This is a skills course focused on depositions. While the course centers on basic and advanced skills in preparing for, taking, and defending depositions, its focus is broader. It begins by placing depositions in the context of formal pretrial discovery and ends with the use of depositions in pre-trial motions, negotiation and at trial. Skills exercises will include both oral and written advocacy skills relevant to this important portion of civil litigation. While most civil cases filed in federal or state court are resolved before final adjudication, all practicing attorneys will have to take depositions in order to learn what evidence they must meet at trial, or alternatively use case evaluation for settlement negotiations or mediation. The information obtained in a deposition will allow an attorney to intelligently evaluate the case and competently advise their clients. The course begins with the role of depositions in the larger discovery process, preparation, developing a theme, and the mechanics of the deposition process and procedure, including questioning techniques. More advanced topics will include the expert deposition, use of expert depositions to make effective Daubert challenges, taking and defending corporate depositions, and the use of depositions in pretrial practice including Daubert challenges and summary judgment motions.

This course combines theory and practicality to cover advanced strategies in persuasive writing and build upon the instruction provided in Legal Research and Writing. The theoretical aspect of the course will focus on principles of persuasion drawn from several disciplines, such as classical rhetoric, cognitive psychology, linguistics, and literary theory. Topics studied may include the rhetorical foundations of legal persuasion and credibility; the role of stock structures, visual imagery, and literary or cultural allusions in legal analysis and argument; leveraging storytelling and narrative coherence; and using document design and other visual techniques persuasively. The practical aspect of the course will involve the application of the covered principles to litigation-oriented documents. Students will analyze the persuasiveness of various examples of attorney communications, such as briefs, letters, and judicial opinions, and create their own versions of these documents that incorporate the principles we discuss. Thus, students will learn a number of strategies and techniques, and practice implementing them, to become more persuasive writers. The course will involve a combination of lecture, discussion, in-class exercises and workshops, and individual student-teacher conferences outside of class. Grades will be based on several writing and editing assignments of various length, as well as students’ participation in class discussions and fulfillment of course requirements. There will be no final exam.

The course explores the history, present status and nature of administrative agencies. The main emphasis is placed on administrative procedure, contrasting it with the judicial process, as well as constitutional limits on administrative action and the due process rights of persons who are adversely affected by agency action. Topics covered include: delegation of powers, the law of judicial review of agency actions, and procedural requirements of administrative rulemaking and adjudication. (3 credits)

This course will look at all of the main issues surrounding art, cultural heritage, and current contemporary user-generated culture. We will look at Holocaust-era related art crimes; the life of the artist and legal issues; museums, dealers, and collectors; First Amendment issues related to art; moral rights; indigenous cultures and cultural preservation; who owns the past within an international context; and the creation of user-generated culture in our current Internet world. This class focuses on visual arts, but in many cases applies to all cultural works, particularly in our multi-media world. The seminar will produce a collection of essays that will be published as a book, (Il)Legal Art: A Handbook. Students will each write a chapter for the book. Because of the nature of the course, students must be good a deadlines and working with others. We will potentially be working with local artists as part of the experience. Students will be graded on their paper, but also should make a commitment to make revisions to their post-graded paper as part of the book as we get further in the process of publication, even if this occurs after graduation. This may be up to a year or more in the future. While this latter time commitment is not great, it still is an integral part of the experience. IP Survey is a required pre-requisite. If you have not taken IP Survey, but feel that you have other qualifications that might benefit the class, please indicate this on your seminar application. This seminar may be taken to satisfy the upper-class writing requirement.

The course is designed to further develop the skills learned in Legal Research and Writing and to provide 2Ls and 3Ls with the opportunity to draft an appellate brief and present an oral argument. The course focuses on appellate theory, standard of review, advanced appellate brief writing, and the art of appellate oral argument. Students will be assigned to act as either Appellants or Appellees and will write a brief from a shortened record. While focusing on the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, the course will also survey certain differences in Louisiana state appellate practice. Students will also prepare, practice and deliver a full oral argument. This course will be co-taught by James Garner, a co-managing member of Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilber, L.L.C.; the Hon. Scott Cichton, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana; and Stuart Kottle, an associate with Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert, L.L.C.

Arbitration is an increasingly popular method of resolving civil disputes, including employment, securities regulation, construction, and insurance disputes. Although arbitration is the result of an agreement between the parties, a developing legal regime governs the use of arbitration and the enforcement of arbitration awards. Federal and state laws such as the Federal Arbitration Act govern what disputes are covered by an arbitration agreement, when arbitration is prohibited, and whether a court can review the award. This course provides an overview of those laws and the court decisions interpreting them so that the students understand an area of law that they are likely to encounter early on in their varied careers.

This experiential course will focus on the knowledge and skills required to manage and execute written discovery. Effective discovery requires identifying and understanding the legal principles and detailed facts of a client's case; crafting a theme and trial plan; and using this information to conduct discovery in a manner that maximizes a case's strengths and accommodates its weaknesses. Students will participate in exercises designed to simulate the experience of an attorney charged with responsibility for written discovery. Topics will include preliminary cases assessment; articulation of a case's themes; initial disclosures; discovery conferences and scheduling orders; drafting and responding to requests for production, interrogatories, and requests for admission; privilege and work production protects; protective orders and common interest agreement; written expert discovery; meet-and-confer letter; and motions to compel. The course will be taught by Eva Dossier a member of the firm Stanley, Reuter, Ross, Thornton & Alford, L.L.C.

This is an advanced civil procedure course focusing on a number of important aspects of civil procedure which are only superficially considered in the first year. It is useful for anyone interested in litigation or practice involving multi-party transactions such as antitrust, securities, product liability, mass torts, consumer litigation and employment rights. The procedures considered include: joinder of parties and structure of law suits in complicated multi-party suits; duplicative litigation and use of stay orders, injunctions, consolidation, and transfer to the Multi District Panel; res judicata; class actions; discovery and trial in complex cases; settlement, and attorneys’ fees.

What is the relationship of how disciplines think about time and how understands time? Why are copyrights for the life of the author plus seventy years? Why are stature of limitations 2, 3, 4 years? time rewards. Time punishes. Time acts as a barrier for redress. Time signals an equitable solution. Lawyers are paid by their time. Think of industrial time, biological time, and legal time. What does law's relationship to time tell us about the laws themselves? how do we understand time and the law? This seminar will investigate the concept of time across disciplines, and then students will choose a part of the law to investigate and apply concepts of time, whether the area of law is overtly about time or an example of law that is missing a time component.

The course will examine constitutional procedural and litigation issues from the commencement of a criminal case through conviction (or acquittal), appeal, and post-conviction relief options. Students will be asked to think critically about the goals of criminal procedure and about whether our legal system effectively serves those goals. The course primarily addresses Sixth Amendment issues.

This survey course will provide an overview of the evolution of animal law and the breadth of issues encompassed by this rapidly developing field of law. At the same time, the course will afford the opportunity for in-depth deliberation of the salient issues in current animal law litigation, including in Louisiana. Because animal law necessarily implicates virtually every field of law, including constitutional law, property law, criminal law, and torts, students must develop and apply their knowledge of these other fields in class discussions. Students will also be expected to understand and apply basic principles of administrative law introduced in the course.

What do transactional lawyers do and how do they do it? The course focuses on the lawyer’s role as an advisor to a privately-owned start-up company and its owners. We will explore how legal issues and business objectives overlap, the role played by the transactional lawyer in the transaction and soft skills such as client relations/communications and co-worker relationships. This course will examine the life cycle of a hypothetical company, focusing on sample transactions from three major stages of the company’s life cycle: choice of entity, formation and obtaining capital; ongoing operations; and exiting or sale of the company. Much of the class work will involve working in teams simulating an actual transactional practice. Using hypothetical business scenarios and actual deal documents, students will represent the company, its owners, or third parties and will analyze, structure and negotiate selected deal components, and, on a limited basis, draft portions of the relevant deal documents. This capstone course is designed to broaden the student’s knowledge in a number of substantive areas, help students learn to focus on a client’s business objectives rather than just addressing legal issues, and to begin the process of bridging the gap between law school and practice. The course will be taught by John Herbert, outside general counsel of a Houston-based energy company and formerly a division general counsel of a Fortune 30 energy corporation. Business Enterprises is a prerequisite. Grades will be based on periodic written team and individual exercises, a personal journal, and a final written project. There will be no final exam.

