Course Description: Introduction to basic concepts of the law, the historical roots of common law and equity, the precedent system in its practical operation, the modes of reasoning used by courts and attorneys, and the fundamentals of statutory interpretation.

Course Description: History and fundamental principles of the United States legal system. Important current legal issues, developments and trends. Required for LL.M. students who have not attended a U.S. law school. Fall semester only.

Course Description: Designed to provide basic skills necessary to succeed in both law school and legal practice.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Designed to provide basic skills necessary to succeed in both law school and legal practice.

Course Description: Lab which accompanies Lawyering Skills course for first-year law students.

Course Description: Hone interactive lawyering skills needed for effective transactional and litigation work, including client interviewing and negotiation. Learn the role that interpersonal skills play in effective lawyering and contemplate the professional identity they wish to cultivate.

Course Description: Study of doctrines and concepts of property law with primary emphasis on real property. Coverage includes: the estates in land system; the landlord-tenant relationship, conveyancing, and private and public land use control.

Prerequisite(s): AAS 010; LAW 200A; or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Examines sorts of promises that are enforced and the nature of protection given promissory obligations in both commercial and noncommercial transactions. Inquiry is made into the means by which traditional doctrine adjusts or fails to adjust to changing social demands.

Course Description: Study of the fundamental and recurrent problems in civil actions including the methods used by federal and state courts to resolve civil disputes.

Course Description: Familiarizes students with legal rules, concepts and approaches pertinent to the recovery for personal injuries, property damages and harm done to intangible interests.

Course Description: Principles, doctrines and controversies regarding the basic structure of and division of powers in American government. Specific topics include judicial review, jurisdiction, standing to sue, federalism, federal and state powers and immunities, and the separation of powers among the branches of the federal government.

Course Description: Study of the bases and limits of criminal liability. Coverage of the constitutional, statutory, and case law rules which define, limit, and provide defenses to individual liability for the major criminal offenses.

Course Description: Integrated legal research and writing skills course taught by Wydick Fellowship Program faculty. Basic legal research resources and strategies are introduced and practiced. Fall semester.

Course Description: Description of the evolution and use of sources of law and secondary authority.

Course Description: Introduction to advanced legal research tools and techniques used in practice.

Course Description: Includes lectures and in-class exercises working with print, and electronic, legal research materials to prepare responses to various fact patterns. Extensive use of real-world case scenarios to mimic conditions likely encountered by legal practitioners. Half of the course time is lecture; half is in-class practical assignments or discussion designed to enhance the students’ understanding of the concepts introduced.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 207; LAW 208.

Course Description: Includes lectures and in-class exercises working with print, and electronic, legal research materials to prepare responses to various fact patterns. Extensive use of real-world case scenarios to mimic conditions likely encountered by legal practitioners working in the intellectual property legal practice.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 207; LAW 208.

Course Description: Introduction to tools and research strategies needed for the practice of transactional law. Learn the methods, databases, and specialized materials available for transactional law research..

Course Description: Focuses on persuasive writing and oral advocacy. Complete integrated research and writing assignments, including a complaint, a strategic defense office memorandum, a motion to dismiss in federal court, and an appellate brief, with oral arguments by all students.

Course Description: Persuasive writing and oral advocacy. LL.M. students complete integrated research and writing assignments, including a complaint, a strategic defense office memorandum, a motion to dismiss in federal court, and an appellate brief with oral arguments.

Course Description: Designed to provide foreign students with background skills at a more basic level than U.S. Legal Methods A and B. Audit carefully selected courses in the regular curriculum and complete assignments related to those courses.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Designed to provide foreign students with background skills at a more basic level than U.S. Legal Methods A and B. Audit carefully selected courses in the regular curriculum and complete assignments related to those courses.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Designed to provide foreign and other students with background skills necessary to succeed in both law school and legal practice.

Course Description: Description of the evolution and use of sources of law and secondary authority.

Course Description: Improve legal writing skills with a focus on law school essay exams. Focuses on the following skills: 1) how to understand the goals of a US law school exam and the expectations of the professor; 2) how to structure an answer logically; 3) how to write clearly; 4) how to explain reasoning and discuss complex legal issues. Experiential class.

Course Description: Improve legal writing skills with a focus on bar essay exams. Focuses on the following skills: 1) How to understand the goals of a US bar; 2) How to structure an answer logically; 3) How to write clearly; 4) How to explain reasoning and discuss complex legal issues. Experiential class.

Course Description: Covers all essential aspects of patent law, including: prosecution, post-grant proceedings, patentable subject matter, utility, enablement & description, novelty, statutory bars, nonobviousness, infringement, and remedies.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 274; or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Examines core requirements and strategies for drafting and prosecuting a patent application before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Interact with real inventors and US PTO examiners to gain the experience of getting a patent issued.

Course Description: Analyze if an invention is directed to patentable subject matter, identify prior art, analyze patentability, and draft and electronically file a provisional patent application with the US Patent & Trademark office.

Prerequisite(s): Patent Law as pre-requisite or co-requisite.

Course Description: In-depth look at recent cases and debates behind genetic patenting, software; business models; diagnostic methods, and others. Reviews the crucial and rapidly evolving field of patent law which affects some of the most important hi-tech industries.

Course Description: Explores range of legal issues that innovation lawyers face, from establishing a start-up to high stakes technology mergers & acquisitions, to data protection and privacy, protecting intellectual property through strategic patent litigation.

Course Description: Introduces the basics of Patent Law and examines the U.S. patent enforcement system. Learn how a patent litigation proceeds, focusing on both pre- and post-trial proceedings and examines substantive patent laws.

