Upper-Class Seminars

Seminars listed are those that have been offered in the past few years and are likely to be offered again. Seminar offerings change frequently in response to the research activity of individual faculty members and student interest. Prerequisites for individual seminars may be announced by the instructor at the time of registration.

 

Advanced Legal Research Seminar (2) The objective of this seminar is to give students an in-depth knowledge of general research tools and a good working knowledge of advanced tools available in specific subject areas. Both online and hard copy resources are examined.

Advanced Mediation Seminar (2) Addresses a variety of current issues in the practice of mediation. Topics include ethnicity, gender and power in mediation, the scope of confidentiality, the establishment and enforcement of ethical standards, mediation in the community, the role and practice of lawyers in mediation, the use of apology in mediation, the different settings in which mediation can take place, techniques of effective mediation, and mediation and justice. Additional topics are selected during the seminar. Students are expected to conduct independent research on selected topics, report to the seminar, and write a paper on their research. With permission of the instructor, students may conduct empirical research, or may participate in mediation and use their experience, together with other research, as a basis for analysis.

Animal Rights and the Law Seminar (2) Focuses on four areas. First, the course surveys philosophical and historical materials concerning the status of nonhuman animals. Second, it considers the legal status of animals as property. Third, the differences between the concepts of "animal rights" and "animal welfare" are addressed. Fourth, the relationship between the animal rights movement and other social justice movements is discussed. Students are required to do a paper on a topic of their choice (in consultation with the instructors).

Banking Law Seminar (2) The seminar provides an overview of federal regulation of commercial banking institutions, including such topics as the definition of a bank, geographical product restrictions, mergers of banking institutions, and bank holding company regulations. The first half of the course consists of readings and lectures intended to introduce students to banking regulation. During the second half, students are expected to prepare and give presentations on specific issues of current interest. Prerequisite: Business Associations.

Bankruptcy Policy Seminar (2) An examination of the policies that underlie the 1978 Bankruptcy Code and modern bankruptcy practice in both the individual and business contexts. Substantial research paper required.

Children and the Law Seminar (2) Examines the constitutional and public framework for allocating power and responsibility among children, parents, and the state. Explores selected legal topics relevant to this central theme, including child custody and child support; child abuse, neglect, and inadequate parenting; medical and psychiatric treatment; and educational rights. Considers the changing nature of childhood and the family and emphasizes sociological and psychological issues raised by the current legal structure.

Comparative Corporate Governance Seminar (2) Investigates and compares standards of performance applied to corporations and to their governing bodies and executives. The point of departure will be the U.S. system. The United Kingdom and France are used to represent, respectively, the Anglo-Saxon and Continental perspectives, without forgetting the impact of the European Union. To gain a fuller understanding, the social, historical, and cultural contexts that may help explain differences and similarities are also explored. Depending on the particular experience and language skills of seminar participants, other national perspectives may be considered.

Corporate Governance Seminar (2) Replicates the general counsel's office of a major corporation and acquaints students with a large transaction and its attendant legal and practical problems. It also replicates the day-to-day activities of such an office. The emphasis is on a transaction and other events which pose issues of corporate law and governance. Seminar members are expected to work individually and in teams, to present materials both orally and in writing, and to play active roles in the issues under consideration.

Corporate Social Responsibility Seminar (2) Explores the role and purpose of the American business corporation in society. In the process, it will consider a range of scholarship from the school of progressive corporate law. Broadly speaking, this scholarship seeks to integrate commitments to social justice into the law that governs U.S. corporations and to challenge concepts that privilege wealth maximization for shareholders over protections for the environment, for human rights, and for the interests of corporate "stakeholders" such as workers, consumers, and local communities. The seminar will also explore case studies of the global CSR movement and investigate new ways to harness the power of corporations to create a more socially just and equitable society.

Current Issues in Public Interest Law Seminar (2) This seminar will explore a number of areas of public interest law that are currently being considered by the courts. Topics will be chosen in large part based upon the students' interests, but are likely to include such issues as same-sex marriage, creation of DNA databases, government surveillance in a post-9/11 world, and race and gender discrimination. We will also be hosting moot court arguments of public interest cases coming before the New Jersey Supreme Court with the attorneys arguing the actual cases for the public interest side. The judges will be ex-justices of the New Jersey Supreme Court, retired Appellate Division judges, and various law professors and experts in the respective areas of law. After the mock arguments, the justices and our class will analyze the arguments to help the attorneys prepare for their actual Supreme Court appearances.

