Online MSL Course Descriptions

Online MSL Course Descriptions

American Legal System (8 weeks; 2.5 credits).  This course will prepare MSL students for success in all courses in our program.  The course will give an overview of key areas of law that students will study in depth in later MSL courses, and will help MSL students begin to “think like a lawyer.”  Students will gain experience reading and analyzing judicial decisions (“case law”) and written laws (“statutes”).  Equipped with this new skill, students will begin to understand how to use the law to predict answers to legal questions. Students will practice writing basic legal documents, such as a case brief and a legal memorandum, and will participate in online discussions and other activities with classmates and the course facilitator as a tool to cement the knowledge they gain in the course. The course will also include a sampling of legal readings and documents.

Private Law I: Contracts (3 weeks; 1.25 credits).  What promises are legally enforceable? Why does the law enforce those promises? What does it mean to enforce a promise? This course explores those questions, using the basic concepts and principles of contract law, sometimes called “the law of broken promises.” Specific topics include the requirements for formation of a contract (such as offer and acceptance), justifications for enforcing promises (such as consideration or detrimental reliance), justifications for denying or limiting enforcement (such as unconscionability or mistake), interpretation of contract terms, and remedies for breach of contract.  Students will complete written exercises that reinforce essential aspects of contract law and drafting.

Private Law II: Torts (3 weeks; 1.25 credits).  This course explores the field of private wrongs.  MSL students will study the methods and policies for allocating responsibility and compensating losses when a person harms another person, their property, or other interests under civil (as opposed to criminal) law.  The course examines the three main theories of tort liability – intentional, negligent, and strict liability torts – and surveys key categories of tort claims that MSL students are likely to come across in professional and personal pursuits.  Students will complete a variety of research and writing exercises aimed at cementing a foundational knowledge of tort law.

Private Law III: Property (3 weeks; 1.25 credits).  Property law, broadly defined, governs relationships among people with respect to “things.” These “things” include land (“real property”), tangible objects such as a legal casebook (“personal property”), and intangibles such as a publisher’s right to prevent others from reproducing the original content in a book (“intellectual property”). The Property course focuses primarily on real property (students will study intellectual property in depth in the Commercial and Tech Law course).  It examines how property rights may be limited in certain situations, and how the law balances the rights of a property owner against the rights of others, including co-owners of the property, tenants, neighbors, and the community at large.  MSL students will learn how a person or entity acquires property and the key attributes of property ownership; they will also study the law of leases (landlord-tenant law), land sales, easements and private covenants, public land use regulation including zoning, and limits on government authority to “take” private property for public use. 

Public Law I: Constitutional Law (3 weeks; 1.25 credits).  This course is an introduction to American constitutional law, with an emphasis on U.S. Supreme Court decisions interpreting and applying the U.S. Constitution. The course explores various methods of interpreting the Constitution and doctrines that guide judges’ application of its provisions.  The course covers such topics as the role of the judiciary in reviewing acts of the political branches of government; the separation of powers and relations among the three branches of the federal government; the powers of the national government and how the concept of federalism limits the powers of Congress and the states; and individual constitutional rights.

Private Law II: Criminal Law (3 weeks; 1.25 credits).  This course introduces MSL students to the fascinating area of criminal law.  The course analyzes doctrines of substantive criminal law, both traditional and current.  It focuses on such issues as theories of punishment, the formal elements of various crimes, the theory of homicide and the different degrees of that crime, criminal causation, liability as an accessory to a crime, conspiracy, and defenses to crimes including excuse and justification.  The course also covers white collar crimes, which are crimes relating to financial fraud in business or government transactions.

Private Law III: Legislation and Regulation (3 weeks; 1.25 credits).  This course has three main goals: first, to offer MSL students an overall sense of how the legislative, administrative, and judicial arms of government interrelate to govern our society under our constitutional system of checks and balances; second, to teach students how legislatures make written law (“statutes”) and administrative agencies apply the law, using regulations and adjudications; and third, to introduce students to the tools and doctrines courts use to understand the meaning of statutes (“statutory interpretation”). 

Business and Tax Law (7 weeks; 2.5 credits).  This course focuses on the laws governing corporations and other business enterprises, in particular how corporations and other business enterprises are formed, what structures a business enterprise may take and how those structures differ, how business enterprises govern themselves, how they raise capital, and what fiduciary duties are owed by corporate directors and officers. The Tax Law portion of this course will introduce the basic concepts of the Internal Revenue Code relating to individuals and business enterprises, as interpreted by the Internal Revenue Service and the courts.

Commercial and Tech Law (7 weeks; 2.5 credits).  The Commercial Law portion of this course explores the primary U.S. legislation governing agreements to transfer an interest in goods -- Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code.  Subjects covered include what transfers Article 2 applies to, how contracts are formed, warranties, acceptance, rejection and revocation of acceptance of goods, risk of loss, excuse for failure to perform, and remedies for breach.  The Tech Law portion of this course focuses on intellectual property, which, in the Information Age, has taken on even greater significance. Intellectual Property (or “IP”) law is designed to encourage the production of certain forms of information by granting property rights to the producers, enabling them to realize the value of the information they produce. In this course, we survey state intellectual property law (e.g., unfair competition and trade secrets) as well as federal intellectual property law, including trademark, patent and copyright. We examine some of the ramifications of recent technological developments on intellectual property law and some of the problems of international protection of intellectual property.