This course will examine the basic antitrust statutes, Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, Sections 3 and 7 of the Clayton Act, Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Robinson Patman Act. The course will focus on the objectives of antitrust law, the concepts of market power and market definition, monopolization, horizontal and vertical restraints, mergers, the use of the per se rule and the rule of reason, price discrimination, and commercial bribery. Professor Feldman plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism. Note: Antitrust may not be offered during the 2019-2020 academic year.

This course examines a number of the key legal issues facing college athletics today, including the battle over athlete compensation and the rapid development of name, image, and likeness rights for college athletes. This course focuses on the ways antitrust and labor laws have shaped many aspects of college sports and continue to play a significant role in the development and future of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and college athletics. The course will examine the impact of antitrust and labor law on television contracts, college athlete compensation, coaching salaries, eligibility restrictions, and a number of other facets of the collegiate model. The course will also feature a number of guest lectures from lawyers, executives, and administrators in the college sports industry. There are no prerequisites for this course. Students who have taken or plan to take Sports Law: Antitrust & Labor may enroll in this course. This course does not count toward the Sports Law certificate. The course will be graded on the basis of a take-home examination.

This Seminar covers selected civil law institutions with emphasis on the laws of property, obligations, community property, and successions. It also covers the subjects of civilian methodology, techniques of codification, and the modern history of the civil law. The Seminar is designed to sum up student experience in the civilian tradition. Louisiana law is studied in comparison with the common law of sister states and the laws of European countries. Doctrinal study is applied to the resolution of legal issues in contemporary practice. There is no final examination. Students are graded in light of class participation and their ability to produce an original research paper on a civil law topic. Students are required to have taken at least one civil law course (e.g., Property, Obligations I or II).

This course will focus primarily on Louisiana's unique tort law, utilizing the Louisiana Civil Code, current Louisiana cases and statutes.  Some of these concepts will be compared to common law torts.  Subjects likely to be covered during the semester are duty-risk, intentional torts, damages, defenses, wrongful death, contribution and indemnification, vicarious liability, absolute liability, strict liability, products liability, liability of owners/lessors and occupiers of land, and professional malpractice (medical and legal) and prescription. (2 Credits)

Through a lens examining the philosophy, principles, and policies underlying business reorganizations, this course will provide a practical look at the path a financially distressed enterprise can take, from filing to confirmation of a plan of reorganization under chapter 11, conversion to chapter 7, or dismissal. The following topics, among others, will be covered: good-faith filing and venue; retention and compensation of professionals; the extent of the court’s equitable powers; use, sale, and lease of the debtor’s property; successor liability; post-petition financing; the absolute priority rule; involuntary imposition of a reorganization upon creditors and shareholders; claims allowance; and the role of debtors, professionals, creditors, officers, directors, and trustees in the context of corporate restructuring. Grades will be basis on draft pleadings and mock arguments for hypothetical clients at each stage. This course will be taught by the Hon. Meredith Grabill (U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana) and Mark Mintz (Jones Walker LLP).

'This course treats the rising phenomenon of environmental law around the world, not through international accords (the subject of other courses) but through national approaches to common issues including:  impact assessment, judicial review, land use, toxins and wildlife species. The class will be graded on the basis of student participation (including TWEN), and on selected research projects leading to discussions and papers at the end of the course.  Introductory in nature, prior or concurrent classes in the field are useful but not required. (3 Credits)

This course provides a comparative survey of influential contemporary constitutions including those of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and South Africa. Following an introduction to comparative methodology and the functions of comparative law, especially in the legislative and judicial spheres, the class focuses on a shortlist of specific topics. These include the legislative process, bicameralism, the separation of powers, electoral systems, federalism, judicial review, and the protection of human rights. The concept of transnational constitutionalism, the potential and pitfalls of constitutional legal transplants, and the drafting of new constitutions in post-conflict societies such as Iraq, Tunisia or Kenya will also be considered. Students are invited to engage with foreign approaches to these issues through the lens of US case law and constitutional doctrine. The course will be based on a study pack of selected legal materials from the systems under review. Knowledge of foreign languages is not required.

This course is designed to cover issues of individual rights under the Fourteenth Amendment that are given only brief treatment in the introductory first-year course. Subjects include equal protection, substantive due process, state action, and Congress’s power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees.

This one-credit Seminar provides a unique view of two phenomena that have arisen at the same time around the globe: environmental protection and judicial review. We do this through a single book, Taking Back Eden, that describes cases from eight countries as different as the Philippines, Chile and Japan. The second part of the course consists of cases that you will identify, research and present orally to the class. There is no paper required. Grading will be pass-C-fail. The seminar counts as the graduate seminar required for students seeking the LLM in Energy & Environmental Law. Accordingly preference will be granted for students in the LLM program.

Decisions of the Supreme Court such as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade have inspired extensive debate among academic scholars as to the role of the Supreme Court in our system of government and the proper way to interpret the Constitution. This seminar will provide an in-depth examination of the most important issues in constitutional theory. The main topics to be addressed will be the idea of constitutionalism in the U.S., the justification of judicial review in a representative democracy, and the various theories of constitutional interpretation proposed by scholars. The readings for the course will be extensive, and will represent the wide diversity of opinion present in contemporary theoretical debates.

This course will take an in-depth look at copyright law. Building upon the IP Survey, which is a prerequisite, the course will focus on the advanced and contemporary topics in copyright law, both in a domestic and international context.

The Copyright and Social Media course will cover the key advanced topics in copyright and social media. The course will be hands-on looking at questions that arise in the current climate, working with real-world problems. Students will be writing short papers on assigned topics. This course does not fulfill the writing requirement. Prerequisite: IP Survey.

This course provides both an introduction to financial economics – e.g., how companies are valued, how investment decisions are made – and advanced coverage of corporation and contract law related to the financing of modern business enterprises. The course will survey the rights and protections that exist for financial stakeholders in the corporate enterprise, including debtholders, preferred shareholders, holders of warrants and rights. Business Enterprises is a pre-requisite or permission of instructor required. Mergers & Acquisitions is also highly recommended.

This course will emphasize the practical aspects of advising the public corporation’s board of directors in the deal making context of takeovers, proxy contests, shareholder activism, and mergers and acquisitions. The course will introduce students to the laws, theories, and corporate governance systems that underpin the board’s decision-making process, as well as the roles and perspectives of other players, including corporate officers, investors, investment bankers, and regulators. Each topic will be addressed in a policy class taught by faculty and a practice class led by distinguished legal practitioners. Grades will be based on attendance, biweekly written analyses of a hypothetical transaction, and a final reflection paper. Business Enterprises is a prerequisite for 2L students and a prerequisite or co-requisite for 3L students. Some course content may overlap with that taught in Mergers & Acquisitions and the Corporate Governance mini-course.

This course explores major jurisdictional, procedural and substantive issues involved in the enforcement of federal criminal law. Included among the crimes on which the course focuses are mail and wire fraud, drug offenses, banking offenses and money laundering, perjury and obstruction of justice, and RICO. Professor Larson plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

This course explores the various stages of the criminal justice process, e.g. arrest, first appearance, bail hearing, charging process (district attorney, grand jury), arraignment, pre-trial discovery, plea negotiations, and post-trial motions.

