Second/Third Year Students

The Topics In Law (TIL) designation enables the offering of new courses covering emerging legal and practice trends and areas of special interest to students and faculty, as well as permitting development of courses with potential for integration into the ongoing curriculum. TIL courses offered over the last several years include the following:

TIL: Advanced Trial Practice

2 cr. - Professor Rick Rossein

The Advanced Trial Practice seminar is open to eight (8) students who have completed Professor Rossein's Trial Practice fourth semester lawyering seminar. The students will engage in advanced trial practice skills development culminating in participating in the ABA Section on Labor and Employment Regional Trial Competition held at the U.S. Courthouse for the Southern District of New York. The students will examine the law of the case, develop a litigation plan, explore the factual theories, examine the exhibits, develop ideas about demonstrative exhibits, explore advanced evidentiary issues and workshop objections, develop a trial plan, participate in three moot trial experiences, and the Trial Competition at the U.S. Courthouse.

TIL: Children's Advocacy

2 cr. - Professor A. Burton

Viewing the topic through practical, doctrinal, and theoretical lenses, we will examine international and national laws, policies, practices, and procedures affecting children in juvenile delinquency and maltreatment (abuse and neglect) contexts. Ethical considerations facing lawyers for children in these contexts are prominent throughout the course, with a particular focus on the challenges and opportunities involved in navigating the roles of advocate ("attorney for the child") and guardian ("best interests attorney") in developing appropriate attorney-client relationships with children. The final grade will be based on class participation, a class presentation on a topic of your choice, AND either: (1) a paper on a topic of your choice, which topic may be the same as the class presentation topic, OR (2) a take-home final exam which will be distributed at the beginning of the course (50%).

TIL: Federal Income Tax

2 cr. - Professor M. Macchiarola

This course will focus on federal statutes and regulations governing federal income tax. Through statutory interpretation, case analysis, and hypothetical scenarios, the course will demonstrate how taxes are assessed in principle instead of concentration on accounting principles and tax form preparation. The course is an overview of the federal income tax system in the United States, designed to help students understand the public policies advanced by the Internal Revenue Code, as demonstrated by the select taxes, deductions, and exemptions discussed each week. The class will discuss not only how the rules of law work, but what policies lie behind them, what alternatives might replace them, and how they affect the society in which that tax system operates. For example, the course will show how basic human needs - such as housing, education, and health care - are subsidized by tax credits, exemptions, and deductions. Class participation is required.

TIL: Land Use and Community Lawyering

2 cr. - Professor A. McArdle

This New York City-focused seminar is intended to help prepare students who will represent community stakeholders in controversies related to urban redevelopment involving the state's power of eminent domain, zoning, urban renewal, architectural preservation, or that implicate the environmental impact of land use decisions. Drawing on the perspectives of law, urban planning and politics, critical geography, environmental justice, and public health, the seminar places contemporary contests over urban land use in historical context, relating them to legal issues generated by post-war urban renewal, displacement, fiscal crisis, and gentrification.

To develop a situated knowledge of how law intersects with questions of political economy, the dynamics of community formation, and the built environment, the seminar models a literally grounded study of urban space by a planned walk for students through a New York City neighborhood that is undergoing transition/development. Guided by this grounded approach, seminar students will participate in small-group case studies to generate knowledge about, and potential approaches to, contested local land use issues. The seminar addresses the various roles of law as conservatizing force, mechanism for determining access to resources, and strategic tool for mobilizing community advocacy in contests over equity and access.

Among other topics, the course will consider the various contested meanings of "community," community voice, and efforts to expand meaningful community participation in local land use decisions and environmental justice advocacy; study recent New York Court of Appeals decisions addressing the use of the eminent domain power in the Atlantic Yards (Brooklyn) and Columbia University (West Harlem) expansion projects, as well as the role of community benefits agreements in these cases; consider some key structures of subsidized and rent-regulated housing in New York City and recent attempts to dismantle them through court challenges; analyze local regulations governing community gardens and urban farms; analyze the role and authority of local government structures, including community boards and the landmark preservation commission, in the local land use planning process. The seminar will address concepts in property law, constitutional law, contract law, state and local government law, New York civil practice, and administrative law relating to urban land use and will provide opportunities to build skill in drafting, negotiation, and informal advocacy through role plays derived from actual cases implicating local land use decisions.

TIL: Latinas/Latinos & the Law: Struggles for Equality

2 cr. - Professor J. Rivera

This course explores substantive legal issues which have been the focus of the Latino Community's legal rights movements in the United States. Students will discuss the constitutional and statutory protections based on national origin, ethnicity, language, race, gender, sexuality, socio/political, economic and immigrant status, and the histories of national origin subgroups. Substantive issues include criminal justice, education, employment, health and voting rights. Students will critique the legal approaches taken in struggles for equality and access to justice, and the role of Latinas and Latinos in shaping United States jurisprudence. Course materials include cases, legal critiques, and interdisciplinary materials on issues impacting Latinas and Latinos. Grading is based on a final paper, class presentation of the final paper and two short papers critiquing specific reading assignments.

TIL: Religious Traditions and the Law

2 cr. - Professor G. Koster

This course is a seminar on religious traditions and the law from a jurisprudential perspective. Topics include Enlightment liberalism; Challenges to liberalism; Christian traditions and the law (Catholic, Calvinist, Baptist and Lutheran); and Christian perspectives on several substantive areas of law. Students will prepare a paper on one religious tradition and its relationship with the modern American legal regime.