 

Death and Dying Seminar (2) Treats various legal issues relating to the handling of dying medical patients. These include: the definition of death; the scope of competent patients' rights; interests of hunger strikers; active euthanasia; decision-making standards for incompetent patients; advance medical directives; and decisions for never-competent persons such as defective newborns.

Elder Law Seminar (2) Elder law has been part of the curriculum since 1983-84 when the law school was among only a handful to anticipate the emergence of this new area of law. The legal community now recognizes that elder law, while not yet fully delineated, can be a self-contained area of practice in which attorneys may have to deal with their clients holistically. In addition, firms and solo practitioners recognize they can no longer conduct "business as usual" with their older clients without regard to the complex of federal and state statutory and administrative laws and public and private institutions to which older Americans are beholden for their daily existence. This seminar explores the resources, issues, and substantive law in representation of older Americans in their quest for economic and personal independence. Topics include income maintenance through devices in the public and private sectors; the maintenance of autonomy in the face of increasing vulnerability through use of surrogate decision-making devices; problems of health care and housing; and concerns for dying.

Election Law and Political Process Seminar (2) A practicum in politics and the electoral process. Examines federal and state constraints on political campaigning, with emphasis on the Federal Election Campaign Act. Among topics to be considered are presidential campaigning and the Electoral College; fundraising and reporting in federal elections; political activity by business and labor organizations; operation of political action committees; grassroots organizing and campaigning; the Federal Voting Rights Act and voter registration; broadcast regulation; election law reform; ballot access; the right to vote; election day operations; counting the votes and challenging the results; and political patronage.

Energy Law Seminar (2) Explores legal issues surrounding the production, transportation, and use of energy. Emphasis will be placed on the economic and environmental effects of various uses and forms of energy. Particular attention will be paid to worldwide changes in the ownership and regulation of energy utilities and to international aspects of oil and gas exploration.

Financial Institutions Seminar (2) Examines current issues affecting regulations of different institutions providing financial services, specifically focusing on the impact of deregulation on the financial services industry, the existing regulatory structure (administered by the SEC, federal and state bank regulators, stock exchanges and securities organizations), and recent proposals for functional regulations of financial products. Prerequisite: Business Associations.

Free Speech Seminar (2) This seminar examines the doctrinal treatment of the freedom of speech by the Supreme Court. Topics include incorporation, subversive advocacy, sexually explicit expression, commercial speech, time, place and manner regulations, hate speech, speech in public schools, compelled speech, campaign finance reform, freedom of the press, and freedom of association.

Gender and the Law Seminar (2) Explores the intersections of law, gender, and sexuality through the frameworks of constitutional law, antidiscrimination law, family law, and legal theory. Topics include employment discrimination, reproductive rights, intimate relationships, violence, and pornography. The seminar will explore throughout these topics legal and social constructions of gender and sexuality; privacy; autonomy; and the intersections of gender, sexuality, class, race, and ethnicity.

Gender, Work, and Public Policy Seminar (2) Focuses on the legal and public policy aspects of gender and work affecting the lives of 21st-century American women. Building on a review and analysis of the historical and cultural background, the seminar will consider the impact of the labor movement and the protectionist laws of the early 20th century, followed by an examination of the effects on women of the equal employment opportunity laws of the latter part of the century, as well as public policy efforts such as the Glass Ceiling Initiative.

Hate Crime Law Seminar: Race Theory and Law (2) Current critical race theory perspectives on the democratic development of multicultural societies. We will explore the use of narratives in advancing a critique of American society, the limitations imposed by hate crime here and in other comparable societies experiencing conflicts over who are citizens and who belongs.

History of American Corporate Governance Seminar (2) Covers the history of corporate governance and regulation from the framing of the Constitution to the adoption of the New Deal era securities acts. Topics may include theories of the corporate form, the development of general incorporation statutes, innovations in corporate organization, political opposition to corporations, corporate corruption and scandals, women and corporations, the creation of a managerial class, the rise of corporate lawyering, the landmark role of New Jersey in state corporate regulation, and the origins of federal regulation of public companies.