The course attempts to examine the political and jurisprudential theories which underlie the rapidly-developing system of international criminal law, together with the actual structure of the system which now exists. The course will address both the “core crimes” of international criminal law, i.e., war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression, as well as those crimes that have become truly international in nature, such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and terrorism. During the semester, the course will cover both threshold issues, e.g., what is “international” criminal law, and general concepts, such as sovereignty and jurisdiction in international criminal matters. In addition, international enforcement and penal mechanisms will be studied, all within the context of those entities that create, implement or enforce international criminal laws, such as the United Nations, the European Union, and the federal courts of the United States. With regard to each such entity, consideration will be given to the political and economic implications of the international aspect of the system, and to the procedural problems created by its trans-national nature. Public International Law is recommended. Professor Larson plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

It is a given that law will lag behind the technology of the society in which both are situated. In no field is that more true than cyber crime. As computers moved out of research laboratories and into the houses and pockets of billions of people, that also moved into the hands of persons willing to exploit their unique features for criminal purposes. The speed, anonymity, and networking capabilities of computers, when coupled with the borderless nature of the Internet, make computers the most potent tool for crime ever invented. This course will examine, on a very basic level, the technological structure and operation of computers, the Internet, and the "dark web." It will show how these can be used to commit a wide variety of crimes. Among the offenses that will be studied in depth are: cyber hacking and cyber extortion/blackmail; sex trafficking, pornography, and child pornography; money laundering, and money laundering via cryptocurrencies; and cyber fraud and cyber theft, including theft of data. The substantive law that attempts to combat these offenses, both federal and state, will be reviewed, with particular emphases on the need to further develop that law in light of its manifest inadequacies. Procedural issues unique to cyber crimes, including 4th Amendment issues, will also be considered. The course will conclude by looking at computers as weapons of war, which has been described as the "ultimate crime." The principles of jus in bello will be reviewed in light of the crime of aggression, as adopted by the International Criminal Court (and defined by the Kampala Review Conference). These classes will focus on cyber aggression by states - which occurs on a daily basis in numerous forms - and its status as a crime under international law.

Election law is a fascinating topic not only in politically charged times; the rules surrounding elections determine the way constitutional principles play out in practice at any point in time and thus lie at the very heart of democracy. In combination with a few other key variables, such as the structure of the executive (presidential or parliamentary) and the vertical distribution of power (unitary or federal), election systems can shape the exercise and coherence of party influence over government, the stability of the executive, the breadth and legitimacy of representation, the capacity of a system to manage internal conflict, the extent of public participation, and the overall responsiveness of government. Several factors – in particular overall system design, state funding and private campaign financing, districting, or general party influence – impact on elections. The course covers these and many other core issues in the context of different voting systems and their respective political and constitutional dynamics. Most of the course deals with the United States; the increasing influence of proportional representation and variants of majoritarian election systems both in the U.S. and around the world, however, also invites some comparison with approaches found in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and South Africa. Due to overlap in content students may not enroll in both the Election Law and the Law of Democracy course.

This course concentrates on analyzing the statutory, constitutional, administrative, and judicial responses to discrimination on the basis of race, age, sex, religion, national origin, alienage and sexual orientation by private and public employers.

This seminar will present a national, state and local perspective on historic preservation in a broad sense, including protection of the urban environment and of archaeological, cultural and other historic resources.  It will examine laws dealing directly and indirectly with preservation, and the institutions that implement them.  The city of New Orleans provides rich material for this examination.  Students will be required to research selected topics and to present their findings orally to the class and in a substantial final paper.  Grade will be based on research paper, oral presentation of paper topic, class participation and attendance. (3 Credits)

This is a survey course in Internet law. It provides an introduction to how privacy, contracts, intellectual property, intermediary liability, jurisdiction, trespass, free speech, taxation, antitrust, and other legal doctrines may apply to activity on the Internet. Topics covered may vary based on recent events, with a focus on e-commerce, social media, and platforms.

This course will cover legal issues in representing clients within the entertainment industry, highlighting business and economic considerations. The focus will be on the nature of relationships and transactions, including implications on intellectual property rights arising from contractual and other legal matters, which arise among various players from the music, film, visual and performing arts sectors. These players will include recording artists, songwriters, producers, managers/agents, record labels, publishers, filmmakers, screenwriters, graphics artists, studios, etc. Emphasis will be placed on analyzing the initial development and evolution of these dynamic relationships as they are intertwined within a pragmatic fact-pattern involving common issues arising from entertainment legal matters. Throughout the course, consideration will be given to various revenue streams flowing from intellectual property through channels of commerce, such as tangible record sales, digital sales, performance rights, and licensing, including synchronization licensing for music placements against film. This course is taught by Ashlye M. Keaton, Esq.

This course will begin with an overview of the global energy situation in terms of supply and demand as well as balanced projections for the coming decades both here and abroad. It then will proceed to examine the primary sources of energy along with the multi-faceted role of electricity as the central source of secondary energy in our economy. This portion of the course will cover in some detail how these energy sources are used and regulated from economic, reliability, and environmental perspectives. There will therefore be a review of legal and regulatory principles governing fossil fuel extraction and use, the coal industry, nuclear power, a range of renewable energy sources, and finally the regulation of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution. The course will conclude with a brief review of the growing role of conservation and climate change in energy markets here and to some extent abroad. There will be an essay-based final examination and class participation will certainly be encouraged.

This course introduces the basic pollution control statutes, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and hazardous waste laws.  It examines and contrasts their objectives, their regulatory schemes and their relative successes.  Special emphasis is given to comparing and critiquing the major regulatory approaches to pollution control:  command and control regulation according to health-based or technology-based standards and economic incentive schemes, as well as statutory interpretation. Professor will invoke the rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

This course examines the basic international legal setting for the protection and management of the environment. It discusses how international law is made and applied, the role of international environmental regimes or institutions, transboundary liability and compensation, enforcement strategies and compliance control mechanisms. Major themes of the course include human rights and the environment, free trade and environmental protection, the financing of global environmental protection measures, the protection of biodiversity, North-South issues generally, as well as various regulatory regimes for the protection of the global commons and internationally sensitive natural resources, including the Climate Change Convention. Public International Law is highly recommended. Professor Handl plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

This seminar provides an examination of the factual, legal, and policy framework that has developed regarding issues of coastal land-loss, with a focus primarily on the quickly disappearing wetlands in Louisiana, but also with an examination of similar land-loss issues in other communities. The seminar will examine the background of the importance of wetlands, the crisis of coastal land loss, the causes of that loss, and the legal and policy responses in the search for remedies for wetland and coastal harm. The seminar will be co-taught by Christopher Dalbom (Senior Research Fellow and Assistant Director of the Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy at Tulane Law School) and Bessie Antin Daschbach and Tad Bartlett (both members of Jones, Swanson, Huddell & Garrison LLC).

This course will cover the role and influence of the legal system on the use, allocation, and stewardship of water resources in the United States and Louisiana.  Since the field of water resources management is rapidly evolving to accommodate storm protection, ecosystem restoration and sea level rise an understanding of the policies that underlay our current laws and the factors that are influencing current policy and law-making will be an important part of the course’s focus. Course materials will include law cases and related materials which must be read before class. The course will be lecture oriented with occasional guest lecturers with specific experience in development of water resources law and policy. Students will be asked to participate in one group project in which they will be asked to develop, present and defend a position paper on some aspect of the water resources management challenges arising in coastal Louisiana.

This course covers the legal and political development of the European Union. It highlights the gradual functional and organizational changes that have taken place in this system over the past six decades and deals with its present-day constitutional structures including: Parliament, the Commission, the Council, the European Court of Justice, and the European Central Bank. Emphasis will also be placed on human rights protection and judicial review in the European context, the concept of a European constitution, the ongoing expansion process, Brexit, and challenges connected to the concept of a common European currency. The course also focuses on the tensions between an increasingly influential supranational Union and its 27 sovereign Member States, and will introduce the most important principles of business-related EU law such as the free movement of goods, workers, services and capital. Students are invited to draw comparisons between the European Union and the United States throughout the course.

Feminist legal theory can pose a significant epistemological challenge to traditional schools of jurisprudence, questioning some of the very premises of what constitutes justice and equality in a liberal democracy. At the same time, it seeks to explore how gender shapes the law and how the law shapes gender. This course will examine the principle tenets, methodologies, and controversies in feminist legal theory including the meaning of equality, the intersection of race and law, the public/private divide, concepts of objectivity and neutrality, and how law reproduces hierarchies while also having the ability to participate in significant social change. We will look at how feminist theory has used, incorporated, modified and critiqued other schools of jurisprudence and theoretical paradigms including Marxism, critical legal studies, critical race theory, and postmodernism. We will also analyze debates between feminist theorists regarding essentialism, women’s sexual agency, and how feminist theory itself is a product of a particular society. The goal of the course is to think broadly and critically regarding the interaction of law, society, and gender while exploring the potential and limitations of our legal system.

