Fall 2013

Sources and structure of law; history of Bill of Rights emphasizing effect on criminal justice system; limits of law in solving problems in American society. Not available for major credit.

Examination of the rules and realities of American politics, and the role politics plays in American life and culture. Not available for major credit to law students.

The main concepts and topics in American law, in the historical, economic and cultural contexts in which they have developed.

Explores issues of responsibility and credibility. Intentional and unintentional behavior. Clinical biases. Topics include witness credibility, confessions, cults, hostages, battered persons, and repressed memories.

Off campus coursework; title of course taken at host institution appears as a section title.

Consideration of the participants in litigation; private and public plaintiffs, defendants, and courts; information exchange, process, outcomes, and costs of law suits.

The interpretation and enforcement of promises and agreements.

The idea of property as understood through economic and philosophical ceoncepts. Rights in land, water, and other natural resources. Forms of shared ownership (e.g., landlord and tenant), and a survey of mechanisms for controlling land use.

Considers the delineation of spheres of responsibility between the judiciary and legislature, the nation and the state, and the government and the individual.

Individual's obligation not to harm others; bases for compensating persons who are harmed, either by holding responsible whoever is at fault, or by invoking other principles of liability, including the efficiency of resource allocation and the spreading of losses.

Examination of the basic sources of law for federal and California jurisdictions, utilizing a vast array of sources from books to computer-assisted research and analyzing research methodology and techniques. Graded CR/D/F.

Two-semester course focusing on developing analytic and communication skills. Lawyers will analyze legal principles and incisively apply them to facts. Graded CR/D/F.

An introduction to legal interpretation and normative reasoning. Among the topics addressed are statutory and common law interpretation, the rule of law, externalities, and inequality.

Development of legal research, writing, and advocacy skills. Emphasis on objective legal writing, including memoranda, and researching case law through primary and secondary sources. Registration restricted to Law students.

The basic structure of government in the U.S., including the constitutionally mandated division of power in the federal government and the federal system of power sharing between state and federal systems. A comparative perspective on selected substantive and procedural matters, such as common law reasoning, jury trials, adversary process, and various aspects of civil procedure. Open to incoming LL.M. students only.

This course will provide LL.M. and M.C.L. students with a survey of various topics in American law including criminal law, evidence, family law, constitutional law, torts, wills and trusts, administrative law and property law. Open to LL.M. and M.C.L. students only.

Federal tax statutes, technical issues and social problems involved in tax planning, tax litigation, and reform of the tax laws.

Criminal procedure in the courts, and the regulation of lawenforcement by the courts through rules of evidence andinterpretation of the Bill of Rights.

Organization of economic activity especially the modern corporation as institutions of social power. The roles of managers, owners, and regulatory agencies in shaping processes ofdecision making.

Selected problems to supplement LAW 605.

The land transfer process: arrangements between buyers andsellers, brokers, escrows, recorders, title companies. Real estatefinancing through mortgages and other land security devices.

Gratuitous transfer of wealth, especially the transmission of wealth from one generation to the next as a settlement of family affairs. Comparative analysis of the legal mechanisms of gifts, wills, and trusts. Introduction to problems of fiduciary administration.

The purpose and character of trial. Problems of adversary presentation and the nature of proof. The basis for admission and exclusion of evidence in judicial proceedings.

The lawyer's skills needed to understand the financial affairs of a business client.

Explores the interaction of law, culture, and politics in American society from the Revolution through the New Deal.

Comparison of the remedial goals of contracts, torts, and property and the impact of procedural devices in law and equity. Damages, injunctions, specific performance and restitution. Remedial theory and transactional application.

Students receive the training required to become professional mediators for civil cases in the L.A. County Superior Court, and mediate these cases.

Legal analysis of the rules of Evidence using problems designed to improve analytic skills and problem-solving. Taken in conjunction with Evidence. Open to Law students only. Graded CR/NC.

Examines the regulation of employment discrimination under federal law. Pays primary attention to issues of race, sex, age and disability discrimination.

The interrelation of labor, business, and government in collective bargaining, federal regulation of union and management practices and pressures, especially through the Taft-Hartley Act.