Course Description: Skills-based course develops advocacy skills using the often case-critical patent claim construction process and hearing as a framework. Learn how to distill highly technical material into content more easily understood by a judge.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 274; Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Seminar evaluates the privacy law issues that arise from technological advancements and data trade transactions. Likely topics that the course will cover include the Internet of Things and legal responses to privacy related problems, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018.

Course Description: From biomedicine to cleantech, public institutions are playing leading roles in developing cutting-edge technologies. Explores the law and policy of publicly-supported innovation and technology transfer.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 209A or LAW 274, recommended but not required.

Course Description: Focus on major current issues: policing ethnic neighborhoods; use of deadly force; modernizing the work of prosecutors and defense counsel.

Course Description: Analyze the legal, historical, and sociological aspects of the growing private sector provision of criminal justice services traditionally assumed by government, including prisons, policing, and adjudication.

Prerequisite(s): Prior social theory or ciminal procedure knowledge not required; completion of LAW 227A strongly recommended.

Course Description: What are the expectations and roles of the police in a democratic society? We need order maintenance and crime control, but to assume these tasks the police sometimes intrude upon interests considered fundamental to free societies.

Course Description: Criminal law of sexual assault, traditional and modern offenses, and proposals for reform. Discussion of procedural developments, victim’s counsel, evidentiary reform, and ADR. Implications for civil law, tort liability, Title VI, Title IX, and civil liability of perpetrators.

Course Description: Explores ways political units in different countries attempt to maintain social order and advance criminal justice. Examine people, policies, and institutions responsible for adjudicating alleged criminal law violations around the globe, learning how rules of professional responsibility and legal ethics guide the behavior of institutional actors who participate in criminal processes. Engage in research, formal presentations, and produce a publishable final paper.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 227A recommended, but not required.

Course Description: Explore the magnitude and complexity of the wrongful convictions, their causes and remedies under existing law, and possible fixes (reforms). Emphasizes relevant legal rules (Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Post-Conviction Review).

Course Description: Explores key issues in the historical development and the current state of modern American imprisonment, policing structures, and the criminal justice system in relation to race.

Course Description: Explore both the theory and practice of restorative justice as an alternative approach to the retributive justice model of our current criminal law system and many other institutions.

Course Description: Part one of a two-part practicum. Learn about restorative justice principles and practices, receive training in restorative justice facilitation, and participate in and lead restorative justice circles in Davis & Sacramento schools, Yolo County Juvenile Hall, and other venues.

Course Description: Part two of a two-part practicum. Learn the principles and practices of restorative justice, receive training in restorative justice facilitation, participate in & conduct restorative justice circles with young people in Davis & Sacramento schools and the Yolo County Juvenile Hall.

Course Description: Learn about restorative justice principles and practices, receive training in restorative justice facilitation, and participate in and lead restorative justice circles in Davis & Sacramento schools, Yolo County Juvenile Hall, and other venues.

Course Description: Work on actual federal criminal cases in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and United States Supreme Court. File briefs amicus curiae on critical issues, and develop research, writing, and oral advocacy skills.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 219; LAW 227A; both required or consent of instructor.

Course Description: The Criminal Justice System continues to evolve as perceptions regarding judges, police officers and criminal attorneys change. Analyzes how our sense of justice is formed and what it looks like in the actual practice of criminal law.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 206; LAW 227A (can be concurrent).

Course Description: Focuses on the criminal prosecution and defense of sexual assaults, from reporting to sentencing, through examination of pertinent criminal statutes, evidence code sections, jury instructions, court documents and specific case studies.

Course Description: Learn about how different parts of the criminal justice system work and to consider practical solutions to addressing crime in a context where the emphasis on incarceration is declining.

Course Description: Review individual cases for District Attorney offices for possible Prosecutor-Initiated Resentencing (PIR), a post-conviction remedy designed to address excessive sentences, reduce mass incarceration, and advance racial justice.

Course Description: King Hall Post-Conviction Practicum students learn to effectively represent indigent and incarcerated individuals in the post-conviction process, with an emphasis on direct appeals in the California Court of Appeal and/or the California Supreme Court.

Course Description: Students who completed one semester of the Criminal Justice Practicum will work on claims of innocence, wrongful conviction, and other miscarriages of justice. Students will draft papers for prosecutors' offices, will make formal internal presentations, and possibly appear in court.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 210N.

Course Description: Work on federal criminal appeals in the Ninth Circuit, partnering with the Federal Defender's Office in the Eastern District. Requires researching legal issues, thinking about appellate strategy, and drafting sections of briefs.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 206 and LAW 227A recommended.

Course Description: Skills course teaches theoretical and empirical approaches to negotiation strategy for the purposes of making deals and resolving disputes. Participate in simulations to hone their negotiation skills, and write analytical papers.

Course Description: Understand the dynamics of interviewing and counseling process. Designed to be relevant to a broad spectrum of negotiation problems that are faced by legal professionals.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Structured around a simulated negotiation exercise with students from a similar class at Stanford Law School. Experience the development of a business transaction over an extended negotiation in a context that replicates actual legal practice.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215 (can be concurrent); prior or concurrent enrollment in Business Associations (LAW 215) required; prior enrollment in Negotiations (LAW 211) and/or International Business Transactions (LAW 270) preferred.

Course Description: Business negotiation and dispute resolution strategies through simulations, reading, and writing assignments.