The financial system is the infrastructure on which all economic activity takes place with enormous political and distributive stakes. The law of financial institutions is thus of central concern to students of diverse interests: aspiring private practitioners, regulators, and public interest lawyers concerned with social justice. A decade now since the Global Financial Crisis, the legal reforms put into place are profoundly trans-forming all three areas and their interrelationships. We will study these transformations, focusing on the law of commercial banks and the Federal Reserve (Part 1); broker-dealers, hedge funds, and registered investment companies (Part 2); and central clearing counterparties (Part 3).

With U.S. HUD suspending and reissuing a number of regulations governing proof standards and its affirmative duty to promote housing choice and opportunity, a study of fair housing law and litigation is particularly timely. This course will examine Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, as amended in 1988; classes protected; transactions covered (rental, sales, lending, insurance); and the fair housing obligations of states, municipalities, and public and affordable housing programs. Stu-dents will be challenged to consider the strengths and weaknesses of litigation as a tool for creating an equal housing market and eradicating residential segregation. This course will incorporate doctrine, theory, and practice and will be assessed using a mid-term exam and several writing assignments.

This seminar explores current issues in Environmental and Energy law through faculty and LLM candidate presentations and discussion.  This seminar is open to graduate Energy & Environment students only. 

This course focuses on the Supreme Court’s opinions on freedoms of speech and press issues in First Amendment jurisprudence. The topics of study may include: advocacy of illegal action, defamation, commercial speech, obscenity, offensive speech, hate speech, symbolic speech, regulation of the public forum, prior restraint, and other topics. The First Amendment topic of freedom of religion is the subject of a separate course, entitled The Constitution & Religion.

The focus of the course will be on the U.S. constitutional structure and how that affects the role the United States plays in the international domain. We will inquire into how the Constitution enables and constrains the manner in which the United States government participates in lawmaking internationally and how that in turn affects private rights within the United States. An international lawyer working in this country will surely need to be familiar with constitutional and other legal constraints that govern our relationship with the outside world. And a domestic lawyer to be effective in this day of global interdependence will need to be familiar with the international process that continuously shapes the nature of the constitutional order in this country and our very understanding of the Constitution itself. Some of the areas that will be covered in the course are: foreign relations and the separation of powers doctrine; the scope of and limitation on the treaty power; presidential power to conclude international agreements outside Article II treaty power; constitutional and domestic status of customary international law; foreign sovereign immunity and the act of state doctrine; congressional and presidential war-making powers; constitutional rights and the war on terrorism; extraterritorial application of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. laws; and the power of states in relation to foreign affairs.

The course begins with an overview of the U.S. health care industry and then addresses the law that affects major portions of that industry and those it serves. Relationships among individual health care providers (e.g., physicians), institutional providers (e.g., hospitals, nursing homes, clinics), and patients of those providers are explored, as are various statutory entitlements (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, EMTALA), medical malpractice concepts, preemption effects of ERISA, patient privacy/consent issues including HIPAA mandates, and the policing of fraud and abuse. The class will examine the health law that resulted from the health reform legislation signed in 2010 and modern changes to health law resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the course will review how the antitrust laws impact the structure and conduct of health care providers.

This course provides students with an overview of the laws of war which, for the purposes of this course, will include the various areas of international law applicable to situations of armed conflict. It will largely cover: a) the jus ad bellum, or the law on the use of force; and b) the jus in bello, or international humanitarian law (IHL), also referred to as the law of armed conflict (LOAC). For the jus in bello, this includes: the classification of armed conflicts; duties and responsibilities of parties to an armed conflict; the principles of humanity/necessity, distinction, proportionality, and precautions; and other IHL rules. It will also look at contemporary issues in IHL such as cyber warfare and autonomous weapons, as well as gaps and challenges in IHL including compliance and enforcement. In addition to the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello, the course will cover the interrelationships between IHL and international human rights law (IHRL), international criminal law (ICL), and the rules on state responsibility in war.

The course examines the immigration and naturalization processes of the United States with a focus on practical application, procedures, and statutory construction. Topics will include citizenship and naturalization, the admission and removal of immigrants and nonimmigrants, and the issues of undocumented immigration and national security. We will also address the intersection of immigration with other practice areas including employment, criminal, and family law.

Information Privacy is a course that explores privacy law with a special focus on its history, technological advancements, and the tort aspects of privacy in the United States, including misappropriation, intrusion, publication of private facts, and false light. Students will be expected to come to class having done the readings and ready for discussion. Professor Gajda plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

Insurance plays a critical role in all areas of law practice. This course will introduce you to the basic concepts and terminology; survey numerous types of insurance such as general liability, property, life, automobile, construction, professional liability, employment, environmental, homeowners, product liability, including litigation issues such as the duty to defend, the duty to indemnify, subrogation, fraud, bad faith, defenses, damages, procedure; and address governmental regulation.

This survey course introduces students to the basic state and federal laws relating to inventions and cultural works. The class will cover topics that include patents, trademarks, copyright, right of publicity, and trade secrets. The course will look at the moral, cultural, economic and theoretical underpinnings to our current controversies in intellectual property law. This course is a prerequisite for nearly every advanced course in Intellectual Property.

The objective of this course is to provide students with an introduction to a number of areas of international business law and to provide an opportunity to study some of those areas in more detail. The course looks at the supranational and U.S.-domestic law that serves as backdrop to any international business transaction connected to this country. It focuses particularly on how to finance both sales and direct investment and how to structure direct investment of various tangible and intangible assets.  The course is focused on the law as it affects individual business entities rather than on the relationships between States.  However, this course does deal with the way that certain treaties have an impact on domestic law in relevant areas, such as international dispute settlement. This course also covers the World Trade Organization treaties to a limited extent as relevant to international business transactions.

In this course we will explore the place of human rights in United States and international law. More broadly, we will closely examine and evaluate the entire human rights "regime," that is to say the norms, principles, rules, and decision-making institutions that occupy and organize this issue area within the broad sphere of international relations. The course is designed to provide students with a confident grasp of: the substantive norms of human rights; the philosophic basis for the concept of rights and the leading points of controversy about the existence or character of certain rights that appear in conventional enumerations; the diverse procedures available at the global, regional, and national level for defense and promotion of human rights; the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which ideological and material interests influence the definition and enforcement of rights; the ways in which policy makers attempt to reconcile the demand for human rights enforcement with more traditional foreign policy objectives.

This is the basic introductory course in international law and as such focuses initially on how international law is made and applied as well the various theoretical justifications for and explanation of international law and international institutions. The course then explores other issues such as the proper subjects of international law—states, international organizations, individuals, etc; allocation of legal authority among states; the forums for and the methods of international dispute resolutions, etc. Special attention is paid to the use of force in international relations and the UN-based collective security system.  Using the United States as an example, the course will also explore the interrelationship of domestic law and international law—the domestic effect of treaties and customary international law, the role of federalism in the adoption and enforcement of international obligations, and the role of municipal courts in the enforcement of international obligations.

This offering is intended to introduce students to the problems of dispute resolution in the international transactional context. Most international commercial disputes and contract claims are resolved through arbitration. The course will address the primary substantive law issues in the field, consider in detail comparative and transborder aspects of the subject area, and provide students with a simulation exercise in a contemporary practice problem.

This course will address the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (the “Vienna Convention”). The rules of the Convention, to which more than eighty States adhere (including the U.S.), govern a great number of export/import transactions involving American parties. The course is designed to familiarize students with these rules and their application to specific aspects of international sales contracts, such as contract formation, remedies and allocation of risk. The discussion also will address the broader ramifications of the Vienna Convention. Topics of this nature include an assessment of fundamental problems, such as uniform interpretation, that are inherent in every effort to unify or harmonize legal rules. The course will also familiarize students with INCOTERMS 2010 that govern the transportation and insurance aspects of sales transactions and UCP 600 that provides the standard mechanisms for international payments, including letters of credit and documentary collections. Professor Davies plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

This seminar examines international institutions – both formal organizations and informal arrangements – as increasingly important elements of a rapidly changing international governance system. These institutions range from traditional treaty-based organizations, such as the United Nations and its subsidiary organs, to understandings among states lacking formal structural organization which govern some aspects of international economic relations, human rights and arms control. Apart from the topics of formation, membership and participation, as well as of (applicable) privileges and immunities, the seminar will pay special attention to international institutions’ role in developing international law. It will also canvass the extent to which international institutions are accountable pursuant to international law. The seminar will thus highlight political-legal phenomena of the transition to an international legal order in which international institutions have taken on indispensable governance functions that both compliment and threaten states’ traditional, dominant position in the international legal system. Professor Handl plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for failure to be prepared and/or excessive absenteeism.

