Fieldwork experience for qualified students. Coordinated through the University's Office of Internships. Prerequisite: LEGAL 250. Generally open only to Legal Studies majors. Individual faculty sponsorship required.

Fieldwork experience for qualified students. Coordinated through the University's Office of Internships. Prerequisite: LEGAL 250. Generally open only to Legal Studies majors. Individual faculty sponsorship required.

Not available at this time

Not available at this time.

In a courtroom, people tell conflicting stories and case law produces two sets of documents: an authoritative and performative narrative (the majority opinion) and a counter-narrative (the dissent). We will survey legal documents in American history to analyze narrative techniques, such as framing, juxtaposition, hyperbole, and the outcomes of these rhetorical strategies. What drives narrative choices? We will also read historical documents regarding the cases, such as newspaper or literary accounts, in order to understand the specific cultural and political contexts of competing stories.

This course examines how history, culture, language, politics, race, class and gender influence and reflect on law and legal practice across Latin America. Drawing on Latin American studies (an interdisciplinary field consisting of political science, anthropology, sociology, literature, indigenous studies, and the like), we contextualize the making of law, its transformation, and application of law from colonial times to the present.

This course examines the critical role that the Supreme Court has played in shaping the landscape of rights and liberties in the United States over time. We begin with a discussion about the power and potential of textual rights protections. Then, we examine the historic rise of an organizational structure that supported legal mobilization to protect individual rights in the United States, and learn about why certain rights were protected before others.

The purpose of this course is to critically analyze how the American legal system functions, and how various forms of bias can infiltrate the legal system. To do this, we will examine the structure of the federal and state court systems; the processes by which civil and criminal disputes are handled; the work of police, lawyers, judges, and juries; and other salient topics. This course will provide you with a new way of thinking about the legal system by exploring how individuals may experience bias in the administration of justice, and what steps can be taken to lessen that bias.

This course will explore the nature of freedom in the United States, focusing on constitutional guarantees founded in the historical role of the law. Issues covered will be Privacy, Obscenity, Race, War on Drugs, Freedom from and of Religion, Right to Counsel, and Search and Seizure. The objective will be to trace the evolution of these issues rooted in the Bill of Rights and Supreme Court doctrine. Case law will be read and analyzed in order to extract judicial theory. Scholarly arguments supporting and critiquing American jurisprudence will also be discussed.

Interdisciplinary exploration of basic issues of law's relationship to contemporary society, in which law affects almost all human activity. Topics include the nature as well as historical and social functions of law; the culture and role of major actors in the legal system (lawyers, judges, juries, police, technology); tension between ideals and realities in law; role of law in addressing contemporary social problems.