Master of Studies in Law Degree (MSL) - Required and Elective First-Year Courses
Required Introductory Courses
INTRODUCTION TO LAW AND LEGAL REASONING (3 credits)
This course will begin to help MSL students to "think like lawyers." Students will gain experience in reading and analyzing cases and statutes in order to begin to understand how to use the law to predict answers to legal questions. The course will also include a sampling of legal readings and guest lectures in the various areas of substantive law. Grading will be based on short papers and presentations and on one longer paper and a corresponding class presentation.
TORTS (4 credits)
This course explores the methods and policies for allocating losses from harm to one's person, property, relations, and economic and other interests. The course covers the substantive principles of tort claims and their defenses. The course examines the three main theories of tort liability: intent, negligence, and strict liability and analyzes the theoretical and practical aspects of tort liability.
Elective First-Year Courses
CIVIL PROCEDURE (3 credits)
This course examines the process of resolving disputes through litigation. Topics include: pleading and other procedures required to initiate a lawsuit; the size of litigation; disposition of actions without plenary trial; the role of the jury; the effect of previous litigation on a new lawsuit; and alternatives to litigation as a means of resolving disputes.
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (4 credits)
An introduction to American constitutional law, particularly argument to and from judges. Topics covered include the role of the judiciary in reviewing acts of the political branches of government; the relations among the three branches of the federal government; the relations of the states to the federal government; the judicial interpretation of the 14th amendment's principles of due process and equal protection of law; and the right to freedom of speech.
CONTRACTS (4 credits)
What promises are legally enforceable? Why does the law enforce these promises? What does it mean to enforce a promise? This course explores those questions, using the basic concepts, principles, and doctrines of contract law, sometimes called "the law of broken promises."
CRIMINAL LAW (3 credits)
Traditional and contemporary doctrines of substantive criminal law are analyzed, with focus on such issues as: theories of punishment, the formal elements of criminal culpability, the theory and degrees of homicide, criminal causation, inchoate crimes, accessory and vicarious liability, conspiracy, and defenses of excuse and justification.
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE (3 credits)
The subject matter is Supreme Court decisional law and policy issues relating to the application and scope of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Topics typically covered include: incorporation theory, right to counsel and related entitlements, the exclusionary rule, pretrial identification procedures, search and seizure law, and interrogation law. Students should gain both knowledge relating to constitutional law, which governs the permissible perimeters of police conduct and defendants rights, and an informal sense of how the criminal justice system actually operates.
LEGAL PROCESS (3 credits)
Legal Process addresses the value of procedural protections and the limits of judicial power. These protections and limits derive from the federal Constitution, federal and state statutes, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In addition, the Constitution and federal statutes define the types of cases or controversies that federal courts can hear.
PROPERTY (4 credits)
This course analyzes the legal ordering of relations among individuals concerning things of value. The course content varies from professor to professor, but all examine the concepts that illuminate what law means by the terms "property" or "ownership." Throughout the course, students will be asked to contemplate the nature of property; what rights follow from the identification of property interests; and how these interests are allocated, protected, and transmitted.