Analyzes competing trade and industrial policies, GATT-WTO, NAFTA, unfair trade practices, dumping and subsidy controversies, trade imbalance problems, foreign investment, safeguards, expropriation and remedies, international banking and lending, debt overloads, IMF policies, global financial crisis, remedies, and adjustment mechanisms.

This course is designed to help international law students pursuing an LL.M. in the United States prepare for the demands of graduate education in an American law school. Because of its location in a state with a civil law heritage (which is unique in the United States), Tulane has long been known for its expertise in comparative and international law. This expertise allows the school and its faculty to better understand and meet the needs of students who come from a wide variety of legal systems. By utilizing tenured faculty, and by focusing on the basic principles of the American Legal system, with particular emphasis on constitutional law, the orientation program ensures that international students are given the best possible grounding for their subsequent studies. Classes meet four days a week, for 220 class minutes per day, in the three weeks before regular fall classes begin. The specific courses taught are as follows: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, the U.S. Legal system, Constitutional Criminal Procedure, and Civil Procedure. Students who pass the written examination at the end of the course will earn two credits for their work, based upon American Bar Association guidelines. In addition to regular classes, students are offered free tutoring in English, with particular emphasis on legal terms and phrases, a speaker series, and an introduction to legal education in the U.S. Students will also be invited to attend a variety of social events and dinners, and will be given the opportunity to visit local courts and observe judicial proceedings.

This constitutional law course concerns voting rights and elections, topics not covered in upper-level classes on the Fourteenth Amendment and First Amendment. We will address a variety of topics related to the proper legal functioning of our democratic system, including the law of voter participation, reapportionment and redistricting, election administration, racial discrimination and the Voting Rights Act, racial gerrymandering, and direct democracy. Campaign finance will be covered if there is time.

After a brief introduction to the history and evolution of the labor movement and labor legislation, the course covers in depth the legal framework dealing with union organization and collective bargaining. The material is considered from the beginning of the relationship between the employer and union, the organizational phase, through collective bargaining and enforcement of the contract once it is in place. Professor Friedman plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

This course reviews the public order of the oceans, i.e., the basic principles of international law, both customary and treaty-based, that apply to maritime spaces, such as the territorial sea, the high seas, continental shelf, seabed, and ocean floor. The course analyzes the allocation of jurisdictional powers among individual states and the international community at large over the various maritime zones involved; the use and management of ocean resources, such as regional and global fisheries regimes and seabed mining; marine environmental protection and pollution control; military uses of the ocean; and freedom of navigation. Special consideration will be given to enforcement issues related to drug trafficking and violations of marine environmental protection or fisheries regulations.

This interdisciplinary seminar will use various works from the canon of Western literature-Homer, Shakespeare, Kafka, and others-as well as American film to explore jurisprudential concerns such as the distinction between justice and revenge, law and illegality, and the limits and purposes of punishment. We will explore the differences and similarities between legal and literary narrative, the origin and nature of law, how law reflects (and whether it should reflect) community norms and moral views. Students will be required to prepare a research paper which they may use to satisfy the upper-class writing requirement, make one or more class presentations, and participate in class discussion. Reading assignments will consist of literary works and commentaries of these works.

This seminar explores the legal issues raised by the integration of emerging technologies in finance and the regulatory regimes applied to fintech platforms. The class will explore several major themes and current trends governing the complex interrelationship between law and technology. Grades will be based on the following: (a) Class Participation, Proposal, First Draft and Presentation: 40%; (b) Final Seminar Paper: 60%. This course will satisfy the upper-class writing requirement. Corequisite(s): NCLS 9110.

This course examines the use of law to advance social, economic, or political goals. After a brief exploration of the theoretical framework and historical background of “cause lawyering,” students will consider the role of law and lawyering in various change-seeking applications, such as social movements and impact litigation, and in various practice settings. Throughout the semester, students will meet with practitioners involved in prominent cases or organizations to discuss their objectives, strategies, and challenges—and whether they achieved their goals. Students will prepare for those meetings by reading relevant material and generating specific questions for the speakers. Grades will be based on several short papers, a final paper, and class participation. This course is not subject to a curve and includes an option for students to satisfy the upper-level writing requirement.

This course traces the history of private law in Europe from approximately 1750 to 1950.  It will begin with the pre-codified law and custom found in the European ius commune, the legal situation during the Ancien Régime of France, revolutionary age leading out to the first great codifications, and proceed to the rise of the historical school and Romanist legal science in Germany, the national debates over codification in Germany, the nature and background of the German Civil Code, the Austrian, Swiss, Spanish and Italian codification experience, and the diffusion of European codifications in countries of Latin America and Asia.  Readings will be assigned for discussion and participation in class.  Professor Palmer plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for failure to be prepared and/or excessive absenteeism.

This course is an introduction to the legal methodologies of practicing attorneys in the United States. Because the course is limited to foreign students seeking their LLM, it emphasizes the development of legal reasoning and writing skills in an adversarial legal system, while simultaneously acquainting students with the legal resources readily available to attorneys in the United States, such as Westlaw, and Lexis. The first half of the course is devoted to short writing projects, e.g., motions, and memoranda, as might be created and used by a U.S. law firm. The second portion of the course, which immediately follows the first, is devoted to the creation of a brief on a current issue. In addition, the students are required to orally argue at least three times. Professor Larson plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

Building on the research techniques presented in Legal Research and Writing, Advanced Legal Research focuses on the effective use of electronic and print legal research tools and examines existing electronic sources for both legal and non-legal information of interest to lawyers. After reviewing research concepts taught during Tulane’s first year Research and Writing course, this advanced course will provide coverage of selected additional research subjects, including statutory research, legislative history, administrative and regulatory research, practice aids, research strategies, and various specialized areas, including an introduction to treaty research and international/foreign research sources. The course also offers advanced training on comprehensive proprietary online research systems such as Westlaw and LexisNexis and introduces specialized proprietary online systems such as Bloomberg Law and BNA. It will focus on using the Internet to locate legal and non-legal resources, covering such topics as search engines, legal portal sites, websites for federal and state law, government information, and no/low cost information sources (commercial and noncommercial). This course will not be subject to the curve. The professor plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

The subject of this seminar is commercial fraud.  The goal is to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of what parties should consider, what they should anticipate, and how they might respond in litigating and arbitrating commercial fraud cases.  The topics to be covered include (1) the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, (2) the federal securities laws, and (3) various state law claims.  Class will focus on the problems confronted daily by the practicing attorney.

This seminar will focus principally upon the so-called ‘classical’ Mixed Jurisdictions of which there are about 15 or so in the world. Prominent among these are South Africa, Scotland, Quebec, Puerto Rico, Israel, The Philippines and Louisiana. There is debate about the countries belonging to this group and our research interest may extend beyond this circle in order to deal with classification issues. Each student in the seminar will select a topic dealing with some aspect of the Mixed Jurisdictions and write a research paper that will be presented and discussed in class. A paper topic may relate to any micro or macro aspect of such systems and should make use of the comparative method. Before topics are chosen, the opening classes will discuss the defining characteristics and traits of the mixed jurisdictions and students will be introduced to the literature on the subject. The principal text in the course will be V.V. Palmer (ed), Mixed Jurisdictions Worldwide: The Third Legal Family (2001).

This course will cover U.S. legislation, administrative regulations, state legislation, and case law in the area of marine pollution. This course counts as credit for both the Environmental and Maritime certificates.

