Experiential Courses

1 Credit | Fall, Spring

The course will emphasize learning the skills of negotiation by simulations in which students will negotiate and watch their classmates negotiate. Class members will conduct three negotiations during the weekend – a simple sales contract, a retainer agreement between an attorney and a client, and a complex multi-party dispute. There will be class all day on Saturday, and a class session on Sunday afternoon. The first negotiation will commence immediately at the start of class, so prompt attendance is vital to credit in the course. Some negotiations will be videotaped for review in class. Students who attend all class sessions, participate in good faith in the simulations, and do the readings will receive a pass for the course.

​3 Credits | Spring

An introduction to the world of fact investigation and analysis, this course will provide an overview of how to develop and scrutinize facts. The course will cover five major topics: 1) how lawyers gather facts; 2) how lawyers evaluate evidence/facts; 3) how to organize evidence into a comprehensive narrative; 4) how human memory, biases, and perception affect fact gathering; and 5) the ethical issues surrounding fact investigations. The course will involve a significant interactive skill development component including mock interviews, drafting exercises, guest speakers and hands-on investigation exercises.

3 Credits | Spring

This course provides an applied property and administrative law experience related to land development and its regulation. The course is structured around three important elements: 1) learning by attending and reflecting on a set of cases brought before a local zoning board of appeal; 2) problem solving by working on and writing up a bench memo response to a practice-based zoning problem; and 3) an advocacy experience by participating in a mock appeal to a local zoning board. A substantial amount of course time is devoted to understanding the administrative law context of local land regulation. Local land regulation involves both the planning process and the development of a zoning code pursuant to the plan. This involves a review of the legislative and the adjudicative functions of planning and zoning agencies. The course also covers issues related to proper delegation to local governments pursuant to the State’s police power, and the various standards of review applied to zoning board determinations that are appealed to the courts. Many of the cases covered address the tension that arises between land law and various fundamental rights such as those protected by the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the rights of association, and the right to be free from discrimination.

3 Credits | Spring

The central goal of this course is to equip students with skills required to practice law in a political and bureaucratic context. It will teach students about the organizational structure of the national security infrastructure; how key figures make, implement, and oversee policy and operational decisions; and the unusually diverse array of legal materials that regulate national security players and thus constitute the “law” of national security law.

​3 Credits | Spring

This course will introduce students to the theory and practice of negotiation. Students will learn basic negotiation skills and will be introduced to a variety of other skills including: valuation of a client’s position; interviewing; business communications; and basic drafting.

3 Credits | Spring

A series of problems challenge students to identify client interests and consider different options for effective representation. The problems span civil and criminal law and become more complicated as the semester progresses. Discussions with practicing attorneys will supplement students’ work on the problems. To develop skills of perception and judgment, the course also incorporates the study of mindfulness and emotional intelligence. Students will learn about concentration, awareness, and the development of compassion in legal representation. They will practice interviewing clients and making decisions in a group. If they would like, students may also be guided in mindful breathing, meditation, and yoga.

3 Credits | Spring

This course will explore major lawyering themes and skills used by public interest lawyers, cutting across diverse practice areas and settings. The course is designed to integrate academic theory with experiential learning (through role plays, simulations, and individual and group exercises) related to current issues in public interest law practice and advocacy today.

2 Credits | Fall, Spring

The course provides students with an introduction to contract concepts, terminology and drafting. Over the course of the semester, students will revise and/or draft various contracts such as attorney retainer agreements, leases and service contracts. Students also negotiate and draft an agreement for the purchase/sale of a business. In addition, students conduct legal research and draft a predictive memo based on their research.

2 Credits | Fall, Spring

This course introduces the writing process that judges and law clerks use to complete their work. By the end of the course, students should be comfortable drafting appellate court opinions, and drafting trial court orders.

​2 Credits | Fall, Spring

This course is designed for students who experienced difficulty during their first semester of the legal research and writing program. The course will focus on personalized instruction, tailored to the individual needs of each student. The course is designed to ensure that enrollees become proficient in the field of legal analysis and legal writing. The course will reintroduce students to fundamental legal analysis and legal writing skills, closely monitor student progress, and consistently reinforce course subject matter and materials.

​2 Credits | Fall, Spring

The course is designed to have students write the most common types of papers encountered in a simple federal criminal prosecution. Each student will start out as an Assistant United States Attorney investigating a crime that has come to the attention of the U.S. Attorneys Office. The course will develop from an initial agent interview, through the application for a wire intercept and search warrant, and then a charging instrument. The students will be assigned to represent the defendant. Each student will prepare a memorandum in support of a motion to suppress and will also draft proposed jury instructions and a defendants motion for a new trial. Each student will argue a motion against a student representing the other side.