Inmate Advocacy Seminar (2) Explores basic substantive rights that individuals retain while detained and imprisoned by the government. Identifies the constitutional and statutory bases for inmate rights and the hurdles to enforcement of such rights from the 1996 Prisoner Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Topics include theoretical and practical differences, if any, between rights retained by two categories of inmates: the rights of detainees who are held in municipal or county jails on charges before trial, conviction, and sentencing, and the rights of prisoners confined in county jails or state prisons after conviction and sentencing. Various types of rights and their sources are analyzed, from minimum constitutional standards to rights based on corrections regulations and public health codes. Specifically, topics explored include health care, methods of communication such as mail and visits, the scope of religious freedom, body searches, excessive force, and overcrowding.

Inner-City Economic Development Seminar (2) Economic Discrimination and Communitywide Planning in the Urban Context: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Problem Solving. Why has the economic plight of inner-city neighborhoods remained so intractable? How can legal approaches work to combat redlining while stimulating growth? This seminar examines the myths, realities, and conventional interventions applicable to the inner-city landscape. Drawing upon multiple areas of the law, including civil rights models, land use, local government and consumer laws, students develop and defend workable approaches to planning and legal advocacy.

Institutional Reform Litigation Seminar (2) Explores the use of litigation as a vehicle for transformative institutional change on behalf of poor and disenfranchised constituencies. It will examine the role of substantive law, legal procedure and advocacy in advancing client interests as a group. Looking beyond judicial forums, the seminar will examine litigation as a form of public advocacy, as a means to lobby government and as a means to communicate with the press and educate the public. It will consider how recovering attorney's fees relates to the success or failure of institutional reform. As a model, the seminar will focus on an era of litigation over the last 30 years to change conditions, programs, management and even the governance of jails and prisons, and other law enforcement practices. It will evaluate whether such litigation led to successful periods of institutional reform or created a backlash against perceived judicial activism that diminished the ability of lawyers to protect individual rights. The seminar will include practical considerations in the drafting and functions of a complaint, the assembly of evidence from public documents and client testimony, obtaining discovery and admissions from defendants, the role of experts, initiating and managing negotiations, achieving resolution through trial or consent orders, and the monitoring and enforcement of structural injunctions and other remedial court orders.

International Labor Law Seminar (2) Labor rights and standards applicable across national boundaries and administered by transnational authorities. International organizations that deal (or fail to deal) with labor rights (ILO, WTO, IMF, World Bank); worker rights clauses in U.S. trade laws and agreements; labor rights and standards under the NAFTA labor side agreement and Mercosur; codes of conduct developed by private companies and their enforcement; problems litigating international labor disputes in U.S. courts.

International Law and Terrorism Seminar (2) Explores a number of basic questions: What is "terrorism"? Is the term legally meaningful? What other terminology could be used to denote the same phenomena? How can this type of violence be effectively punished and prevented? What is the role of the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations in this process? What is the role of international law such as treaties, customary international law, general principles? What are the roles of individual states? What limitations does international law place on the means that may be used to respond to such violence?

International Protection of Human Rights Seminar (2) Provides an overview of the international legal and institutional system for the protection of human rights. Material is looked at both from an academic perspective and from the point of view of the human rights practitioner, tackling difficult theoretical issues in the field as well as assessing the practical strengths and weaknesses of human rights law.

International Women's Human Rights Seminar (2) Examines questions of women's human rights in international perspective. One of the most important developments in international law in the last two decades has been its increasing recognition of the universality and centrality of women's rights. We will examine women's civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights under international law. Topics will include the Women's Convention, cultural relativism, religious fundamentalism and women's rights, the impact of armed conflict on women, the role of women's organizations, women's economic rights and empowerment, and violence against women.

 

Judicial Valuation Seminar (2) Some of the theories, methodologies, processes, and strategies employed by litigants and courts in legal valuation disputes. Doctrinal areas covered may include corporate appraisal rights, eminent domain, equitable distribution of marital property, estate tax, damages for antitrust violations, torts, breach of contract, securities fraud, and infringement of intellectual property rights. Students will be required to perform original empirical research concerning how valuation disputes are resolved in a specific doctrinal context and to present their findings to the seminar both orally and in a written paper.