Course Description: Negotiation simulation intended to produce a multinational convention on a subject to be determined that is timely and meaningfully contributes to the real-world discourse. Begins with lectures/discussions of the fundamentals of treaty law. Followed by the class seeking Circular-175 authorization to enter into negotiations, and a variety of written and oral exercises/simulations leading to eventual conclusion of a multinational instrument.

Course Description: Introduction to cross-cultural negotiation and mediation in international business. Numerous guest appearances by non-U.S. lawyers and business professionals. Simulated negotiation exercises.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 202 recommended.

Course Description: Considers the many ways in which society seeks to establish and maintain quality in patient care.

Course Description: Examines the laws responses to a particular aspect of globalization, transnational crime. Explore the phenomenon of transnationality and how it affects the power of nation-states, acting alone or together, to prosecute certain crimes.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 205; LAW 206.

Course Description: International terrorism remains a pressing concern. Devising effective remedies for responding to it within the bounds of the law is critical. The new generation of international lawyers needs to be familiar with the relevant law and standards.

Course Description: Tax issues Related to estate planning.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 221 recommended.

Course Description: Explores workers’ and prospective workers’ choices to move from one place to another, both across and within national borders. In particular, explores how tax policy and broader economic forces shape those choices.

Course Description: Legal rules and concepts applicable to business associations, both public and closely held. Corporate form of organization, partnerships and other associational forms.

Course Description: Advanced issues in the governance of publicly held corporations. Separation of ownership and control and how the law has addressed this issue at the theoretical level and in the context of topics such as the duties of corporate directors, shareholder voting rights, and competition among states to attract corporate charters.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215.

Course Description: Equips future business lawyers with the legal knowledge and technical skills to better understand, the U.S, European and Asian (select jurisdictions) regulatory responses to ethical and socially responsible corporate governance practices. Instruction seeks to re-define the aim of corporate governance as a tool to address efficiency, reduce agency costs and improve access to capital, as well as an emerging anti-corruption tool and a means to ensure more ethical corporate behavior.

Course Description: Provides a broad survey of the legal rules and concepts applicable to business associations, both public and closely held. Principal attention given to the corporate form of organization, although partnerships and other associational forms are also treated briefly.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: The pandemic, racial injustice, income inequality, and climate change have heightened the demands for companies to minimize their negative externalities. Explore how these stakeholder demands are shifting business practices, and transforming corporate law.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215 (can be concurrent).

Course Description: Climate change is redefining corporate law. Through case studies of the business and investment community, we will explore the intersection of business law and climate risk and discuss and debate how the climate crisis is impacting traditional corporate law paradigms.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215 (can be concurrent); or LAW 215C (can be concurrent).

Course Description: Fundamentals of corporate governance. 2023 version of the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance. Anglo-American, European, Asia Pacific, African, Latin American, and Emerging Countries systems. Global challenges and corporate governance.

Course Description: Exposure to recent developments in business law, with a focus on key developments in corporate law, securities, and antitrust. The subjects of inquiry will draw from issues at both the frontier of academic research and legal practice.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215 or LAW 215C.

Course Description: Introduction into governance, risk management and compliance in business organization. Focuses on common legal and regulatory frameworks underpinning compliance programs and will use recent case studies to examine effective and failed compliance programs.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215 (can be concurrent)

Course Description: Provides a broad survey of the legal rules and concepts applicable to business associations, both public and closely.

Course Description: Federal constitutional law relating to religion; the interpretation and application of the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Course Description: Covers the following topics: I. Insurance Law and Society, II. The Impact of Insurance, III. Contract Law Foundations, IV. First-Party Insurance, V. Liability Insurance: Coverage Issues, VI. Liability Insurance: Relationship Issues.

Course Description: Explores the key issues facing policy-makers in designing telecommunications regulatory systems (e.g. licensing, universal service, economic regulation, relationship with antitrust law), and the various ways in which different jurisdictions have chosen to address these issues.

Course Description: Principally covers the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause.

Course Description: Focuses on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Course Description: Covers the Free Speech, Free Exercise, and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment. It will examine permissible limits on free speech, the government's obligation to accommodate religious exercise, and the separation of church and state.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Discussion-based course focusing on academic articles, drawn from critical race and critical gender traditions, that examine the doctrine covered in LAW 218A. Choice and sequence of readings are tied to those assigned in LAW 218A.

Prerequisite(s): Must be taken concurrently with LAW 218A; or consent of instructor if previously taken LAW 218 or LAW 218A.

Course Description: Provides students with a broad understanding of the shape of modern constitutional theory, and the ability to understand the implications of that theory for concrete historical and modern constitutional disputes.

Course Description: Study initiative, referendum, and recall, their impact on law and policy in California, and how they can be improved. While learning how they work in practice, examine significant initiatives and recent attempts at recalling elected officials.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 205.

Course Description: Reviews, interpretive meta-rules for constitutional construction, structure and institutions of state government, civil liberties under the Declaration of Rights, the impact of race in California society, and criminal law.

Course Description: Provides an opportunity to analyze modern forms of discrimination, learn about cutting edge developments in this area, and explore effective ways to address these issues through the law.

Course Description: Examines two core themes of Constitutional Law I and Federal Jurisdiction: federalism and separation of powers. Concentrates on habeas corpus and the Eleventh Amendment as vehicles for examining the constitutional themes in greater depth.

Course Description: Study of the separation of powers in our federal government by focusing on certain historical events and their impact on constitutional law.

Course Description: Surveys the law of armed conflict as it applies to today’s battlefields.