2 Credits | Fall, Spring

The course is designed to have students write the most common types of pleadings, discovery requests and responses and motion papers encountered in a simple federal court civil litigation. At the beginning of the semester, students will be presented with the most basic facts of the case, and will be divided into two-lawyer teams. Each team will represent either the plaintiff or the defendant. During the course of the semester, the teams will develop additional facts through client interviews and discovery. The course will culminate with the preparation of memos in support of and in opposition to summary judgment based on the facts developed in discovery. Each team will argue the motion against the opposing team. The course is intended to expose students to the types of writing and thinking they will have to engage in during a real litigation, as well as exposing them to non-writing litigation skills. Students will also learn how to work as a team with another lawyer and how to relate to opposing counsel.

3 Credits | Fall

This course examines the substantive, administrative, and procedural process of claims before the Department of Veterans Affairs. Students will learn how to write regulations, understand the notice and comment procedures for proposed regulations, and write informal and formal briefs to the agency and courts. Students will have the opportunity to advocate for a mock veteran, third party, and VA interests. The course will devote substantial class time in covering fundamentals of administrative law, including agency rule-making process, agency adjudication, and judicial review.

3 Credits | Fall, Spring

Courtroom techniques and tactics drawing on substantive and procedural law and evidence courses. Students prepare and conduct trial exercises under direction of instructor.

​3 Credits | Spring

This course is designed primarily for students who plan to practice in the area of Patent Law before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) which permits only registered patent attorneys and agents to represent clients in the prosecution of patent applications. The course will cover the process of procuring a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The course will also enhance students’ understanding of the legal standards for patentability (building upon the principles explored in Patents and Trade Secrets), will familiarize students with the PTO’s elaborate rules of practice in patent cases, and will provide students with practice applying these standards and rules to facts and situations encountered in basic patent prosecution practice. Patents and Trade Secrets is a prerequisite to this course.

​2 Credits

Advanced training in direct and cross-examination, witness interviewing and preparation, negotiation techniques, voir dire and jury preparation, final arguments, discovery, pretrial and trial motions, pretrial conferences, jury trial techniques, and post-trial procedure.

​3 Credits | Spring

An introduction to the spectrum of processes other than courtroom litigation that are available for resolving disputes. This includes such “pure” processes as negotiation, mediation, and arbitration, and such “hybrid” processes as the Mini-Trial and the Summary Jury Trial.

3 Credits | Spring

​3 Credits | Fall

Legal Interviewing and Counseling is a practical skills course that will introduce students to the theory and practice of legal interviewing and counseling. The class will include interviewing clients to identify and obtain relevant facts and evaluate the information obtained; attorney-client communication skills; identifying client’s legal needs and objectives; assisting clients in evaluating options, weighing consequences, and decision making. Classes will include interactive discussion, and interviewing and counseling simulations.

3 Credits | Spring

This is a one semester applied learning course. The goal of this course is to expose students to disability law and policy as applied to real situations. Each student will work on a project that has originated from a request from a “real client” or client organizations, such as the National Council on Disability, the World Bank, Mental Disability Rights International, or other organizations that work with and for people with disabilities.

3 Credits | Spring

This applied learning course is designed to expose students to a number of areas of practice that are common for house counsel. Students will work individually and in teams and undertake simulations in litigation management, agreement negotiation and drafting, employment problems, and intellectual property practice. Students will learn how lawyers handle complex problems in such diverse areas and may conduct research, draft agreements and file memoranda, conduct interviews, and negotiate to resolve the issues found in practical exercises that will be the backbone of the course.

3 Credits | Fall, Spring

This course provides students with an in-depth understanding of the technical, business, and legal factors involved in bringing new technologies to market. Fall semester covers basic intellectual property law, securities and debt finance related to intellectual property, monetizing intellectual property, employment law pertaining to ownership of intellectual property, covenants not to compete, licensing basics, antitrust restraint of trade and monopolization. Spring semester covers design patent, design copyright, trade dress, trade secrets, licensing negotiation, antitrust treatment of mergers, and patent assertion entities. At the conclusion of each semester, students will have a broad knowledge of technology innovation law and practice.

​3 Credits | Fall, Spring

This applied learning course allows students interested in the areas of intellectual property and business law to apply their knowledge to actual new technology. Students work in supervised teams consulting with companies, entrepreneurs or universities that are seeking to commercialize new technologies. The finished product includes a report and presentation that cover such things as: analyzing the technology, investigating intellectual property protection, examining the market landscape, identifying any regulatory concerns, and exploring opportunities for funding or licensing. Instructor guides the issue-spotting and provides feedback on reports through the individual team supervisors.

2 Credits | Spring

This course teaches corporate finance by guiding students through all aspects and phases of a syndicated commercial loan transaction. Students will examine the design, negotiation, finance, and implementation of a real-world deal, from both a law and business perspective. In addition to teaching the substantive law and principles of finance, the course also teaches essential deal skills and provides students with practical insights (from an experienced senior lawyer) that will enable them to be effective transactional lawyers and bankers. This course is cross-listed with the Whitman School of Management and will contain a combination of JD and MBA students.