Juvenile Justice Seminar (2) Examines the state's treatment of children and adolescents accused of unlawful behavior. Students will study the creation and evolution of the juvenile justice system in historical context. That exploration begins by assessing the legal, social, and historical underpinnings of the juvenile justice system at its creation in 1899, as well as the turn of the century assumptions about childhood, punishment, and the judiciary's parens patriae responsibilities. Ultimately the historical exploration focuses on the late 20th century ideological and institutional evolution of the juvenile court. Students will consider the United States Supreme Court's recognition of certain due process rights for juveniles, its subsequent rejection of others, and the ongoing effort to reconcile the often competing goals of rehabilitation, punishment, and procedural protection. The course would then turn to current issues and challenges facing the juvenile justice system, including: (1) the criminalization of youthful offending (e.g., waiver and transfer, erosion of confidentiality, and sentencing); (2) the unique obligations of juvenile defense counsel; (3) institutional reform litigation; (4) disproportionate representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system; and (5) efforts to integrate social sciences and medical adolescent development research with juvenile justice policy and practice. The course will include student participation in one or two simulation exercises (for example, a juvenile court detention hearing).

Labor and Employment Arbitration Seminar (2) This seminar considers practice and procedure in public and private sector labor arbitration, and mandatory arbitration agreements for nonunion employees. The purpose of the seminar is to study the practical and legal aspects of the arbitration process and to consider the differences between labor arbitration in a union setting and mandatory arbitration for nonunion employees. Among the topics discussed will be sources of arbitration law, discovery techniques, submission of an issue to arbitration, conduct of the hearing, rules of evidence, burdens of proof, remedies, and the enforcement and vacation of an arbitrator's award. Each student is required to attend one actual arbitration and to write a posthearing brief. Guest lecturers include a labor arbitrator and a Superior Court judge.

Labor Negotiations Seminar (2) Presents an overview of the case law in the public and private sectors on negotiations practice and procedure, and a practical application of the law. Students initially participate in a few short mock negotiations. For the remainder of the semester, students are broken into teams and negotiate an actual labor contract. The last day of the semester students negotiate, as in actual labor negotiations, until a final agreement is reached. Students will each be required to write a memorandum of agreement memorializing the agreement reached. During the semester, students are required to solve a few short problems regarding scope of negotiations issues that grow out of semester-long negotiations. They are required to research a short legal memorandum for each problem. Guest lecturers include a mediator and a union and/or management negotiator.

Law and Gender in American History Seminar (2) Explores the intersections of gender and law in American history. Among the topics covered are the status of women in the colonial era; gender and the American Revolution; the 19th-century woman's rights movement and the campaign for suffrage; gender and racial segregation in the post-Reconstruction South; 20th-century organizing for the right to birth control and abortion; race, class, gender, and the law of sexual consent; conflicts over obscenity and pornography; and the experience of women in the legal profession.

 

Literature of Law and Markets Seminar (2) This is a readings and research seminar. We will read two kinds of works: works of literature or literary quality works about law and the market in American history. The works will range from Charles Francis Adams' Chapters of Erie about the railroad scandals of the 19th century to Liar's Poker about the investment banking world of the 1980s. We will explore how these works either captured the public imagination and helped change law or how they describe situations in which legal reform followed. A class presentation of a work and a paper will be expected.

 

Moral Puzzles of Criminal Law Seminar (2) This seminar will explore and compare a number of legal and moral concepts. Can someone "cause" a result by doing nothing? How should the law treat a person who did the right thing but for a wrong reason? Should people be able to consent to actions that would hurt them? These are only some of the questions that will be discussed at this seminar. In addition to cases and theoretical works, the seminar materials include movies, popular legal nonfiction, and news stories.

Public Education Law Seminar (2) Deals with the basic legal structure of the public education system and explores a range of current legal and educational policy issues confronting the public schools. These include: various aspects of equal educational opportunity such as school finance reform, and racial and socioeconomic diversity; state-local district relations and responsibility for the quality of education provided; student rights; and pupil classification and other means to meet special pupil needs. To a substantial degree, the seminar uses pending cases and legislative developments to illuminate the issues.