Examination of the laws governing fraud in securities markets. Focus on several sections of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including fraudulent statements and insider trading, fraud in the takeover context, fraud in proxies, and controlling personal liability.

Bankruptcy of the poor, imprudent or unlucky, and of unsuccessful business. The mechanisms of our law for distributing the debtor's property and discharging his obligations.

Contemporary topics in the field of entertainment law.

Supervised internship for students enrolled in LAW 650. Graded CR/D/F.

Introduces aspiring attorneys to important concepts in the entertainment business, and builds context for more advanced courses in entertainment, media, technology and intellectual property law. Open only to law students. Graded CR/NC.

Invitation-only course offered to second-year students as part of the Hale Moot Court Honors Program. Students write an appellate brief.

Evaluation and supervision of the preparation of briefs and oral arguments in the Hale Moot Court honors competition. Graded CR/69/65.

Preparation of oral arguments in approved moot court competitions, such as national and state prize rounds, (other than Hale Moot Court Program). Graded CR/69/65. Open only to law students.

Preparation of briefs in approved moot court competitions, such as national and state prize rounds (other than Hale Moot Court Program).

Students prepare for competition by writing a brief on the issues in a problem that is the basis for the Jessup International Moot Court Competition. Participation is by faculty selection only.

Studies the important issues at the intersection of law and psychology/psychiatry, both civil and criminal.

Writing, source-checking, and preliminary editing of articles and comments for publication in the Review of Law and Social Justice. For second year students serving as staff members on the Review. Open to law students only. Graded CR/D/F.

Supervision of research and writing, and final editing of articles and comments for publication in the Review of Law and Social Justice. For officers of the Review. Open to law students only. Graded IP to CR/D/F.

Important business and economic concepts that will assist with problems lawyers in every practice area routinely encounter.

Students learn how to effectively interview child witnesses. Students will practice mock interviews, and may be eligible to conduct actual interviews of child witnesses.

Explores laws designed to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation, with a limited emphasis on foreign and international law for comparative perspective.

An introduction to the problem of poverty in the United States and to the response of government and the legal system to the problems of the poor.

The law of community property, including disposition of property on dissolution of the marriage and questions of conflict of laws. May be offered as a reading course.

Covers the fundamentals of reviewing and analyzing business contracts and strategies for negotiating business issues with an emphasis on developing practical skills. Open to Law students only.

Contract drafting and negotiating will teach students the mechanics of drafting and negotiating sophisticated contracts from a variety of legal disciplines including entertainment law, real estate law and general corporate law.

Discusses current U.S. foreign policy challenges and the underlying international legal issues and principles which shape them.

Legal and economic aspects of corporate finance including capital structure, policy, mergers, takeovers, and freeze-outs; analysis of policy relating to present law and possible reforms.

Executive malfeasance, shareholder rights, securities class actions, asset securitizations, hedge fund regulation and corporate social responsibility from a theoretical and corporate finance framework. Open only to Law students.

This course examines the role of race (and other markers of social marginality) in the administration of justice in American courts.

Covers legal and law-related issues, including constitutional law perspectives, concerning biomedical technologies. Open only to LAW students.

Continuation of Small Business Clinic I. Open to Law students only.

Covered topics include offenses relating to fraud and political corruption, terrorism, narcotics, money laundering, organized crime, false statements and obstruction of justice.

Regulation by state and federal authorities of issuance of, and trading in, stocks, bonds, and other securities. Particular reference to SEC regulations.

Source-checking and preliminary editing of articles and comments for publication in the Interdisciplinary Law Journal. For third year students serving as staff members on the Journal. Graded IP/CR/NC.

Supervision and final editing of articles and comments for publication in the Interdisciplinary Law Journal. Graded IP to CR/69/65.

Survey of legal aspects of international trade and investment transactions, including tax considerations.

Special seminars to provide a forum for students who wish to produce a paper for academic publication to receive guidance and feedback.

Writing, source- checking, and preliminary editing of articles and comments for publication in the Southern California Law Review. For second year students serving as staff members on the Review. Graded IZ..

