers. Students also engage in national and international human rights advocacy projects and collaborate with organizations to reform and 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. Students also develop client relationship skills and practice a variety of legal advocacy techniques. The Clinic allows students to explore different models for effective and collaborative lawyering.

The Immigration Clinic meets for class two times per week for an hour and a half. 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 10-20 hours per week on clinic work, including class time and office hours. Students will occasionally travel to area detention facilities and to San Antonio where the Immigration Court and DHS offices are located. Students are encouraged to apply for the Clinic during early registration as enrollment is limited and faculty permission is required to register. Students should submit an electronic application, available at https://law.utexas.edu/clinics/application-information/, by the end of the early registration period. For more information about the Immigration Clinic, contact Denise Gilman (dgilman@law.utexas.edu) or Elissa Steglich (esteglich@law.utexas.edu). 

JUVENILE JUSTICE CLINIC This program offers litigation experience while exposing students to the operations of the juvenile justice system, by placing them as student attorneys with the Travis County Juvenile Public Defender. Clients are indigent juveniles, aged 10 to 17, who are charged with criminal offenses ranging from Class B misdemeanors to first degree felonies. Student attorneys are assigned a caseload (four open cases at all times during the semester) for which they have primary responsibility under the supervision of an attorney in the public defender's office. The student attorneys perform all investigation, interview, discovery, plea bargain and litigation functions on their cases.

Student attorneys are required to have at least one morning each week (Monday through Thursday) when they are available to be in court to handle their plea adjudications/dispositions. Contested hearings are scheduled for the afternoon on the student attorney’s designated court day. It is preferable that student attorneys have two days each week when they are available to be in court on either Monday/Tuesday or Wednesday/Thursday. This flexibility provides students with more opportunity for handling a variety of cases and works better with the court’s scheduling of cases. Although this flexibility is preferred, it is not required. In most instances, student attorneys will be in court a maximum of one day per week and be finished by 12:00 p.m. on their designated court day. Thursday is a popular court day for student attorneys; however, please be aware that there are a limited number of students who can be assigned a Thursday court day. Please take this into account when scheduling other classes and contact me if you have questions about your schedule. Approximately 12-14 hours per week will be required for working cases and for participating in the classroom component. A class that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays for about five weeks and one time per week thereafter, typically on Tuesdays, provides academic background.

Each student will complete a mock hearing exercise that is recorded and held in the Eidman Courtroom. The exercise teaches the student to prepare for argument and examination of witnesses in the context of a hearing to suppress illegally seized evidence. The mock hearing occurs outside of the regular class meeting. Each weekday, Travis County Juvenile Court holds hearings to determine if juveniles who are being detained should be released. A public defender is present to provide representation for each juvenile whom has a hearing that day. Student attorneys will each take responsibility as the public defender for two days of the semester. This teaches students to handle a large caseload in a very short time, and to think and act quickly. During the first month of the semester, the class has meetings on Fridays for tours usually between 11-1. The class travels outside of Austin to tour a Texas Juvenile Justice Department facility and meets with juveniles who have been sentenced to TJJD. Additionally, the class adopts a local middle school at the end of the semester and speaks to seventh grade students about constitutional rights/protections and the consequences of violating the law. Students register for Law 397C and 397D. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis (six hours). Students must have completed forty-three semester hours in law. Recommended (but not required) background classes include criminal law and criminal procedure. The Juvenile Justice Clinic provides a meaningful opportunity for students to learn juvenile law, interact with clients, advocate for your clients in court proceedings, and participate in educating children about the law. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Pam Sigman, Director 512-619-3222

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, synogogues, 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 Professor Collis as a group twice a week: once to discuss their cases and once 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 Professor Collis to discuss how their lawyering skills are progressing and to counsel on other issues.  