Public Interest Advocacy Seminar (2) Involves a survey of major areas of public interest advocacy, with a number of guest speakers from areas ranging from international human rights to gay rights, women's rights, terrorism and civil liberties, and racism. Speakers will discuss current issues in their fields, need for reform, and employment opportunities. The seminar will also handle the law school's annual Voter Assistance Project, in which students each spend several hours at the Essex County Courthouse on Election Day in November representing citizens who need a court order in order to vote. Accountability will be to prepare a report on some aspect of public interest law which you would like to influence during your first five years out of law school, including a plan for accomplishing the proposed reform, e.g., preparing a grant application or convincing a law firm to allow you to do this as a pro bono project.

Race, Gender, and Tort Law Seminar (2) Explores how harms involving race and gender are treated under tort law. Attempts to define the nature of race and gender-based injuries, and evaluate the adequacy of existing tort law to address them. Through an examination of specific topics, such issues as the effect of race and gender on the development of causes of action and standards of conduct, the relationship between tort law and civil rights remedies, and questions involving damages and nondiscrimination in jury selection are considered. Problems of essentialism and the intersection of race and gender will be addressed.

Race Law Theory Seminar (2) Explores the theoretical underpinnings of the treatment of race in American law, with a special emphasis on the accommodation of competing constitutional values, such as the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause.

Race, Literature, and Critical Thinking Seminar (2) Examines law and human experience through a variety of texts, many nonlegal and most literary, in a broad intellectual effort analyzing the dynamics of voice and power as they are transmitted by and filtered through legal conventions. The works of classical authors, such as Tolstoy and Melville, will be read along with contemporary writers, such as Sapphire and Hisaye Yamamoto. The human conflicts presented in their fictional narratives will be compared to nonfictional texts as well as case law for the modes of argument and application of rules employed in different formats. Our explorations will be aided by an introduction to critical theory--primarily postmodern and critical race theory--in order to facilitate alternative readings of how the law and lawyering may operate in different contexts within American culture.

Science and International Law Seminar (2) This seminar explores international and comparative law aspects of scientific advances, with particular focus on biotechnology. It will consider issues in the areas of international trade, patent law, international public health, and international environmental law. A science background is not required.

Supreme Court Term Seminar (2) Follows the work of the current term of the U.S. Supreme Court. The week-to-week assignments are largely determined by what the court is actually doing, but from time to time we will: review the docket of pending cases; recapitulate and analyze what the court has done since the opening of the term in October; review petitions for certiorari pending before the court and vote on which ones should be granted; read briefs in and discuss pending, undecided cases (you will be asked to predict the outcome, voting alignments, and likely theories of decision); and read and critique new decisions as they are issued. 

Transnational Labor Standards Seminar (2) Numerous public and private institutions attempt to regulate basic labor conditions in countries with low labor standards. The seminar will examine these institutions critically, examining for each the law, the actual achievements, and the theoretical potential in light of economics of trade. We will start with a brief introduction to the economics of trade, critically examining such concepts as comparative advantage, the race to the bottom, and game-theory models of trade. We will then examine the following public and private institutions that attempt to regulate labor standards: the International Labor Organization and its standards; U.S. employment laws with extraterritorial effects; health and safety standards enforced in U.S. tort suits (such as the banana pesticide litigation); labor standards enforced under the Alien Tort Statute; labor standards in U.S. trade laws, such as antidumping laws and the Generalized System of Preferences; labor standards in trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and U.S.-Cambodia Textile Agreement; proposals to add labor standards to the trade rules enforced by the World Trade Organization; labor standards enforced by international lending institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund; restrictions on human trafficking; transnational union cooperation and the resulting labor standards; and corporate codes of conduct and other labor standards unilaterally maintained by corporations, often in response to consumer pressure by activists.

Weapons of Mass Destruction Seminar (2) Examines global legal regimes on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Biological Weapons Convention. Topics include the state of compliance with nonpossession requirements and with the obligation of good-faith negotiation of nuclear disarmament applicable to the United States and certain other nuclear-armed states; mechanisms for bringing violator states into compliance; the nature and adequacy of verification arrangements; law governing threat or use of weapons of mass or indiscriminate destruction; prevention of terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction; and the status of relevant international legal obligations in U.S. law. Some attention is given to regulation of land mines, cluster bombs, and other weapons often characterized as indiscriminate.