Course Catalog

This seminar will introduce students to the nature and function of the military justice system and contemporary issues in military law. Selected topics will include an introduction to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the law of armed conflict, rules of engagement, court-martial jurisdiction, unique military offenses and defenses, First Amendment rights of military personnel, conscientious objection, the special role of commanders in the military legal system, efforts to reform the military justice system, Guantanamo and military commissions, military vaccination requirements, and military ethics. Throughout the course we will analyze and evaluate tensions among individual rights, military standards, and national security requirements; think critically about the similarities and differences between civilian and military justice; and, reflect on the vitality of military law in the 21st century. Class will be centered on robust discussion informed by readings, response papers, and occasional media presentations. This class is open to all students interested in engaging the subject matter — a military or national security background is not required.

• Type: Seminar

Compensation at law for private wrongs and intentional wrongs as well as accidents, with principal emphasis on harms to person and property. Special areas such as product liability, defamation, or business torts will be treated selectively.

• Type: First Year Required

In this practice simulation course, students will begin to develop the skills needed to represent clients in business transactions. Among other things, the course covers translation of client business objectives into legal concepts and enforceable contract language that is clear, consistent, and concise. Students will learn how to analyze a contract from the client’s perspective, with an eye to advancing the client’s interests and protecting the client as much as possible from risk. The practice simulation course also identifies how attorneys can use drafting techniques and the negotiation process to resolve issues and improve outcomes for clients. Students will engage in simulations and exercises in class and undertake drafting assignments outside of class, including communications with clients and opposing counsel about contract terms, risks, and potential resolutions.

• Type: Practice Simulation

An examination of the legal, social, and political issues raised by the status and treatment of transgender persons, primarily but not exclusively in the United States. Questions of sex, gender, sexuality, identity, and discrimination are considered. Issues and cases arising in contexts including employment, housing, health care, assault including sexual assault, marriage, parenting, military, prisons, schools, and immigration are focused, with particular attention to gender. Selected experiences in the lives of trans people, recounted in their own voices, are featured.

• Type: Seminar

First of two courses dealing with donative disposition of property. Involves the study of (a) the law of intestate succession and marital property rights as a limitation on the power to devise; (b) the law of wills, with emphasis on execution and revocation, and including problems arising from changes after execution, as well as problems involving the use of will substitutes; and (c) the law of trusts, in both its functional and technical aspects, including the essential ingredients of a trust, its creation and termination, formal requirements, the nature of a beneficiary’s interest, the special features of charitable trusts, and some significant problems of trust administration.

• Type: Upper Class

The Veterans Legal Clinic offers students the opportunity to learn holistic, client-centered lawyering through representing military veterans in a broad array of civil legal matters. While some of the cases the VLC handles are specific to this client population, such as veterans benefits cases and discharge upgrades, the majority of the clinic’s cases involve broader civil legal issues, including family law, housing, consumer disputes, financial exploitation, disability, employment, public benefits, etc. The clinic seeks to foster in its students a strong professional identity, advocacy skills, and consistent engagement in reflective, intentional practice while providing excellent legal services to a severely underserved population. Students will take the lead in all aspects of their cases, including client interviews, pleading drafting, fact investigation, discovery, negotiation, court hearings, and trials. Students will also have the opportunity to interact professionally with a wide variety of social service, medical, mental health, and other providers in the effort to meet their clients’ needs. The Veterans Legal Clinic meets the New York Pro Bono requirement.
Students must enroll for the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. The Veterans Legal Clinic is a 7-credit course; all credits are graded.
The Clinic seminar fulfills the Law School’s professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

The Veterans Legal Clinic offers students the opportunity to learn holistic, client-centered lawyering through representing military veterans in a broad array of civil legal matters. While some of the cases the VLC handles are specific to this client population, such as veterans benefits cases and discharge upgrades, the majority of the clinic’s cases involve broader civil legal issues, including family law, housing, consumer disputes, financial exploitation, disability, employment, public benefits, etc. The clinic seeks to foster in its students a strong professional identity, advocacy skills, and consistent engagement in reflective, intentional practice while providing excellent legal services to a severely underserved population. Students will take the lead in all aspects of their cases, including client interviews, pleading drafting, fact investigation, discovery, negotiation, court hearings, and trials. Students will also have the opportunity to interact professionally with a wide variety of social service, medical, mental health, and other providers in the effort to meet their clients’ needs. The Veterans Legal Clinic meets the New York Pro Bono requirement.
Students must enroll for the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently. The Veterans Legal Clinic is a 7-credit course; all credits are graded.
The Clinic seminar fulfills the Law School’s professional responsibility requirement for graduation, but does not fulfill the New York State Bar ethics requirement.