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 here.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS  There are no prerequisites for this clinic, but an application is required. You can find the instructions here: https://law.utexas.edu/clinics/application-information/

SUPREME COURT CLINIC IS A 6-HR. This clinic 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 most often involve federal statutory issues, but some will raise constitutional issues. As part of their clinic work, students will participate in identifying potential cases for the clinic to handle. 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. 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). The clinic includes some traditional classroom sessions to introduce students to Supreme Court procedures and the strategic considerations relevant in Supreme Court practice. In addition to selecting the Clinic during Early Registration, students must fill out a short application. APPLY ONLINE: https://law.utexas.edu/clinics/application-information/

The TRANSNATIONAL WORKER RIGHTS CLINIC IS A 6-HR. CLINIC. Students in this clinic will represent low-income transnational migrant 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. Students may also engage in related advocacy projects asserting the rights of low-wage workers – especially their right to access the U.S. justice system to fully enforce their employment rights, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. 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. The Clinic seeks to enforce and understand employment rights of transnational workers working in Texas as an example of  advocacy for the labor and human rights of immigrants and low-wage working people around the globe. 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 of the nation's leading 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 clinic's legal advocacy is based on a community-lawyering model which seeks to accomplish more than just winning individual cases; the clinic also aims to promote systemic reforms that make the justice system more fair for transnational workers and to empower clients with the knowledge, skills, and collective capacity through which they can advance their own employment rights. In addition, the clinic seeks to ground each student's particular casework within the dynamic, emerging field of transnational labor rights advocacy.

Bill Beardall, the clinic director, is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Center, the former Director of the Migrant Worker Division of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and a nationally recognized expert on low-wage employment rights. He has more than four decades of experience representing migrant workers and mentoring young employment litigation lawyers.

The TWR Clinic is conducted in partnership with the Equal Justice Center (EJC), a non-profit public-interest law firm, based in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.  The EJC is the leading law firm in Texas specialized in advocating for the rights of low-wage workers. Clinic students get the opportunity to work closely with a variety of EJC lawyers, who are among Texas' leading employment attorneys. 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; 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. 

Normally the law practice of this clinic occurs off-campus in the law offices of the Equal Justice Center. However, like most law offices, the EJC has been largely closed to in-person staff and public operations, since spring 2020, due to the pandemic. Nevertheless the EJC law practice and the TWR Clinic law practice have been proceeding dynamically and successfully as a cyber-practice utilizing innovative electronic law practice methods.  The EJC and TWR Clinic anticipate a return to in-person law practice for the spring semester of 2022.  Nonetheless, one salutary effect of the adaptation to cyber law practice has been that TWR Clinic law students are getting an opportunity to learn - along with the rest of the legal profession - the new art of remote law practice and litigation.  While the 2022 spring semester clinic law practice is expected to conducted largely in-person, it has become clear that the entire judicial system and legal profession have permanently adopted many new, more efficient, remote electronic operations and methods.  These remote law practice methods will put to full and effective use by the EJC and the TWR Clinic, giving clinic students an opportunity to learn these pioneering remote electronic techniques and systems. The anticipated re-opening of the Equal Justice Center office and TWR Clinic to in-person operations will be based on careful monitoring of public health conditions throughout the fall, winter, and spring, prioritizing the health and safety of clinic students, clients, EJC staff.

Throughout the semster, the students's principal casework will be complemented with a regular classroom session that meets once a week for 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 transnational worker cases; ethical issues in employment rights representation; community-based legal strategies and civic participation rights; and evolving mechanisms for the enforcement of worker rights, regardless of immigration status.

The clinic is open to students who have completed the first year of law school. While there are no prerequisites, students will benefit from previous course work or experience relating to contract law, civil procedure, labor and employment law, immigration law, international law, human rights law, low-wage working people, migrant workers or immigrant communities, and experience related to Latin American communities.

