This is a speaker-based workshop. Students will receive writing credit. We will read academic papers in the broad area of "law and economics and empirical legal scholarship," and hear them presented by their authors. The usual workshop format will be: (i) a students-only 20 minute overview of the paper and related literature by the speaker and professor; followed by (ii) an 80- minute "faculty workshop" in which the speaker presents the paper for 20 or so minutes, and the balance of the time will principally involve questions from the faculty who attend the workshop; followed by (iii) a roughly 30-minute students-only question period, to provide an opportunity (and obligation!) for each student to ask questions of the speaker. Some class weeks will involve outside speaker presentations; the remainder will involve internal UT speakers or, possibly, occasional lectures on selected topics in law and economics and empirical research. For each paper, students will prepare a single page containing several questions before the workshop. They will also write either a term paper or, if they prefer, a number of shorter reaction papers, in which they address issues raised by particular workshop papers. The term paper or reaction papers will require research and should total at least 25 pages. Regular attendance is expected. Evaluation will be based on a combination of participation in the workshop, the quality of the questions prepared for each paper, and the writing, quality of research, and substantive quality reflected in the research papers.
Avraham, Ronen