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Seminars
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The law school offers a diverse range of subjects in a seminar format. Approximately 30 seminars are offered during each academic year. All seminars require the completion of a substantial writing assignment by the participants, in a form designated by the seminar instructor. All seminars are limited to 14 students. |
601:728Seminar: Advanced Constitutional Law (2) Focuses on the potential sources of constitutional doctrine.Considers the question of how one limits a seemingly clear, absolute constitutional command-for example, the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech. Pursues the problem of providing content to more vague constitutional provisions. Addresses the question of what nontextual rights should be deemed "fundamental" and what group of persons should be granted special judicial protection. If time permits, examination of problems under the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause. Emphasis on contemporary scholarly writings in the area. Each student prepares a paper on the views of one Supreme Court justice on one of the issues covered. Maltz |
601:720Seminar: Advanced Labor Law (2) Intensive study and analysis of the National Labor Relations Act, with additional emphasis on the Equal Employment Act of 1972 and the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Act. Pascarell. Prerequisite: Labor Law or permission of instructor. |
601:753Seminar: Advanced Problems in Contracts (2) Examines the lawyer`s role in contract planning. Students complete exercises in contract planning, negotiating, and drafting, with the aim of providing experience in drafting contract terms, contracts (including form contracts), opinion letters, and other documents; seminar members and practicing attorneys critique student work. Experience in contract planning in simulated real-world situations should raise questions about the pedagogical utility and theoretical validity of the traditional doctrine-based course in contract law. Consideration of some of the principal current challenges to the structure of orthodox contract theory. Feinman |
601:738Seminar: American Legal History (2) An introduction to research and historiography in American legal history. Current issues in American legal history and historiography. Each student prepares a paper based on original research in legal history. Hull |
601:713Seminar: Contemporary Constitutional Theory: The Living Constitution (2) Many of the landmark developments in modern constitutional law on such matters as school desegregation and other aspects of racial discrimination, one-person-one-vote, the right of privacy and personal autonomy, gender discrimination, and freedom of speech and federalism are arguably only loosely connected to, or indeed in tension with, the original understanding held by the drafters and ratifiers of the relevant constitutional texts. This seminar explores how contemporary constitutional scholars attempt to understand and justify these developments as part of what is sometimes termed "the living Constitution." Examines the work of scholars such as Bruce Ackerman, Philip Bobbitt, Michael C. Dorf, Charles Lawrence, Lawrence Lessig, Henry Monaghan, Jed Rubenfield, Reva Siegel, and Cass Sunstein, and critics of and commentators on their work, as well as relevant judicial opinions. Rosenblatt |
601:778Seminar: Control of Organized Crime (2) Considers law as a tool for control of organized crime. Specific topics addressed include structures and methods of criminal organizations; legal limits on electronic surveillance, physical searches, and grand jury investigations (including witness immunity, contempt of court, and perjury prosecutions); aspects of substantive criminal law and of the law of criminal procedure, evidence, and sentencing that present special problems in organized crime cases; and a brief introduction to statutes particularly aimed at organized crime, such as the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Coombs |
601:775Seminar: Current Issues in Constitutional Law (2) Students enrolling in this seminar are required to brief and argue selected cases from the current docket of the U.S. Supreme Court. Maltz |
601:730Seminar: Death Penalty Litigation (2) Comprehensive inquiry into the intricacies of death penalty litigation, focusing initially on New Jersey law. In addition to analysis of constitutional and statutory foundations of capital punishment, practical instruction is afforded on trial and appellate issues associated with capital cases. Guest speakers include lawyers who have prosecuted and defended death cases in New Jersey. Initially focuses on New Jersey law concerning the death penalty and then goes on to explore when and how the ultimate sanction is sought in other jurisdictions, under federal, military, and foreign law. Required writing on complex issues associated with an actual death penalty case pending in New Jersey or another jurisdiction. Ramsey |
601:756Seminar: Defining Sex Crimes in American Law and History (2) This seminar seeks answers in law, history, theory, and public policy to the question, What makes sex a crime? Examines how sex has been made criminal in the American past and present by studying the meanings of "crime," "sex," and "sex crime" in a variety of historical and legal contexts. In addition to assessing the types of acts that have been criminalized and decriminalized, the seminar considers how the identities of participants (or perpetrators/victims) and social contexts have influenced the definition and prosecution of crime. By viewing sex crimes through a long historical lens and across a spectrum of legal regulation, the seminar also explores the interaction of law and society, investigating how the very public notion of criminal sanction applies to the often intensely private world of intimate association. Hillman |
601:714Seminar: Environmental Justice (2)There is a remarkable consensus emerging that low-income communities of color bear a disproportionate share of environmental exposures and health risks. Various national studies and interdisciplinary works reflect the synergy of efforts by traditional civil rights and mainstream environmental organizations to address issues of "environmental racism." Indeed, the current "environmental justice" movement reflects the overlapping concerns of these traditionally separate movements. Civil rights advocates and mainstream environmentalists have placed issues traditionally addressed exclusively by the other group on each other`s agenda. Environmental issues have been placed squarely on the modern civil rights agenda, and social justice issues are being placed on the modern environmental agenda.