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 Bill Beardall at bbeardall@law.utexas.edu. Please put "Worker Rights Clinic" in the subject line of any communication. APPLY ONLINE: https://law.utexas.edu/clinics/application-information

This course fosters an integrated understanding of the science, law and policy relating to issues such as land use, water use, and climate change in coupled watershed-coastal ocean systems. The course is interdisciplinary and listed in both the Law School and the Department of Marine Science. There are three major course components: (1) topical lectures, (2) literature discussions, and (3) case studies. The literature discussions allow us to delve into specific topics in detail, whereas the case studies foster a system-level understanding of select sites around the country. Students work on the case studies in small, interdisciplinary groups. The case studies will be selected from distinct region of the US subject to different climate regimes, land/water use patterns, and oceanographic conditions. Factors influencing the quantity and quality of water exported from land, and oceanographic characteristics that mediate the response of coastal ecosystems to changes in watershed export are emphasized. Law, management, planning and policy initiatives related to issues of water quality, water quantity and sustainability of coupled watershed-coastal ocean systems are also emphasized. Groups give a formal presentation on their case study findings near the end of the semester. Students also write independent papers or proposals focusing on specific research, mitigation, education efforts, or legal or regulatory changes needed to improve understanding and management of their case study systems. The last week of class focuses on cross-site comparisons and discussion of idealized management scenarios that draw from the most effective aspects of individual case studies. Classes are offered over a video link so that students at the Marine Science Institute as well as Austin can participate.

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 parts: (1) territorial jurisdiction, (2) choice of law, and (3) recognition of foreign judgments. This short course will focus on choice of law.

This course will offer an intensive examination of the way the Constitution (and then controversies involving the Constitution) handled variosu issues involving race.  We will begin with the debates at the Philadelphia Conventiona about slavery.  Most of our time will undoubtedly be spent on the treatment of Blacks, both as enslaved and as "free" persons, but attention will also be paid to members of Indigenous Nations and Asians (as in the aptly named Chinese Exclusion Cases).  Although the arrival of the Reconstruction Amendment will obviously be an important part of the course, we shall spend a fair amount of time looking at ante-bellum materials.  The course will conclude with the 1903 Alabama case Giles v. Harris, in which the Supreme Court basically gave up on enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment and its ostensible prohibition of racial discrimination with regard to voting.  

Although there will be a final examination--of two question to be answered in two hours--the grade will also be based on two "response papers" to given assignments of. your choice.  Each response paper should be approximately 1200-1500 words.  Should any of you, after grading the final exam and the response papers, be at the cusp between two grades, then class participation (or its lack) will determine the final grade.  

Distribution of powers between federal and state governments; constitutional limitations on and judicial review of governmental action.

Distribution of powers between federal and state governments; constitutional limitations on and judicial review of governmental action.

This course deals with the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices - Consumer Protection Act (DTPA), which is the primary consumer protection statute in Texas. We will also examine statutory and common law warranties and the interplay between the DTPA and other relevant consumer protection statutes. The last three weeks of the course will be spent on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (the primary federal statute protecting consumers from abusive collection practices), the Texas Debt Collection Act, and their interplay with the DTPA.

Methods by which rights and duties of promissory and quasi-promissory origin are created, transferred, limited, discharged, breached, and enforced.  (I have no idea who wrote this!  But you'll soon see what it's about.)

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 second format of the class will use Harvard cases to illustrate several major real world issues related to corporate governance. 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.

The course examines taxation of corporations and their shareholders. Basic concepts of taxable income from the Federal Income Tax course are assumed to be already known by enrolled students, including basis, calculation of gain and loss, capital gains, and treatment of nonrecognition transactions. Representative transactions covered include the formation of a corporation, distributions to shareholders, redemptions of stock, liquidations of corporations, and corporate reorganizations. The grade for the course will be based on a final, open book examination. Prereq: Law 293Q, 393Q, 493Q, 593Q (Federal Income Taxation); or Law 254J, 354J, 454J, 554J (Federal Income Taxation); or 254N, 354N (Federal Income Taxation A); and 254P, 354P (Federal Income Taxation B). 

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

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.