In modern times, media is more ubiquitous than ever and the law is developing quickly in response. This class will examine the law that impacts media in its broadest sense—everything from a student’s social media posts to a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist’s news story in The New York Times—and explore how those laws have developed over time. Topics will include access and who gets what from government when government is determined to keep things out of public hands; defamation protections that appear to be changing rapidly from New York Times v. Sullivan days; invasion of privacy and what deeply personal information journalists or Twitter posters are allowed to reveal; special rules for the internet; media liability for emotional harm and fakery; FCC regulations; and more.

This is an advanced corporate law course covering federal law aspects of tender offers, mergers (including forward and reverse triangular), leveraged buyouts, asset purchases, and other acquisition techniques, as well as selected defensive tactics (poison pills, recapitalization, white knights, etc.), due diligence, and drafting merger and acquisition deal documents. Business Enterprises is a pre-requisite or permission of instructor required.

This course is one of the two foundation courses in environmental law and presents a survey of programs that govern the use and protection of natural resource systems, including energy, mining, timber, grazing, transportation and water resource development. Special attention is given to the National Environmental Policy Act, and to management statutes for public lands, forests, parks, refuges, wilderness areas, and endangered species.

The purpose of this course is to expose students to the process of negotiation as a pervasive lawyering activity; to increase awareness of the technical, interdisciplinary, and ethical dimensions of that process; to introduce the concept of the lawyer’s role as problem-solver; to enable students to experiment with and consider thoughtfully the various theories, forms, and techniques of negotiation and mediation advocacy; and to provide students an opportunity to assess their own capabilities within those contexts. 75% of the course will focus on negotiation and 25% on mediation advocacy. (Please note that the mediation advocacy portion of the course is not training students to be mediators but rather to enhance their understanding of the lawyer’s role in a mediation.) A number of negotiation exercises are completed outside of class at times that are mutually agreed upon by the negotiators. Flexibility by students in this regard is expected. Students will be graded on a “Pass/C/Fail” basis. There is no curve in this course. The professors plan to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparedness and/or excessive absenteeism. Students who have taken Intercultural Negotiation & Mediation in Berlin may not take Negotiation & Mediation Advocacy due to course overlap.

This course presents an introduction to the basic history and legal framework of the European Union (EU) and then concentrates on several key areas of practice. While the course will touch on the role of key EU institutions in the integration process, a central area of emphasis will be EU law in the fields of energy -- principally electricity, gas, and nuclear -- and the environment. Throughout the course, recurring overall themes will be sovereignty, federalism, subsidiarity and power sharing.

This course concentrates on U.S. patent laws, U.S. patent regulations, and procedures involved in obtaining patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  Students will learn how to write patent claims, patent applications, and responses to office actions from the USPTO.  Some aspects of foreign and international law will be discussed.  The grade will be based on several written assignments and a final exam. 

This is a 3-credit course that covers patent law in greater depth than the intellectual property survey course. Topics to be covered include: patentability requirements, infringement, defenses, remedies, litigation, appellate issues, administrative revocation, and special topics. A technical background is NOT required for this course.

This course focuses on questions that arise in new social ventures, start-ups, non-profits and other early-stage projects. This will be a hands-on course where students will be introduced to the practice of IP and entrepreneurship through a variety of means, including a standard casebook, guest attorneys and entrepreneurs, and individualized research assignments. This course is recommended for students interested in the following areas: business, IP, non-profits, and solo practice. The grade is based project based work (individual research assignments each week) that will be graded. Students turn in a portfolio of their work at the end of the course which will be graded on completeness and thoroughness. This is a rigorous class that takes dedication. Students are expected to dedicate 3 hours preparation per class (6 hours a week) to the individual research assignments. Attendance is also key.

The course will focus on the legal principles and skills involved in interviewing clients and witnesses and counseling clients in the course of litigation, dispute resolution, and decision making. Establishing an effective lawyer-client relationship requires gathering information relevant to client decisions and assisting clients in analyzing the legal and non-legal consequences of various options in order to make the decision most likely to achieve client objectives. Additional topics include addressing political polarization and cultural differences; interviewing and counseling clients experiencing trauma or disability; and representing children, criminal defendants, and organizational clients. Students will be assessed based on in-class role plays, recorded interviewing and counseling simulations, written plans, and self-evaluations.

This seminar provides a forum in which students can deepen their understanding of what property is, debate the merits of property law, and contemplate future issues that property law will face. In doing so, this seminar strives to enhance students’ analytical, research, writing, and presenting skills. The seminar is divided into three main parts. The first part focuses on developing a greater understanding of how the law views property. We will read fundamental property scholarship that has helped developed the modern concepts of what property is and how ownership is established and protected. The second part applies the traditional theories of property rights in more modern context. Through a variety of readings, the class will contemplate whether property rights should extend to things like the body, outer space, and virtual worlds. The third part allows students to develop their own thoughts on property rights through the writing and presenting of a seminar paper.

This course will compare common and civil law approaches to the law of property, contracts, and torts. The common law originated in England and is judge made. The civil law developed from Roman law and, in most jurisdictions today, it is codified. We will look at how England, the United States, France, and Germany deal with some concrete legal problems, and ask whether the differences are due to history, codification, culture or to the problems themselves. The topics chosen will be familiar to the students from their first year. NOTE: Students who previously completed Professor Palmer’s European Legal Systems course may not enroll in this course.

This seminar provides students to learn and engage with the rules of professional conduct and the law as it relates to the differing roles of the prosecutor and the criminal defense lawyer. Students will gain knowledge of constitutional rights and principles that affect the conduct of counsel and the intersection of the law with the rules that govern lawyers. On a fundamental level, students will gain an understanding of the historical and public policy considerations underlying the law and rules governing the conduct of prosecutors and defense lawyers.

The course focuses upon the founding and evolution of American products liability law, including the latest formulation in the third Restatement of Torts as well as state "reform" statutes. Emphasis is placed upon the inter-relationship between con-tract and tor remedies; the rise of the doctrine of strict liability; and the theory of enterprise liability. Professor Palmer will invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation and/or excessive absenteeism.

This course will explore the role of lawyers' ethics in the American legal system and the conceptual models that currently frame the ethical rules and regulate lawyer behavior.  It also will explore those areas in which ethical regulation deviates from practice, and further examine through the use of practical in-class exercises how ethical rules can be developed to improve advocacy and truth-finding in the legal process.  The grade will be based on a non-anonymous paper.  Professor Stanley plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation or excessive absences.  Note:  This course does not satisfy the requirement to take Legal Profession. The grade will be based on a non-anonymous paper. Professor plans to invoke a rule penalizing students for lack of preparation or excessive absences. This course does not satisfy the requirement to take Legal Profession. This seminar may be taken to satisfy the upper-class writing requirement with permission of the Professor and meeting all of the requirements; the course does not automatically satisfy the upper-level writing requirement.

This course will be an overview of military and military-related law as practiced in the United States.  The course will be divided into three thematic blocks:   1) the military justice system as it applies to service members, 2) the military legal system as it interacts with veterans, civilians, and civilian institutions, and 3) the military legal system as it acts internationally.  

This seminar will explore the relationship between critical understandings of the significance of race and legal interpretation. Of particular importance will be the examination of how societal values and customs, expressed in legal rules purporting to address racial issues, inhibit critical approaches to the concerns of justice for the disadvantaged groups. Students must take any one of the following courses as a co-requisite for this seminar: Constitutional Law: 14th Amendment, Gender Law & Public Policy, Law & Sexuality Seminar, or Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Race Relations Seminar. This seminar may be taken to satisfy the upper-class writing requirement.

International energy law is an important part of the required knowledge base of an “energy lawyer”. There is no single body of law or a treaty on “energy law” or “international energy law”. Instead, it is a combination of various rules of international, regional and national laws. After providing insights into what “energy law” is and who are the main players in the field, this course will cover the entire energy value chain and introduce students to legal and contractual issues relating to each segment.  The course covers all forms of energy from oil and gas to reviewable energy. It also provides an overview of typical national policies and policy drivers for various energy activities.

This course examines the impact of legal regulation in the United States on such areas as sexuality and sexual preference as intimate association, marriage, family structure, workplace discrimination, and civil rights. It also covers law relevant to transgender persons, intersex persons, and queer sexualities. No attendance policy; however participation aspect of the grade may suffer due to poor attendance. This seminar may be taken to satisfy the upper-class writing requirement.