This seminar explores issues at the forefront of the environmental justice movement. Such issues include determining what activities or outcomes can be classified as environmental racism, the intersection of race and class in creating disparate environmental impacts, and the ability of legal strategies to achieve environmental justice. These issues are explored through a close examination of the grassroots movement for environmental justice, the empirical research defining the problem, theoretical perspectives on the phenomenon of environmental racism, and various legal strategies that have been employed in response to this phenomenon. Through narratives of community activism and the growing body of interdisciplinary research on the subject, the seminar seeks to give students a thorough understanding of this burgeoning social justice crusade. The seminar also situates the struggle for environmental justice within the historical struggles for civil rights and environmental preservation. |
601:726Seminar: Income Tax Planning (2) Topics covered include how and when to use the basic income tax savings techniques, primarily in the investor and employer-employee settings. Focus is on tax shelters, the time value of money, investments in securities, and employee fringe benefits, including qualified pensions after the 1986 Act. Davies. Prerequisite: Introduction to Federal Income Taxation. |
601:717Seminar: International Human Rights Litigation (2) Examines theoretical and practical issues raised by attempts to enforce international human rights norms in U.S. courts. Theoretical topics include international and domestic jurisdictional principles; sources of international human rights law; emerging norms; bars to enforcement, such as the political question of doctrine, act-of-state, immunity, and venue; and the relationship of domestic civil litigation to criminal prosecution and international enforcement mechanisms. Also considers practical problems faced in such litigation, including framing legal and factual issues, working with survivors of gross human rights abuses, foreign discovery, the role of expert testimony, and enforcement of judgments. Stephens |
601:746Seminar: Interstate Child Custody (2) Addresses "child snatching" and other legal problems that often arise when a dispute between parents or parent surrogates over custody or visitation of a child involves more than one state. Such cases may present various issues of constitutional, family, criminal, conflicts, procedural, and remedial laws. Issues include jurisdiction to determine custody, enforcement and modification of custody orders of sister states, obstacles to civil and criminal enforcement of custody rights in interstate cases, and international "child snatching." Coombs |
601:727Seminar: Judicial Administration (2) Court management from an inside perspective explores court structure, control techniques, personnel, and budget and organization problems, with special emphasis on the New Jersey system. "Hands-on" problems presented for resolution. Impact of management policy on the practice of law and the unexplored role of lawyers and bar associations in the administration of the courts. Haines |
601:734Seminar: Juvenile Justice (2) How are juvenile offenders treated differently from adult offenders? To what extent should they be? These questions provide the focus for examining how the state treats the "aberrant" behavior of children. Students are introduced to the legal, social, and historical underpinnings of the juvenile justice system in the United States beginning with founding of the juvenile court in 1899 and then-held assumptions about the nature of childhood. Then students examine how in the early 21st century the juvenile court has undergone both ideological and institutional change from its original form. These shifts in theory and practice are outlined with specific attention to court decisions (specifically U.S. Supreme Court decisions) that have significantly affected juvenile court, as well as recent data on crimes committed by children. Throughout the course, students are invited to consider and imagine a future role for the juvenile court in the wake of the court`s 100th anniversary. Simkins, Levick |
601:752Seminar: Law and Economics (2) An exploration of the use of economic analysis in legal discourse. Both conservative and liberal examples studied. Harvey. Prior course work in economics helpful but not required. |
601:733Seminar: Law and Urban Problems (2) Focuses on the role of government and law in solving housing, development, poverty, and other urban problems. Individual study of topics that are important and relevant to urban life and government, such as municipal financing, housing, mass transportation, homelessness, racial issues, group homes, historic preservation, urban environmental issues, and urban economic development. Washburn |
601:786Seminar: Law, Politics, and Democracy (2) Drawing upon case law, legislative sources and nonlegal writings, the course explores: the origins and character of American democratic institutions; the concepts of representative government, majority rule, citizen rights and universal suffrage; the principles of the sovereignty of the people, equality and individualism; the role of mediate institutions in the political process (like political parties, voluntary associations, and special interest groups); and alternative models to the traditional Anglo-American forms of representation. The course is not a survey of the American political system. Nor is the focus on the mechanics of the electoral process. Rather, while the course considers both process and mechanics, the emphasis is on the identification of principles susceptible to universal application and the study of American democracy as a normative ideal. Robreno |
601:740Seminar: Legal Issues of Police Undercover Operations (2) Examines in depth the legally permissible limits of police undercover operations. Such investigatory methods have been used with great frequency during the last 20 years or so, especially in connection with the "war on drugs," investigations of various organized crime groups, and official corruption. Some of the undercover operations (such as ABSCAM) became very controversial, and the question of their propriety strongly divided public opinion at large as well as within the legal community. The seminar focuses on legal issues arising from the undercover operations under both federal and state laws. The subjects of entrapment and related defenses, as well as issues arising under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution as well as their state counterparts and under statutory law are examined. Pomorski |
601:710Seminar: Legalism (2) Commentators, politicians, and ordinary citizens have severely criticized President Clinton`s testimony about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky for being "legalistic" or resorting to "legal hairsplitting." These attacks, and their vehemence, should trouble us as lawyers and law students. For if the President really was being "legalistic," then our profession has some explaining or soul searching to do. And even if the President`s testimony was not really "legalistic," but only insolent adolescent weaseling, we need to try to understand, and communicate, the difference.
