Program of Instruction
To assure a shared basic knowledge, Litigation, Statutes & Regulations and Constitutional Law are compulsory courses for all participants. In addition, each participant is required to enroll in at least three elective courses. As the number of participants in an elective course may be limited, applicants are requested to list on the registration form all available electives in order of their preference.
Below you find the overview of the courses of the 2008 session:
Litigation
This course provides an introduction to civil litigation procedure and practice in federal and state courts in the United States. Every major step of a lawsuit (such as choosing the proper court, obtaining jurisdiction, filing pleadings, conducting discovery, motion practice, summary judgment, settlement, trial, and appeal) will be presented doctrinally and by example.
Constitutional Law
This course will introduce students to the national constitutional law of the United States using the text of the U.S. Constitution and nine landmark constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Half of the course will explore the text of the Constitution and the "structural" aspect of U.S. national constitutional law, that is, the separate powers of the national legislative, judicial, and executive branches in the context of American federalism, where governance is shared between the national government and fifty subnational state governments. The other half of the course will introduce students to the American constitutional law of individual rights. The specific rights to be examined will be the freedom of speech, the rights to racial and gender equality, the right to privacy, and the right against cruel and unusual punishment in criminal cases.
Remedies
This course is a brief but rigorous introduction to contemporary perspectives on remedies in American law. Remedies cut across all areas of law. Yet attempts to identify unifying aspects of remedial approaches to legal disputes are often not taught to students of law earlier in their studies - when such an effort would usefully connect the disparate subject matters to which students are first exposed. This course will present a general approach to remedies with applications in torts, contacts, constitutional law and employment discrimination among other areas of law. The aim of the course, however, is not to focus on specific areas of law, so much as the general principles of remedies.
Corporations
This short course will cover several of the most important topics covered in a full-length U.S. law school course on corporations. Topics include the role of fiduciary duties and judicial enforcement in mitigating agency costs within the firm, regulation of takeovers, and the balance between state and federal law in corporate governance. Some attention will be devoted to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act enacted in the wake of the Enron scandal, which has had a major impact on the legal environment for corporate governance in the United States.
Introduction to Federal Criminal Law
This course will be an introduction to Federal Criminal Law in the United States. We will explore the system's institutions and processes (focusing on prosecutorial discretion and plea bargaining), and give students a taste of some of the offenses that get prosecuted, with the goal of showing how this important but relatively small system fits into the larger American criminal justice system.
Contracts
This course is an introduction to the central themes of American contract law and a presentation of modern issues affecting contracts. Special attention is paid to those aspects of contract law that distinguish U.S. contracts law from the commercial law systems of West Europe.
Statutes & Regulations
This course will consider some fundamental structural characteristics of the American political and legal system having particular importance for public law. We will examine American approaches to the material of public policy: statutes, regulations and the institutions that create and administer them. Topics will include Congress, the President and the administrative agencies; the process for forming statutes and regulations; and current disputes about the proper materials and techniques of interpretation.
Comparative Venture Capital
This course explores the law and economics of venture capital and equity investment in emerging technologies and innovation throughout the world. The course begins by dissecting the methodology of venture capital contracting in the Silicon Valley of California, as well as the corporate governance and regulatory environment that fosters innovation. This environment is then compared to the law and practice of technology finance in the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, Singapore, Taiwan, India, and the Peoples Republic of China. Special attention will be devoted to the roles of and relationships between capital markets, banks, and financial regulators in promoting investment in technological innovation.
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