This course provides a broad overview of U.S. Federal securities law, including statutes and regulations governing the underwriting and offering process, exemptions from registration, the operation of securities markets, and the activities of securities intermediaries, such as stock exchanges and broker-dealers. The course focuses on theoretical issues, such as the philosophy of regulating disclosure; the classification of professional and retail investors; the allocation of authority among the SEC, self-regulatory organizations and other federal and state regulators with respect to financial instruments; and the scope of and limitations on private securities litigation and the SEC’s enforcement authority. Business Enterprises is required.

This course is designed to give students an introduction to the real world experience of the deal making process, from the first contact between the parties to drafting and negotiating the documents that govern transformational corporate transactions. Over the course of the semester, we will break down the main agreements involved in a hypothetical deal with a view to developing a fundamental understanding of how those components interact with the overall business arrangement and deal dynamics. You will analyze and learn to understand how the key provisions of these transaction agreements are negotiated with the goal of maximizing value for the client and appropriately allocating risk among the parties to a deal. We will also discuss the less tangible aspects of deal making that take place outside of the four corners of the transaction agreements but are no less important. Specifically, we plan to discuss the economic and personal motivations of the various parties involved and the psychology and group dynamics of a deal process. As the deal world is an ever changing environment, we’ll look to bring current real world examples into the classroom. Students will participate out-of-class group and individual practice assignments, including drafting (or “marking up”) transaction documents and negotiating key issues in the context of a prepared fact pattern. Students will also participate in an off-campus mock negotiation of a deal term sheet at Jones Walker, LLP’s office downtown. The course is taught by Britton Seal and Daniella Silberstein, who are both partners in the Corporate Practice Group at Jones Walker LLP in New Orleans. Because of the substantial overlap in content, students enrolled in Negotiating M&A Agreements may not enroll in the Transactional Winter Intersession.

This course examines how the antitrust and labor laws apply to the unique relationships in the sports industry. The course focuses on the ways the antitrust and labor laws have shaped virtually every aspect of professional and amateur sports – ranging from salary caps and age restrictions to television deals and team relocations.

This course examines the application of a variety of different areas of law—including intellectual property, contracts, torts, and constitutional law— to the sports industry. The course emphasizes intellectual property law and issues relating to the ownership of “data” produced by sports leagues, teams, and athletes. In particular, the course focuses on right of publicity and trademark law. This course will also examine a variety of legal issues that arise in collegiate, amateur, and international sports.

This course focuses on environmental sustainability in the energy sector from a legal perspective. Given that we all share the common problem, and try to come up with the best possible solution to answer the challenge of combatting climate change, understanding different tools adopted in different jurisdictions is central in developing — and improving — the policies and implementing measures given the diversity of experiences across the globe. Therefore, the course adopts a comparative approach to examine different regulatory alternatives that can be introduced to reduce the harmful greenhouse gas emissions in particular in the energy supply side in order to enable a more sustainable energy future. While the emphasis will be placed on the power sector given its overall contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions, building, transport and end-use sectors are also examined to a lesser extent.

The course explores the federal income tax concepts of “pass through” or conduit taxation. Partnership tax topics include choice of entity decisions, partnership formations, asset contributions, liability assumption, distributions, operations, transfer of partners’ interests, special allocations of tax attributes, partnership interests received for services, special basis adjustments, and analysis of the entity and aggregate approaches found in the law. Also included is an introduction to the study of the law of S-Corporations and how it compares to the taxation of partnerships. (3 Credits)

The Tax Policy Seminar takes a multidisciplinary approach to tax policy. It explores the political economy of tax policy from different perspectives: efficiency vs. equity; tradeoffs in taxation, key elements and weaknesses of U.S. tax law; the philosophical and psychological foundations of taxation; historical and comparative perspectives on taxation; taxation of income from owning capital; recent proposals to tax the very wealthy.

The course provides a basic overview of regular "C" corporations. Using a transactional approach, the course traces the life of a corporation from formation through distributions to liquidation. Income Tax is a prerequisite for this class.

Tax research consists of the examination of tax questions through the following process: (1) identification of pertinent issues; (2) determination of proper authorities; (3) evaluation of the strength of the authorities; and (4) application of these authorities to the specific fact situation.  Through the use of a series of assigned research projects, students will be given an opportunity to survey significant areas of the Internal Revenue Code, gain an awareness of developing tax issues, and develop a capability in tax research.  Based on the cases presented, the student will be asked to analyze the facts, identify the tax issues, locate appropriate authorities, evaluate those authorities, develop conclusions and recommendations, and communicate the findings in the form of an opinion letter, a protest, or a memorandum.  A final research paper on a tax topic chosen by each student will be combined with the assigned research projects and credit for class attendance to determine the final grade.  Each weekly class session is dedicated to tax research techniques and a survey lecture of the general area of tax law covered by the specific case then under consideration. The course is a Business School course, cross-listed with the Law School.  Income Tax is a prerequisite.

This course explores the state and local taxation of entities and individuals, focusing on multi-state taxation and overall tax planning strategies to minimize or eliminate multi-state tax liability. In this course, we will examine the concept of “nexus” (when a taxpayer or transaction is subject to the taxing jurisdiction of a state or locality), both as it has been understood historically, and in light of technological advances that have made remote business operations increasingly practical.  We will also address the unique state and local tax issues created by the growth of “e-commerce” and the financial impact on state and local tax jurisdictions administering tax laws developed in the context of local business operations.  Finally, we will discuss and analyze business activity taxes and sales and use taxation in detail, and will also cover very generally franchise, capital stock and gross receipts taxes, and property taxation, as time permits. Students will have an opportunity to practice handling or deciding a current significant SALT issue in a "moot court" exercise. The course will be taught by Jaye A. Calhoun, a member of the Business Tax Section of Kean Miller, L.L.P.

International investment protection is particularly important for energy activities. This is true for all segments of the energy value chain from upstream to downstream energy. It is a national and an international issue. Looking at various treaties and agreements as well as real disputes from around the world, this course covers all the main elements of energy investment protection. The objective of the course is to introduce the students to various investment protection methods. The classes examine both treaty and contract based investment protection. It will also cover both investment treaties and Host Government Contracts and Inter-Governmental Agreements used for upstream, pipeline and downstream investments. In addition to the theoretical and more abstract parts, the course will also use several case studies as learning material. The students will be exposed to real contracts and real treaties. This course could meet the upper-class writing requirement.

This course picks up where IP Survey left off. Advanced topics in trademark are covered, along with key concepts related to the use of those trademarks in advertising law. Topics include foreign trademarks, false advertising, deception, omissions and disclosures in advertising, brand protection, and many others. IP survey is required for all participants (no waiver). Students who previously took copyright/trademark may enroll in trademark and advertising law.

The rapidly growing number of disputes involving foreign parties and transactions present distinct problems that do not arise in purely domestic litigation or arbitration.  The course will address these problems and the emerging solutions as developed by American courts, and it will compare these developments with approaches that prevail in other legal systems.  Areas that will be covered include the extraterritorial application of U.S. laws, taking evidence abroad, personal jurisdiction over foreign defendants, and the enforcement of foreign judgments.

This is a theory and practice course covering the major components of an environmental case up to trial including: substantive and procedural law, investigations, claims/defenses, discovery and depositions, experts and science, and motions . Grading will be based on written and oral exercises; no examination. It is taught by William Goodell a sole practitioner specializing in environmental and toxic damage litigation. Mr. Goodell is principal of the Goodell Law Firm, was formerly Louisiana Assistant Attorney General for Environmental Enforcement, and also taught the Environmental Trial Advocacy and Deepwater Horizon Seminar courses at Tulane. This course is the former Toxic Tort Litigation Practice.

This seminar explores the fundamentals of international trade practice in the World Trade Organization (WTO).  After reviewing the economic foundations for international trade and the historical underpinnings of the WTO system, our primary focus will be on the texts of the WTO agreements and the international legal practice surrounding the WTO dispute settlement system. This course is taught by Edward T. Hayes, a partner at Leake & Andersson, LLP. This seminar may be taken to satisfy the upper-class writing requirement with permission of the Professor and meeting all of the requirements; the course does not automatically satisfy the upper-level writing requirement.