Course Description: Offers an overview of federal constitutional and statutory anti-discrimination law in the United States.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Rules regarding the admissibility of testimonial and documentary proof during the trial of civil and criminal cases.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Public interest lawyers often spend much time in the courtroom. Prosecution, defender, and legal aid offices usually don't have resources to train lawyers in trial work. Seeks to help remedy this deficiency by helping develop witness interrogation skills.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 219.

Course Description: Examines the interplay between the significant e-discovery rules and case law, and the process of electronic discovery, beginning with the duty to preserve electronically stored information (ESI), to the search, identification, collection, review and production of ESI in litigation.

Course Description: Covers rules regarding the admissibility of proof during civil & criminal cases, including rules governing relevancy, hearsay, the examination & impeachment of witnesses, expert opinion, and constitutional & statutory privileges.

Course Description: Surveys the federal income tax system, with consideration of the nature of income, when and to whom income is taxable, exclusions from the tax base, deductions and credits, and tax consequences of property ownership and disposition.

Course Description: Introduction to fundamentals of state and local taxation. Beginning with historical and constitutional aspects, analyze recent developments in state and local taxation and their impact on client representation.

Course Description: Explores tax policy as public finance, politics, special interests, and a reflection of society’s biases and priorities. Underscores that tax is constructed and contingent, and exposes students to a generation of “critical tax” scholarship.

Course Description: Guide to dual regulatory system, and an understanding of banks and other financial institutions, such as thrifts, credit unions, industrial banks, finance companies, and money transmitters, as well as large versus community banks.

Course Description: Focuses on the practical and procedural aspects of tax controversy before state and federal tax authorities.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 220 (can be concurrent).

Course Description: Basics of intestate succession and the creation and interpretation of wills and trusts under the Uniform Probate Code and the California Probate Code.

Course Description: Provides the skills to practice law in the area of estate planning and probate/trust administration. Follow an estate planning client and draft actual estate plan documents. A series of related topics will be explored.

Course Description: Examines the relationship between racial power and the law through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT). Explores CRT's contributions and limitations by examining its history and application to contemporary issues in law and society.

Course Description: Explores how the U.S. legal system has treated Latinos in areas such as education, immigration, employment and voting rights.

Course Description: Examines how American Law has shaped Asian Pacific American demographics, experiences, and status in American society.

Course Description: Addresses the impact of large corruption scandals on long term social trust, in light of Indian coal block and 2G spectrum allocation scandals.

Course Description: Examines major cases, statutes and events in U.S. law dealing with non-whites, including African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, Indigenous People, and Latinx People, and the present effects of discrimination.

Course Description: Selected topics in the estates and trusts area. Content varies with instructor.

Course Description: An introduction to legal principles affecting animals and their use.

Course Description: Covers the California community property system, including the property rights of marital and registered domestic partners during the ongoing relationship, and upon the end of the relationship by death or divorce.

Course Description: Examines disability law and theory. Devoted to the Americans with Disabilities Act (particularly Titles I, II, and III) as it applies to employment, education, public accommodations, and government services and programs.

Course Description: Examine the civil and constitutional bases of mental disability law, as well as its history, and explore the role of mental disability in the policing and criminal trial process.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Federal constitutional limits on government authority to gather evidence and investigate crime. Topics include Fourth Amendment limits on search, seizure, and arrest; the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination; and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

Course Description: Examines a range of issues, including bail, charging decisions, preliminary hearings, discovery, statute of limitations, venue, joinder and severance, pleas, plea bargaining, assistance of counsel, trial, double jeopardy, sentencing, appeal and collateral remedies.

Course Description: Advanced criminal law and procedure class aimed at students planning to practice criminal law in California, either as an extern or summer clerk, or after graduation.

Course Description: Introduction to the various legal and business considerations involved in forming and operating an emerging growth business.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215; must be completed, prerequisite will not be waived.

Course Description: Practical approach to mergers and acquisitions, with an in-depth look at the planning, negotiation, documentation and completion of mergers and acquisitions.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215.

Course Description: Exposure to basic principles of accounting, from the perspective of the practicing attorney.

Course Description: Introduction to fundamentals of statistical analysis and how statistical analysis is used in the law and public policy. Goal is to assist in becoming excellent consumers of statistical information and evidence.

Course Description: In addition to examining the evidence law governing the admission of scientific testimony, considers trial advocacy in presenting and attacking such testimony.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 219.

Course Description: Considers the challenge of addressing global environmental problems in a system characterized by multiple sovereign governments, the regulatory limitations of U.S. law, and the basic structure and principles of international environmental law.

Prerequisite(s): Prior course work in environmental law and/or international law is helpful.

Course Description: Surveys the legal landscape of this multi-billion dollar industry, focusing on contemporary debates and developments in judicial, legislative, and administrative arenas.

Course Description: Covers research and practice of "environmental law" to show it is too narrow to adequately address 21st century needs. "Environmental law" often emphasizes public governance interventions without addressing pollution reducing opportunities that lay with private environmental governance. Explores how the legal profession can accelerate progress in addressing the climate crisis by expanding the study of "environmental law" into the broader and more applicable "sustainability law".

Course Description: Focuses on a four-day trip to world-class teaching locations throughout California. Approaches the locations from two distinctly different perspectives: law and environmental science. Learn hands-on water, environmental, and public lands law.

Course Description: Examines the relationship between legal rules relating to trade and rules for the protection of the environment.

Course Description: Examines gender and race and how they are constructed, contested, and regulated within legal, legislative, and juridical frameworks. Includes interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives across legal, sociolegal, and feminist studies. Topics include education, criminal justice, political representation, health and reproductive rights, privacy, civil rights.

Course Description: Examines the legal and social regulation of sexuality and gender.

