Upper-Level Course Design

For a law student considering upper-level course offerings, a course in a substantive area not covered in required courses—for instance, Employment Law or Immigration Law—might have any of several purposes. The student might want to explore the area of law as a possible area of practice or concentration. The student might know that he or she wants to concentrate in this area. The student might want to have a basic knowledge of the subject as along with other subjects. Thus, the curriculum uses two types of course design in addition to traditional 2 or 3-hour electives.  

First, a number of traditional introductory electives are broken down into a one-hour introductory course and a two-hour advanced survey course. Each introductory course will be presented in a half-semester format. The following courses will use the 1+2 format:

• Bankruptcy
• Employment Law
• Environmental Law
• Health Care Law
• Immigration Law
• Income Tax
• Intellectual Property Law
• Oil and Gas

Second, to provide advanced coverage within different broad areas, the curriculum includes 1-hour “Topics” courses. Each Topics course is one credit hour and has a unique course number. Each course may be offered multiple times, on multiple subjects (listed below). Students may take multiple Topics courses. Examples of Topics courses might include: Criminal Law Topics (Post-conviction litigation; Juvenile Law); Employment Law Topics (ERISA; Employment Discrimination); Civil Liability Topics (Products Liability; Mass Torts; Business Torts); Family Law Topics (Marital Property and Tracing); Health Care Topics (Bioethics); Public Law Topics (Poverty Law; Non-profit Law; Education Law); Transactional and Business Topics (International Business Transactions); Trial Advocacy Topics (Expert Witnesses; Exhibits)

In addition, courses within the three categories of experiential courses will develop advanced substantive knowledge and skills within areas of practice.

• Criminal Law Practicum
• Motions Practicum
• Business Lawyer Practicum
• Appellate Advocacy Practicum
• Energy Practicum
• Tax Law Practicum
• Constitutional Law Practicum
• Disability/Elder Law Practicum
• Mediation Practicum
• Criminal Law Practicum

OTHER COURSES

A number of 1, 2, or 3-hour courses will be offered on a rotating basis. Potential courses include:

• Consumer Law (1 or 2)
• International Law (2)
• Law and Technology (1)
• Advanced Legal Research (1)
• Advanced Torts
• Constitutional Law II: Criminal Procedure (3)
• Federal Criminal Law and Procedure (3)
• First Amendment (2)