• Type: Clinic

This seminar will examine the United Nations Security Council’s Women Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in the context of contemporary forms of conflict and insecurity. It will explain the evolution of the agenda and provide a detailed examination of the agenda’s legal foundations in international law: International Humanitarian Law, International Criminal Law and International Human Rights Law, especially the Human Rights of Women. It will also focus on the so-called four pillars of Women Peace and Security: women’s participation in the prevention, management and resolution of conflict, protection against sexual violence in conflict, prevention of sexual violence in conflict, and relief and recovery. It will offer a critical perspective on these issues, including on the role of national implementation through National Action Plans.

• Type: Seminar

Each year, hundreds of workers are unfairly denied their statutory right to state unemployment insurance benefits. This clinic offers a unique opportunity for second semester, first-year law students to fight on their behalf.
Under faculty supervision, WRC I students represent recently unemployed workers in their unemployment benefits claims. In this role, they will have significant opportunities to interview and counsel clients, conduct fact investigations, write and file appeals, and handle hearings.
Students will quickly develop key lawyering skills in this 2-3 credit clinic. Each student team will have multiple cases to work on throughout the term, depending on case complexity and procedural status, and typically get to first-chair at least one administrative hearing via telephone during the semester. These proceedings allow students to perform direct and cross examination of live witnesses, make objections, handle exhibits, and deliver opening and closing statements, all before an administrative law judge. Because worker claims for unemployment are typically contested by the former employer through counsel, these hearings provide an excellent introduction to real-world lawyering.
Students have weekly faculty supervision sessions in which they review and plan strategy for their assigned cases and learn how to organize and manage a docket. Class meets regularly for the first four weeks of term. Additional class sessions may be scheduled on an as-needed basis.
This clinic is a prerequisite to taking WRC Litigation in your second or third year. Students earn two to three ungraded credits for their work. (Note — this course is offered as a 2-credit add-on elective to 1L schedules or for 3 credits if WRC Research is added, in which case it fulfills the 1L mandatory elective requirement. Both are ungraded.)

• Type: Clinic

Research to earn credit for additional work in the Workers’ Rights Clinic I.

• Type: Clinic

The Zell Entrepreneurship Clinic (ZEC) supports the University’s burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystem by representing student-led entrepreneurial ventures as well as local startups and small businesses. Student attorneys in the ZEC encounter real-world transactional lawyering experiences with a focus on developing a business-oriented, client-centered mindset.
The ZEC offers transactional and counseling legal services to startups and established small companies in the following areas:
* Selecting and forming a legal entity and structuring ownership and capital
* Counseling on and prosecuting intellectual property matters (e.g., copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret)
* Drafting and negotiating contracts
* Advising on employment matters
* Assisting on corporate fundraising and finance issues
Students in the ZEC typically represent multiple clients and assume primary responsibility for all client matters under the close supervision of ZEC faculty. Student attorneys plan client matters; interview and counsel clients; draft various legal agreements, documents, correspondence and memos; prosecute patent and trademark applications; and identify and research legal issues to help their clients implement their decisions. Student attorneys also take turns offering community office hours where they provide legal information to local entrepreneurs. Furthermore, student attorneys are exposed to the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem through attendance of local events as a class. During the weekly seminar sessions, students discuss lawyering skills and values, ethical issues, client issues and some substantive law. Student attorneys review and reflect on their work and receive detailed feedback from ZEC faculty during weekly supervision meetings.
There are no prerequisites for taking the ZEC. Because much of the client work will be in corporate, tax, intellectual property, employment, and other business areas, students will likely find prior course work in those areas helpful.

• Type: Clinic