Course Description: The U.S. military has laws tailored to the mission. As society changes, these laws can limit or promote change. Explore race, gender, and LGBTQ identity though military law and analyze where the military promoted and hindered change.

Course Description: Preparation to participate in Gender & Name Change Project. Assist clients with the legal name and gender change process under attorney supervision. Includes skills building and discussion of the ways that law impacts gender identity.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 231A recommended.

Course Description: Examination of the problems involved in the acquisition, financing, and development of real estate, and of lender remedies and debtor protections in the event of debtor default. Stresses the practical application of California legal doctrines.

Course Description: Review of legal issues in the purchase, sale, financing of residential real estate in US, with non-exclusive focus on California. Roles of parties involved, mechanisms of financing and security, survey of remedies, and role of mortgage lending beginning in 2008.

Course Description: Seminar explores the extent to which property law (common law, federal, state, and local statutes, and administration regulations) historically impacted and currently shapes conceptions of race, racial groups, and racial relations.

Course Description: Seminar covers some of the bedrock legal principles that have informed U.S. asylum and refugee laws, policies and practices in the last 50 years.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 235 LAW 292 recommended.

Course Description: Focuses on five case studies involving the plight of five people who have been forced to flee their homes either due to civil or international wars or based on significant internal human rights violations or climate change.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 233 and human rights law are recommended.

Course Description: Engage with the wide variety of policy and legal issues presented in the area of drug law and policy with a particular focus on one of the fastest-evolving fields in drug policy: marijuana law and policy.

Course Description: Examines how the U.S. Constitution and the federal Administrative Procedure Act constrain and regulate decision making by government agencies and officials.

Course Description: Explores the complex challenges that entrepreneurs, businesses, and other organizations face when trying to address legal issues relating to technology. Approach is both practical and multidisciplinary. Encourages exploring the roles of a wide range of stakeholders (including lawyers, policy advocates and policymakers, businesspersons, and technologists) in developing legal and business strategies.

Course Description: Explore several topics in administrative law (e.g., nondelegation, deference, and judicial vacatur) that have faced increased scrutiny from members of the Supreme Court in recent years, and will assess the arguments for and against revisiting them.

Prerequisite(s): Recommended that students complete LAW 235 Administrative Law before enrolling in this seminar.

Course Description: Regulation of the distribution of securities under the Securities Act of 1933 and SEC Rules adopted there under, registration and reporting provisions of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215 (can be concurrent) or LAW 215C (can be concurrent) recommended.

Course Description: Legal rules and concepts applicable to business associations, both public and closely held. Corporate form of organization, partnerships and other associational forms.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215; or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the regulation of securities markets. Topics covered include regulation of securities markets and securities professionals, responsibilities of securities lawyers, continuous reporting, transnational securities fraud, and enforcement of the securities acts.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215; or consent of instructor; LAW 236A recommended.

Course Description: Examines the civil and criminal enforcement of the securities laws by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department. Surveys the administrative rules and investigative procedures that govern the SEC and the substantive related crimes.

Course Description: Traces the development of the common law from its origins in medieval England through the 20th century.

Course Description: Athenian legal system was different from our own and was far less formal. How did it work? Why did it work? Why have political and legal theorists misunderstood Athens for so long and what can we learn from that failure?

Course Description: Interactive focus on attorney representation of clients in mediation.

Course Description: Fundamental mediation skills through both lectures and hands-on simulation practice. Students will consider the challenges of working with sophisticated parties with entrenched positions, and will consider the role of irrationality.

Course Description: Recent elections exposed many campaign finance and initiative issues. Focuses on reforms as well as current law.

Course Description: Covers many of the foundational issues in the "law of democracy," as that body of statutory and constitutional law has developed in the United States.

Course Description: Seminar explores the right to vote under the U.S. Constitution.

Course Description: Seminar on the right to vote in the United States as a matter of constitutional and statutory law.

Course Description: Investigate constitutional and statutory frameworks that channel and regulate the efforts of individuals, corporate & nonprofits, and political groups to convey their ideas to the electorate, to mobilize voter turnout, and to get their preferred candidates on the ballot and elected to office. Examine the legal status of contributions and expenditures of money and other goods. Consider political groups’ “internal” affairs, the selection of nominees, and the ballot.

Course Description: Examines the process of selecting Presidents of the United States within the structure created by the U.S. Constitution and federal and state law. Explore cases, statutes, academic commentary and reform proposals, among other things.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 205; LAW 218 recommended.

Course Description: Study of how law operates across state and national borders. Topics include choice of applicable law in transactions involving multiple jurisdictions, recognition of judgments, and the exercise of jurisdiction.

Course Description: Remedies available to creditors to force payment, along with devices that creditors may use to give themselves priority against limited assets. Bankruptcy both as a means for providing funds for creditors and as a device for maximizing asset value.

Course Description: Covers secured transactions (where a lender takes an interest in the debtor’s property as “collateral,” or security, for repayment of a loan) in personal property, such as auto loans and bank loans against business inventory.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Introduction to essentials of U.S. law governing bankruptcy of consumers and businesses. Addresses bankruptcy under Chapter 7, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13.

Course Description: Corporate chapter 11 bankruptcy under the Federal Bankruptcy Code and alternatives to corporate bankruptcy. Selection of venue. Formation of strategic objectives. Analysis of different professionals’ roles.

Course Description: Covers the law of conspiracy, corporate criminal liability, mail & wire fraud, the Hobbs Act, RICO, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and other white collar crimes and their associated defenses.

