This class is designed to expose students to new research and to engage in critical discussion about various facets of the criminal legal system. It is targeted both towards students interested in considering a scholarly path as well as those interested in criminal legal practice or reform.

Legal practice and research increasingly involve analysis of big data to resolve legal questions, and the importance of quantitative analysis is likely to grow. Also, legal employers may value lawyers who have at least basic familiarity with empirical research methods. This is the first half of a year-long course introducing students to empirical methods. No experience with statistics or quantitative analysis is required or expected.

Legal practice and research increasingly involve analysis of big data to resolve legal questions, and the importance of quantitative analysis is likely to grow. Also, legal employers may value lawyers who have at least basic familiarity with empirical research methods. This is the second half of a year-long course introducing students to empirical methods. No experience with statistics or quantitative analysis is required or expected.

The past decade has witnessed rising geopolitical tensions, and as states have become wary of interdependence, questions arise: can the international legal regimes that govern international trade, investment, and finance survive? How can they adapt? This seminar will explore these questions.

This course is a forum for students to engage with their peers, faculty, and invited scholars on cutting-edge issues in criminal law, criminal procedure, and criminal justice policy. Each week, we will focus on a scholar and read a sampling of their work; the following week, that scholar will join us to present their most recent work.

Protest or riot? Civil disobedience or insurrection? Cities, universities, and other governmental entities must simultaneously protect free speech and public safety while managing mass demonstration events. The legal, ethical, and practical issues presented by these events will be the focus of this course.

This seminar is aimed at giving students a full view of Political Law as a field from a legal practitioner's standpoint. Topics include constitutional and public policy underpinnings of regulation, formation and entity choice, campaign finance, lobbying, and foreign participation. Voting rights, redistricting, and election law will not be covered.

This seminar examines the development of U.S. citizenship through law, history, and politics, including topics such as naturalization, birthright citizenship (jus soli), citizenship by descent (jus sanguinis), and expatriation/denaturalization.

Underlying the Rules of Evidence are many assumptions about how people behave and how people (in particular jurors) reason. We will think about the origins and necessity of the rules in general, and specifically look at things like the usefulness of the examination/cross-examination style, character evidence, and other variables.

This seminar will survey the origins of the privacy torts and their trajectory in the courts and scholarship as well as barriers to their enforcement in the digital age.