When critics assailed the President for being "legalistic," they meant that he was hiding behind overly technical distinctions that defied common sense. But the relationship between legal thinking and "common sense" necessarily is complex. On the one hand, we have learned from the first day of law school that the law is a special place, with its own language, logic, and concerns. Legal meanings, legal rules, and legal results often violate everyday intuition, and that`s sometimes a good thing. Arguably, legalism, in at least some form, is a necessary aspect of the rule of law itself. On the other hand, when law diverges too sharply from ordinary thinking, it risks its moral and intellectual legitimacy.
This seminar asks what "legalism" is, and whether there are "good" and "bad" forms of it. It also tries to make moral and legal sense of "legalistic" thinking, in a variety of settings. Of most im-mediate interest, the seminar tries to unravel the law`s relationship to testimonial truth. How does the law treat evasive, misleading, and half-true statements? What does it take to commit perjury? Does the law enforce different standards of truth-telling for different legal purposes? If so, why? Is "legalistic" evasion ever morally justified? As part of this discussion, President Clinton`s testimony, and its context, are examined in some detail.
This seminar also looks at "legalism" in other contexts, including, for example, the interpretation of statutes, wills, and other legal instruments. When does the law follow the "ordinary" reading of language, and when does it go its own way? Does "legalism" always mean "hairsplitting?" Might there be instances in which outlandish lawyerly interpretations make more sense than ordinary reading?
Finally, the seminar tries to provide a larger historical and theoretical perspective on the problem of "legalism." Is criticism of "legalism" bound up with criticism of law itself? If so, is there anything we can or should do about it? Dane |
601:796 Seminar: Marine Insurance (2) Marine insurance was the first form of formal insurance. Its origin was in the earliest efforts of merchants in the eastern Mediterranean to protect themselves from the loss of their goods in the event of a common disaster befalling the ship transporting their goods. The evolution continued in Lloyd`s Coffee House in London, and to today`s worldwide market covering ships, their crews and passengers, and the cargo they carry. Marine insurance also has come ashore in lines of Inland Marine Insurance. Many well-recognized personal and commercial lines of insurance, as well as principles of policy interpretation, developed from beginnings in marine insurance.
This course examines the legal regimes which govern marine insurance: Admiralty and Maritime law, including the seminal cases of DeLovio v. Boit, Insurance Company v. Dunham, Wilburn Boat Co. v. Fireman`s Fund, as well as more recent interpretation of the governing principles by the circuit courts; the British Marine Insurance Act of 1906; the constitutional grant of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction to the federal courts; state regulation of the insurance industry (or lack thereof) and the McCarran-Ferguson Act; and the work of International Organizations including the Comite Maritime Internationale and UNCITRAL. Cattell |
601:782, 784Seminar: Marshall-Brennan Fellows (2, N3) The Marshall-Brennan Fellowship program provides eight to ten talented second- and third-year law students an extraordinary opportunity: the chance to teach a high-school course about the Constitution, citizenship, and education. Four teams of two fellows teach at Camden charter schools (three at the LEAP Academy and one at Urban Promises) in the spring term. The fellows are responsible for the entire class structure: they design lesson plans and assignments, lecture and lead discussion, and evaluate student work. The fellows enroll in a yearlong seminar. The fall semester course covers in depth the cases and issues that fellows teach during the spring term. It also includes discussions of pedagogy (with the help of the Graduate School of Education), legal education, and ongoing developments in the field of education law. A paper on a relevant topic is required, as are sample lesson plans. The spring semester places the fellows in front of their own classrooms for one hour a day, four days a week. The weekly two-hour seminar continues to meet, but the focus shifts to discussing classroom dynamics, effective teaching strategies, and questions of law raised during the week`s teaching. In the fall semester, students earn 2 course and 3 writing credits. For the spring term, students receive 3 noncourse credits (on a Pass/No Credit basis) and 2 writing credits. Hillman, Overton |
601:793 Seminar: Patent Prosecutions (1) Designed for students who are interested in the mechanics of patent application drafting and prosecution. Students learn patent application writing techniques and strategy. Drafting responses to Patent Office actions and patent claim drafting and amendment strategy and writing skills also are addressed. Students apply the statutory knowledge acquired in Patent Law I to the real-world writing skills and techniques required by a patent practitioner. This course is helpful to students who plan to take the Patent Bar exam while in law school as these writing skills are evaluated on the Patent Bar exam administered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Students are required to complete a series of writing projects that demonstrates a mastery of basic patent drafting skills. Licata. Prerequisite: Patent Law I. May be taken concurrently with Patent Law II. |