Course Description: Explores corporate responsibility and leadership through case studies of contemporary scandals. Reviews business forms and the consequences of an institution failing to comply with legal & ethical duties to employees, shareholders, and the public.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215 (can be concurrent).

Course Description: Offers overview of the constitutional law governing the death penalty in the United States.

Course Description: Explore a fictional white-collar crime, learning how to establish probable cause through cooperative witnesses; search warrants, the utilization of informants, and indemnity agreements will be analyzed. Learn about indictments, complaints, laws surrounding arrests, bail hearings, evidentiary suppression motions, and grand jury indictments.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 227A recommended.

Course Description: Study of subject-matter jurisdiction of federal courts.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 205.

Course Description: Provides a practical, hands-on approach to California Civil Procedure through case studies, drafting of common litigation documents, and studying the application of the Code of Civil Procedure to practical case scenarios. Issues of general civil litigation emphasizing bar exam topics are included.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 203.

Course Description: Study of the federal income tax treatment of partnerships and partners; including entities classified as partnerships.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 220.

Course Description: Major topics include worldwide taxation as applied to individuals (immigrants); source of income definitions in American tax law; concepts in inbound taxation, e.g., U.S. taxation of foreign persons; outbound taxation, e.g., U.S. taxation of foreign income.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 220 (can be concurrent); completion or current enrollment in a course covering the domestic taxation of corporations is suggested but not required; LAW 247B can be concurrent.

Course Description: Examination of the federal income tax relationship between corporations and their owners. Covers the transfer of funds into a corporation on formation and the re-transfer of money and property from the corporation to its shareholders.

Course Description: Introduction to federal income taxation of business entities.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 220; prerequisite will not be waived.

Course Description: Fundamentals of public international law in the context of contemporary world affairs, and vice versa. Provides an essential foundation for further study or for practice in any area of international law or transnational law.

Course Description: Review concepts in international law, conflicts of law, cyberlaw, and federal jurisdiction to address the growing multi-jurisdictional conflicts created by the Internet. Examine European efforts at crafting intra-Europe jurisdictional rules, as well as other international jurisdiction treaty projects such as those at the Hague.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Overview of the theory and practice of human rights law. Requirements include weekly discussion responses, a seminar paper, and active class participation.

Course Description: Explores the human rights responsibilities of businesses from legal, ethical, historical, and comparative perspectives. Equips students with the tools to be sensitive to human rights considerations as legal practitioners or in other fields of endeavor.

Course Description: Opportunity to work in support of the mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Build on the knowledge of the workings of the United Nations human rights system they gained in Practicum I, and gain further advanced experience working with UN documents, with individual cases in the field and with thematic reports.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Globalization of people, finance, goods, services, and information puts pressure on the nation-state form. In a world of diasporas and multinational corporations, what does citizenship mean?

Course Description: Transitional justice (legal responses to wrongdoings of repressive predecessor regimes) can help resolve “memory politics” that plague the relations and societies of many Asia-Pacific states. Examine relevant roles of governments, novel institutions, the judiciary, and civil society.

Course Description: Designed for law students who are native Spanish-speakers or who have achieved proficiency in Spanish through study or experiences in a Spanish-speaking country.

Prerequisite(s): Must satisfy one of the following: undergraduate degree in Spanish; a minor in Spanish with experience living in a Spanish-speaking country; grew up in a Spanish-speaking household and achieved proficiency; able to pass an informal assessment by the instructor.

Course Description: Review books of international law; Hugo Grotius and Judge Rosalyn Higgins. Themes include peaceful resolutions of dispute, law of war and peace, and international legal process.

Course Description: Provides a historical context for the current political and human rights situation in Central Asia.

Course Description: Examine the architecture of the international economic system, with a focus on both trade and investment.

Course Description: International law, once critiqued as powerless and ineffective, is now challenged as a threat to American democracy. Introduction to competing theories of international law, including natural law, positivism, realism, liberalism, constructivism, fairness, legal process, and world public order.

Course Description: Uses of comparative method, principal differences between common law and civil law and the styles of legal reasoning that prevail in these two great legal cultures. Topics include the evolution of the civil law, the phenomenon of codification, the structure of European civil codes and the interpretation of their provisions, the respective roles of counsel, judges and law teachers, civil law procedure, and the analysis of selected areas of substantive law. Knowledge of a foreign language is not required.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Provides an opportunity for students who are first in their family to go to college, or first in their family to go to law school, to reflect on their own educational journeys and to see how their trajectory of formal education is similar to and/or different from the journeys of famous First Gen lawyers, e.g., Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor. Principles of memoir writing used to guide student writing.

Course Description: Deals principally with the question of how judges should decide "hard cases," where the content of the law is in doubt and competent arguments have or could be offered for mutually inconsistent decisions in favor of either party.

Course Description: For students participating in the Aoki Center for Race and Nation Studies’ Immigration Law Journal. Research, and write a note on a topic related to immigration. Expectation is production of papers of publishable quality.

Course Description: Second- and third-year students produce a piece of academic writing that satisfies the King Hall writing requirement and is of publishable quality. Receive feedback both from the instructor and from one another in a workshop setting.

Course Description: Legal, social, and political discourse on race relations has traditionally been framed in Black-White terms. Disrupts the traditional view by taking Asian Americans seriously.

Course Description: Survey of the legislative, administrative, and judicial regulation of labor relations under federal law. Historical development of labor law, the scope of national legislation, unions, strikes, picketing, and collective bargaining agreements.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Develop a theoretical and practical understanding of the labor movement, and the ways in which lawyers support and interact with the movement. Placed in labor organizations, labor-related law firms, and non-profits, students gain experience with different aspects of labor organizing, labor campaigns, and collective bargaining.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 251 (can be concurrent).