Using gender as a paradigm for thinking about law, this course examines sex-based discrimination from a variety of perspectives in substantive areas of law that influence the lives of women and men. It covers issues of formal equality in employment, equal opportunity in education, substantive equality through affirmative action and pay equity, pregnancy, parenting, sexual orientation, sexual harassment, family law, domestic violence, pornography, prostitution, rape, and reproductive choice among others.

The Race and International Law Seminar provides a forum for studying race and racial hierarchies in international law, and the use of international law to produce, reproduce, and justify those hierarchies. Throughout the semester, the seminar will discuss the theoretical underpinnings of early postcolonial critiques and what connections they have to critical race theory approaches to international law.

This seminar allows students to learn and engage with the rules of professional conduct and the law as it relates to the differing roles of the prosecutor and the criminal defense lawyer. Students will gain knowledge of constitutional rights and principles that affect the conduct of counsel and the intersection of that law with the rules that govern lawyers. On a fundamental level, students will gain an understanding of the historical and public policy considerations underlying the law and rules governing the conduct of prosecutors and defense lawyers.

This course will begin with an overview of global energy systems and introduce global energy value chains for the dominant energy paradigms and their reach into the real economy. It will then introduce the legal regime governing the extraction of raw materials needed for energy value chains. It will do so by focusing on the exploration, development and production of oil and gas resources in the U.S. covering core aspects of the oil and gas lease (property), joint operating agreements (contracts), and conservation (environmental regulation) and will place the U.S. experience in an international context. The next portion of the course will introduce the regulation of electricity generation, transmission, and distribution. It will focus in particular on the challenges for energy regulation by an increased focus on renewables in the U.S. energy mix. It will again place these developments in a global perspective. The course will use simulations as a means to introduce the many complexities of energy law in a realistic fashion.

The course is a survey course covering the law relating to international trade in goods, covering both private commercial transactions relating to trade in goods and the international legal instruments and organizations regulating international trade. The course will deal with international sales and payments and also longer-term “framework” agreements relating to marketing and licensing and the issues that they raise, such as antitrust regulation and parallel importing. It will also deal with trade regulation by GATT, the WTO, and regional trade agreements between countries, and will show how the private commercial relationships between parties are related to the public law relationships between countries in relation to trade. The course will consider only trade in goods. It will not consider trade in services or foreign direct investment or taxation as it relates to the planning of import/export transactions.

This course will consider the mechanisms of control over the modern business corporation in American society. What are the roles played by directors, shareholders, regulators, and other groups? Who should owe fiduciary duties to the corporation, what are the content of those duties, and how should they be enforced? How should boards of directors manage the claims of various constituencies affected by corporations?

The seminar will provide students with an in-depth examination into the legal arena of medical malpractice with a concentration on the policies behind the various State statutes governing these claims. We will pay special attention to the caps on damages in each State, if the cap changed in each State, and which States have abolished a cap; the burden of proof; pertinent cases; large jury verdicts; States where a pre-litigation panel is required; collateral source; and other interesting aspects of medical malpractice claims which may be governed by various States. While there will be some focus on medical malpractice laws in Louisiana specifically, the seminar will mostly be a survey of medical malpractice in other States, with a small section dedicated to medical malpractice internationally, for comparison. We will also have a brief introduction of the history of medical malpractice lawsuits.

This course examines the legal history of reproductive justice in the United States from the colonial era to the present. It traces ideas about gender, family, sexuality, bodily autonomy, and consent as they have developed over time, using the theory of “preservation through transformation” to analyze change and continuity. The class will situate the development of various reproductive justice doctrines in political, social, and economic context and examine the impact of shifting ideologies about sex, gender, and race on these doctrines. The course will take an interdisciplinary approach, examining the intersections of reproductive justice with, inter alia, race, class, labor, immigration, environmental justice, and international law. This is a reading-heavy course that requires significant preparation and class participation. Assignments will include weekly discussion questions, a paper draft, and a 35-page final paper.

The course will examine U.S. asylum law in three parts. First, students will understand how the legal framework for today’s asylum law has been built on treaty law, domestic implementing legislation, agency regulation, judicial interpretation, and subregulatory activity. Second, the course will examine the judicial interpretation phase that was for decades the principal way that U.S. asylum law developed, sometimes as a means of immigration control and sometimes as a means of innovation in refugee protection. Third, the course will examine the shift to procedural limitations and access to asylum that have become more decisive of the extent to which the United States fulfills both its protection and control imperatives. The course will focus on the dramatic policy shifts that have come with changes of Administrations, especially in an era of more pronounced exercises of executive authority than legislative. It will also focus on the allocation of authority among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, with the aim of providing students with lessons that will have value in areas of practice or thought beyond immigration and asylum.

The course is specifically designed to provide students with a uniquely focused perspective from which to gain a deep understanding of the varied legal issues that arise at the intersection of law and aging. More specifically, "Elder Law" is the legal practice of counseling and representing older persons and their representatives about the legal aspects of health and long-term care planning, public benefits, surrogate decision-making, older persons' legal capacity, the conservation, disposition and administration of older persons' estates, and the implementation of their decisions concerning such matters. Additional issues covered include retirement planning, discrimination in employment, elder abuse, and assisted suicide. This course will inform the growing number of students who may work with or represent the elderly, family members of the elderly, legal service agencies or legislative advocacy groups.

This course examines the tax law relevant to capital formation, dividends, redemptions, and liquidations. The exercises are designed to 1) improve students’ ability to interpret a statute and apply it to the facts, 2) gain confidence in the application of major corporate tax doctrines, 3) improve writing skills, and 4) learn the tax law applicable to common corporate transactions. Several problems and a short writing assignment are designed to allow students to practice boiling down complex issues into a concise summary suitable for their deal team colleagues, clients, the IRS, or a judge. Grades are based on the daily problem assignments, a short (three to five page) writing assignment, and a short take-home exam.

Only about 2% of all federal criminal defendants go to trial, and only about 6% of state criminal defendants do so. Yet the vast majority of the training received by prosecutors and defense attorneys, both in law school and after, focuses on trials. This mini-course will instead address the mechanism(s) by which most criminal cases are actually resolved, (with a particular emphasis on the federal courts) and will attempt to provide future criminal lawyers with some of the tools needed to achieve just and fair resolutions in those cases. For the last class, students will be put into pairs (prosecutor-defense attorney), and required to conduct plea negotiations in a hypothetical case, and ultimately reach a resolution that does not involve a trial. The roles of the participants will then be reversed, and the exercise will be conducted again.

This course will prepare students to be productive members of a deal team. Combined, they cover the commonly encountered major corporate transactions, such as stock issuances, distributions, redemptions, and liquidations. The exercises are designed to improve a student’s confidence in interpreting a statute and applying it to the facts. Several writing assignments and problems are designed to allow the students to practice boiling down complex issues into a concise summary for their deal team colleagues, clients, the IRS, or a judge.

This course examines the tax law relevant to taxable acquisitions, spin-offs, reorganizations, the carryover of corporate attributes in connection with acquisitions, and anti-abuse provisions. The exercises are designed to 1) improve students’ ability to interpret a statute and apply it to the facts, 2) gain confidence in the application of major corporate tax doctrines, 3) improve writing skills, and 4) learn the tax law applicable to common corporate transactions. Several problems and a short writing assignment are designed to allow the students to practice boiling down complex issues into a concise summary suitable for their deal team colleagues, clients, the IRS, or a judge. Grades are based on the daily problem assignments, a short (three to five page) writing assignment, and a short take-home exam.

This course will begin with an overview of general issues in healthcare law but will focus primarily on practical legal issues physicians face in the current healthcare world and how lawyers can be prepared to counsel the physicians facing those issues. This course will address issues as diverse as anti-trust and ERISA to medical staff and peer review, from the viewpoint of a practitioner who specializes in representing physicians. Tulane medical students will also attend several of the classes. The course is taught by Richard Levenstein, a Shareholder at Nason Yeager. There will also be several attorney and physician guest instructors.