601:732Seminar: Private Law (2) Explores current issues in private law (contracts, property, torts, and occasionally restitution). The focus is less on doctrine and more on issues of theory, ideology, and politics in private law. Requirements include a class presentation and a research paper. Feinman |
601:791Seminar: Problems in Criminal Law (2) This seminar concentrates on two to four issues of current concern in the criminal justice systems. Some possible topics considered are: 1) jury nullification after the Simpson trial, 2) Megan`s Law and treatment of sex offenders, 3) biological causes of crime, 4) sentencing, including "Three Strikes and You`re Out," 5) legalizing drugs, and 6) discovery in criminal cases. Singer |
601:779Seminar: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) (2) Examines criminal and civil investigation and litigation under the federal and state statutes on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO). Specific topics addressed include the conceptual bases of so-called enterprise liability, including relational rather than individual definitions of misconduct; the relationships among enterprise liability and related doctrines, such as conspiracy, complicity, and vicarious liability; procedural implications of enterprise liability, such as broad joinder of claims and parties, expanded admissibility of evidence, and complication of pretrial and trial proceedings; the extraordinary civil and criminal remedies provided for RICO violations; and the impact of wide use of these statutes. Coombs |
601:767Seminar: Refugee Law (2) Covers topics in the area of international and domestic refugee and asylum law, including the ethical, moral, and policy bases for state obligations toward refugees; the history and structure of the current international regime for the protection of refugees; current demographic challenges to that regime; the scope of the current international refugee definition and its continued viability; the international nonrefoulement obligation; the current structure of the American asylum adjudication process; and various topics in U.S. political asylum jurisprudence. Bosniak. Prerequisites: Immigration and Citizenship or permission of instructor. |
601:721Seminar: Religion and the State in Cross-National Perspective (2) Certain fundamental ideas about religious liberty and the separation of church and state are so deeply entrenched in the American constitutional imagination that we take them for granted. But, in fact, other countries, including many Western democracies, often have quite different notions about how to understand the relation of religion to the state. This seminar compares religious liberty and church-state law in a variety of countries, including the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Poland, India, and Saudi Arabia. Searching for common threads and differences, as well as making sense of some of the ironies and paradoxes that emerge from the inquiry, are the goals of the seminar. Course requirements include active class participation, completion of either one major paper or several shorter ones, and an in-class oral presentation. Dane |
601:739Seminar: Special Education Law and Practice (2) Concentrates on a major aspect of education and disability law practice: the law that defines the rights of special needs students to an appropriate education. Focuses on the statutory, regulatory, and case law materials that have developed these rights, with a particular emphasis on the highly prescriptive federal and state regulations that govern this area of practice. Also emphasizes preparation for the federally mandated administrative hearings that state educational agencies must provide when a family challenges a program that a school district offers, as well as drafting appeals from those hearings. Goldberg |
601:785Seminar: The Statement of Facts (2) Provides an opportunity for students to learn to enjoy legal writing so that the readers of the writing may enjoy it as well. Discussion focuses on fine descriptive prose in contemporary American letters and the law. Readings are drawn from James Agee (Let Us Now Praise Famous Men), the short stories of Jamaica Kincaid, R. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), and others. Students` own weekly writing experiments are discussed. By the end of the term, students have begun to develop their own voice in the law. Because this seminar involves both a significant time commitment and the public discussion of each student`s writing, it is recommended only for those students who already have had some training and success in writing and who are passionately dedicated to legal writing as a profession. Hyland. Students will be admitted to this course only after attending a short meeting (time and place to be announced) and submitting a page of original prose. |
601:712Seminar: Taxation and Public Policy (2) Considers historic and current issues in taxation and public policy. The first six weeks of the course consist of readings on traditional tax policy issues, including horizontal and vertical equity; economic efficiency; and the concept of tax expenditures. The remainder of the course is devoted to student-led presentations, with each student preparing a 30-page, original research paper on a topic of his or her own choosing. Students who so desire may prepare a paper on a nontax issue (e.g., Social Security, health, or welfare policy) that raises similar problems of fairness and economic efficiency. Livingston. Prerequisite: Introduction to Federal Income Taxation. |
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