Course Description: Current developments in international law, conflict of laws, civil procedure, arbitration, and comparative law in the context of transactions and disputes that cut across national boundaries.

Course Description: Utilizes experiential learning techniques to teach advocacy skills during the life of a criminal case and simulates critical stages of the proceedings by conducting mock hearings throughout the semester.

Course Description: In-depth examination of the legislative process both within the California Legislature and from the advocates’ perspective. Train in key policy advocacy skills by legislative leaders and social justice advocates.

Course Description: Study the need for community lawyering including the structural inequalities and privileges embedded in the legal system and society. Skills necessary for community lawyering as well as sites and models for practice will be examined.

Course Description: Simulation course introduction to the applied legal and policy skills necessary to become effective lawyers and advocates in the international public interest/nongovernmental organization community.

Course Description: Survey course covers legal and policy issues related to developing, protecting and preserving affordable, safe and accessible housing and sustaining viable, diverse communities.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Seminar considers rural manifestations of various legal, social and economic issues. Survey various subfields of legal study; e.g., criminal justice, poverty, environment and land use, local government, family, constitutional, agricultural, access to justice, as they relate to the rural-urban continuum. Debate rurality as an aspect of identity and consider its intersections with race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability and other identity variables.

Course Description: Study of a variety of barriers that impede the access of unrepresented litigants to the courts–including poverty, racial bias, limited English proficiency and the digital divide–and critically examine existing solutions. Opportunity to develop and propose student's own solution to an access barrier.

Course Description: Considers the social, cultural, economic, and legal situation of low-income and/or low-education whites in contemporary U.S. society.

Course Description: Federal regulation and taxation of private pensions and employee benefits. Covers the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and Internal Revenue Code issues.

Course Description: Local agencies, developers, environmental interest groups, and others who regularly deal with the administrative and legislative applications of land use planning and development laws. Topics include zoning, general plans, local government land use regulation, and related areas of litigation. Expanding role of the California Environmental Quality Act.

Course Description: Fundamental elements of the legislative process, including legislative procedure; the legislature as an institution; lobbying; statutory interpretation, legislative-executive relations; and the legislature's constitutional powers and limitations.

Course Description: Theories and principles of statutory and constitutional interpretation. Original intent vs. living constitution; permissible kinds of evidence for determining legislative intent; canons of construction; extent to which initiatives should be interpreted similarly to legislative enactments.

Course Description: Elective course for Environmental Law Certificate Program. Provides an introduction to the theory and practice of statutory interpretation.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Theory and practice of statutory interpretation, taught using California statutes that address local barriers to housing supply. Writing intensive.

Course Description: Legislative Drafting provides practical experience in researching, analyzing, and drafting all legislative measures in the State of California, including bills, resolutions, and constitutional amendments.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 257 recommended.

Course Description: The ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the Code of Judicial Conduct, which are tested on the MPRE, and the California Rules of Professional Conduct, which are tested on the California Bar Examination.

Course Description: Explores ethics rules governing the legal profession, including state Rules of Professional Conduct (RPCs) and the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Discern how the various RPCs differ, and we apply them to real-life situations.

Course Description: Reviews the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the Code of Judicial Conduct, as tested on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination, and covers California Rules of Professional Conduct, which are tested on the California Bar Examination.

Course Description: Introductions to the practice of conscious lawyering. Includes concepts in professional and personal identity, self-awareness, focus, emotional intelligence, cultural and personal values, mindfulness, meditation, and mind-body connection.

Course Description: Desired outcome is a thorough understanding of the business side of law practice and to promote an understanding of the relationship and balance between legal skills, business requirements of a practice, client needs and a work-life balance.

Course Description: Using real practice examples, in this discussion/simulation-based course learn how to open and successfully run a small law practice. Included topics: structure and organization, office set-up, billing, fees, time management, client handling, overseeing office staff, trust accounting, and ethical rules.

Course Description: Introduction/overview of how to start a successful solo practice.

Course Description: Despite improvements in the economy, some observers continue to question whether law school is a viable option for college graduates. Considers the controversy and expose students to the variety of careers in the legal profession.

Course Description: Includes a discussion and review of the role of the junior attorney within a law firm/legal department, professional goal-setting, strategies for effective communication and work within teams, delegation and resource management, organization and time management, an introduction to common junior-level assignments and how to complete them efficiently and effectively, building a professional network, and an introduction to business development, among other topics.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Surveys accounting and financial statements, basic financial concepts (e.g., time value of money), business valuation, capital markets, and major transaction types. Should help with other business law courses and be useful for communicating with business clients.

Course Description: Ethical duties of lawyers in a variety of different contexts. Examines topics such as client control over the major decisions in a case, the duty of zealous advocacy, representation of organizations, and the unique role of government attorneys. Covers the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the California Rules of Professional Conduct, which are tested (respectively) on the MPRE and the California Bar Exam.

Course Description: Seminar explores lawyer's roles, ethical obligations and critical choices regarding maintaining and preserving rule of law and democracy, by examining historical and contemporary scenarios. Class participation expected.

Course Description: Provides an overview of feminist legal theory and considers how its various strands inform legislative and judicial law making. Satisfies Advanced Writing Requirement.

Course Description: Study legal and religious reform movements for women's rights within Muslim communities in the context of current scholarly and political debates about fundamentalism, democracy, equality, secularism, universalism, and multiculturalism.