Writing, source-checking and preliminary editing of articles and comments for publication in the Southern California Law Review.

Supervision of research and writing, and final editing of articles and comments for publication in the Southern California Law Review. For officers of the Review. Graded IP to CR/69/65.

Provides law students with the ability to represent clients (under the supervision of the professor) in cutting-edge issues of intellectual property and technology law. Corequisite: LAW 772 or LAW 841. Graded CR/NC.

Integration of cyberspace and the Internet into existing legal structures. Topics include: 1st Amendment issues; intellectual property, privacy and child protection; criminal activity and governance and jurisdictional issues. Open to Law students only.

Students represent clients before Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Immigration Court, and certain law enforcement agencies in cases including applications for relief under the Violence Against Women Act, for asylum, and for relief against deportation. Open only to LAW students.

Legal principles subject to judicial control and the alternative ways in which agencies can be organized to serve their purposes.

A clinical internship or judicial externship allows a student to gain hands-on legal experience in legal settings. Students will be assigned to a legal services program, government agency, or state or federal judge under faculty supervision. Graded CR/D/F.

Advanced clinical training/externship. Graded CR/NC

Explores theories of international law, examining classical and modern ideas of international legal obligations. Students develop their own intellectual structures for explaining international norms.

Focuses on issues involving the United Nations Convention for International Sales of Goods established in Vienna in 1980.

Focuses on one or two topics per year at the intersection of law, mental health and ethics and explores them from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Exposes students to the psychological research on cognitive errors and biases that threaten to compromise a lawyers performance. Also examines ethical issues and professional happiness.

Emphasizes strategies and tactics in asking and objecting to questions at a deposition in a civil case. Students will conduct mock depositions.

Explores the â??social determinants of health,â? including medical, legal, social, environmental, and behavioral factors affecting the health of individuals and communities, especially poor, vulnerable populations.

Examines conceptual and practical aspects of interviewing, counseling, negotiation, settlement, drafting and formal advocacy in the handling of legal cases.

Examines decicion-making by counsel in the litigation of cases. Emphasis is given to decisions involving tactics, strategies, and their implications for the functioning of legal institutions and substantive doctrine. Extensive use of simulated trial practice exercises.

Examines the change and evolution of law to discover it political roots and the ways policy making branches work to make and implement law.

Involves the treatment of fictional characters by the courts and in new media and the fundamental copyright concepts that have shaped that treatment.

An introductory survey of statutory and case law, and underlying policy issues, concerning copyright, trademark and certain related legal rights. Open only to law students.

Students work under close faculty supervision on cases and projects that involve the application of international law to address human rights violations.

Selected topics in criminal law or criminology. May be repeated with permission of the instructor as topics vary.

Taught in honor of James Ackerman, USC Law graduate of 1948, this class examines selected topics in Maritime and Admiralty Law. May be repeated with permission of the instructor as topics vary.

Investigation of selected problems of international law. May be repeated with permission of the instructor as topics vary.

Formally instructs students on U.S. and international refugee law and policy regarding the Iraqi refugee humanitarian crisis. Graded CR/D/F.

Introduction to negotiation and mediation from an international perspective. Development of essential skills for effective client representation in negotiation and mediation. Open only to Law students.

Assist in teaching writing and advocacy. Responsibilities include helping prepare lesson plans and drafting writing assignments and sample answers; leading class exercises; and judging first-year moot court practice rounds. Graded CR/D/F.

Freedom of expression (political speech, symbolic expression, obscenity, commercial speech, defamation), rights of access to the media, religious protection and prohibition of establishment of religion.

Examines the U.S. Constitution in transnational perspective. The focus is democracy; slavery, emancipation, and freedom; empire; and governmental structures.

Explores the laws that govern and affect religious groups and religious belief-systems and religious experience in the United States.

Examines the substantive rights of federal prisoners with respect to parole, sentencing, validity of conviction and conditions of confinement and the procedural mechanisms by which to enforce those rights. Under faculty supervision, students provide legal assistance to federal inmates in administrative and judicial proceedings. Graded CR/69/65.

For third-year students who wish to continue their clinical training.