Course Description: Overview of international legal and institutional system for the protection of women’s human rights from an academic perspective and the view of the practitioner. Includes the (CEDAW), violence against women, sexual and reproductive rights, economic rights, and more.

Course Description: Complements the content of the feminist legal theory course by providing the opportunity to consider how feminist theory may be used to inform law-making.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 259 (can be concurrent).

Course Description: Examination of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination.

Course Description: Covers the rights of individual employees other than those covered in the Employment Discrimination or Labor Law courses.

Course Description: Examines a variety of issues concerning the judicial process. Focus is on judge's role in the legal process, the administration of justice, ethical issues, decision making, bias, and critical examination of the strengths and weaknesses in our current judicial system.

Course Description: Comparative law course focused on judicial institutions and judicial decision-making around the world.

Course Description: Focus on the federal antitrust laws, concentrating on basic substantive areas of the Sherman and Clayton Acts.

Course Description: Fundamental principles of Indian Competition Law and US Antitrust Law in a comparative perspective. Helps American students, interested in future corporate law careers, to develop effective strategies for better managing cross border deals in India.

Course Description: Examines regulation of business in sectors, traditionally described as “common carrier” and “utility” industries, where because of market failures normal competitive mechanism will not protect consumers from exercises of market power.

Course Description: Explores the challenges antitrust law faces in protecting the innovation incentives of dynamic technology-led market competition, motivating and incentivizing companies to innovate and allowing them to retain the profits of such market growth.

Course Description: Trial advocacy centered on client relationship building, preparation for trial, and courtroom practice.

Course Description: Introduction to trial. Featuring lectures, demonstrations, assigned readings, and trial drills. Students will formulate trial strategy, theory and theme and conduct all phases of a trial, including opening statements, direct and cross examinations, and closing arguments.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 219 (can be concurrent).

Course Description: Train on the organization and presentation of a complex trial, including pretrial preparation, jury selection, strategy considerations, evidentiary issues, and effective handling of plaintiff and defense cases through verdict.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 219; LAW 263A.

Course Description: Teaches (1) the law that restricts and supports jury selection in criminal law trials, (2) the most effective methods of engaging in jury selection, (3) how to think critically and strategically about voir dire questioning and juror challenges.

Course Description: Examine the diversity of water rights legal systems throughout the U.S., concerning surface water and groundwater rights. The course will also address major, current water law & policy issues including Native American rights & climate change impacts.

Course Description: Introduction to the goals and challenges of coastal and ocean policy; the complicated web of public and private interests in coastal lands and ocean waters; regulation of coastal development; domestic and international fisheries management; and preservation of ocean resources.

Course Description: In-depth coverage of two foundational principles of natural resources law: public trust doctrine and private property rights protected under the Takings Clause of the U.S. and many state constitutions.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 285 or LAW 256 recommended, but not required.

Course Description: Survey of commercial transactions law under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). Covers a number of topics under Articles 2, 3, & 9 of the UCC. Topics include attachment and perfection of security interests in personal property and general principles of negotiability. Primary goals are to provide a foundational knowledge and understanding of several articles of the UCC and improve problem-solving skills in this area.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 202.

Course Description: Examines from a globalized perspective a broad range of internet governance issues, ranging from free speech, hate speech, defamation, copyright, intermediary liability, administrative censorship online, online anonymity, privacy, data protection, etc.

Course Description: Looks at AI's seemingly infinite possibilities and discusses where should the legal boundaries begin and end. Core lecturing centers on the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and the proposed EU AI Regulation requirements.

Course Description: Civil remedies for civil rights violations under the primary United States civil rights statute. Specifically, covers actions for constitutional and statutory violations under 42 USC §1983, affirmative defenses, and abstention doctrines.

Course Description: Yearlong practicum (4-7 units/semester) has (1) weekly two-hour in-class lectures and case review, and (2) student participation in DFEH investigations (fall) and mediations (spring). Gain experience analyzing and applying the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).

Course Description: Student-led review of blockchain/distributed ledger technology (dlt) and its impact on law and transactions, from the basic functioning of a blockchain to the implication of smart contracts in areas such as cryptocurrencies, decentralized autonomous organizations, and self-sovereign identity.

Course Description: Explores the basic requirements of suing government, including sovereign immunity, particular schemes for litigating against government (Federal Tort Claims Act, APA, False Claims Act, etc.), direct constitutional claims and the procedural pitfalls and remedies available against government.

Course Description: Basic techniques of analysis that are part of the core curriculum in a good business school. Gives background necessary for understanding and advising your clients and for understanding other business-related law school courses.

Prerequisite(s): Students with a non-law basic finance course will not be admitted, except with consent of instructor.

Course Description: Examines the regulation of financial intermediaries. Stated goal of regulation is to ensure systemic stability and to pursue consumer protection. Question asked whether there is an imbalance between systematic stability and consumer protection before the crisis of 2008.

Course Description: Examines laws seeking a “fair” financial marketplace, including markets for consumer credit, residential mortgages, and student lending through Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; disclosure; and prohibitions on unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts.

Course Description: Focus on how corporations raise money, stocks and bonds, etc.; how deals are structured and why corporations use one strategy instead of another.

Prerequisite(s): LAW 215 or concurrent enrollment recommended.

Course Description: Introduction to the legal and regulatory issues presented by contemporary capital markets.

Course Description: Introduction to the basic concepts of public finance, the underlying law governing public finance: in particular state law, federal tax law and federal securities law.

Course Description: Focuses on fintech innovation and financial inclusion. Explores how fintech is transforming traditional financial services and providing new opportunities and challenges for financial inclusion.