3 Credits | Fall

The course will cover Federal and New York rules of evidence, and constitutional rules pertaining to the rights to confront and present a defense, in connection with a range of issues typically arising in criminal cases. Weekly assignments will be designed to simulate work that would be performed in a prosecutor’s or defender’s office. They will include motions in liminie and supporting memoranda, inter-office trial preparation memoranda, and both trial court and appellate advocacy of evidentiary issues. The course is a limited enrollment course and the grade will be based exclusively on written and oral advocacy.

Any student interested in practicing national security law or going into international criminal justice must have a clear understanding of the law of armed conflict. Humanity has attempted to regulate the horror of war for centuries. This seminar will review those attempts, focusing on the modern era. Particular attention will be paid to recent challenges related to the war on terror and the ramifications for future enforcement of these key principles. The student will have the opportunity to be involved in several practical exercises that will reinforce his or her learning and to write a paper on various cutting edge issues related to the law of armed conflict.

3 Credits | Fall

This course will explore estate planning from two perspectives. First, it will deal with the substantive aspects of estate and gift tax and property law (including joint interests, life insurance and retirement plan proceeds) which must be considered in developing an estate plan. Wills, trusts and other planning techniques will be considered in detail. Second, the practical aspects of dealing with estate planning clients will be considered in depth, including how to explain difficult technical matters to the client, how to present documents to clients in an understandable format, and issues of ethics and professionalism. Short drafting and writing exercises as well as a substantial paper, consisting of a package of client memoranda and documents, will be required.

3 Credits | Fall

The advent of the digital age has changed the way lawyers exchange information in litigation. Whether it be on computers, cell phones, tablets, data management portals, or social media, the key documents and information necessary to litigate are stored electronically, posing never before seen challenges for today’s lawyer. Whether advising a client of litigation holds and data retention policies, propounding or responding to discovery demands, preparing for and taking depositions, or engaging in motion practice on evidentiary issues, understanding technology is paramount to the modern day litigator. In this course you will be that lawyer. Employed as an associate at a fictional law firm, you will be responsible for managing all aspects of electronic discovery in two cases, from the initial client interviews, through and including depositions and trial preparation. Taught by a lawyer with experience as an associate and partner at large law firms in New York City and Boston, boutique practices, a federal clerkship, and as in-house counsel, this course offers a great opportunity to learn both the law, and the requisite skills to be a successful lawyer in the digital age.

​3 Credits | Fall

Using a series of case study modules that jump off the front page, the course examines critically the hardest U.S. national security law and policy challenges of the decades ahead. The case studies range from decisions to intervene and what laws apply if we do intervene in humanitarian crises, insurrections, or civil wars, and what laws should govern when we are involved; dealing with the Arab Spring; dealing with Iran and North Korea related to nuclear weapons; anticipating and controlling new technologies in warfare and surveillance; managing civil/military relations in protecting the homeland; countering the cyber threats to our infrastructure and cyber attacks waged by nation states, such as China and Russia; managing public health as a national security issue; resource depletion and global warming as a national security issue. Students will learn to integrate legal and policy analyses, and will gain lessons in how policy is made and implemented with significant legal guidance. Students will present analyses of case studies to the class, and will write briefing memoranda concerning some of the case study modules.

​3 Credits | Fall

Trial work is a relatively modest fraction of a litigator’s life. Yet most law schools routinely offer trial advocacy courses, and largely ignore the other practical forms and occasions for litigation advocacy. This is a one-semester program where aspiring litigators would confront the more typical litigation problems that would combine and hone their training in legal writing and written advocacy, civil and criminal procedure, and privilege and other issues arising in the course of discovery, motion practice, negotiation and oral advocacy. This experiential course would accomplish this through a series of classroom simulations and written homework assignments that required the students to address a series of typical litigation problems.

​6 Credits | Summer

Students will spend the first week of the seven week program attending lectures by authorities in English law. This introduction to the English Legal System will prepare the students for their internships by providing an overview of the fundamental tenets of English law, with an emphasis on English legal institutions, court structure, the legal profession, and adjudicative procedure in both civil and criminal cases. Classes during this first week will meet for a minimum of 15 hours and will be supplemented by visits to one of the Inns of Court and the Houses of Parliament and by a guided tour of Legal London. Following this first week of classes, students will undertake six-week internships with barristers, solicitors, public agencies or other legal organizations, under the supervision of Syracuse University College of Law faculty. Internships are full-time jobs, and students are expected to work the normal hours at their placements. During this six-week period these internship experiences are augmented by once-a-week, two-hour evening seminars conducted by the program faculty and cooperating English practitioners.

6 Credits | Fall, Spring

Student attorneys represent clients charged with misdemeanors and violations in Syracuse City Court. They engage in extensive fact investigation, interviewing, client counseling, and plea negotiations, and appear regularly in local courts. They also assist clients with civil matters related to the pending criminal charges.

1 Credit | Fall

The pro bono bankruptcy clinic consists of a clinic open to second and third year students, and a pro bono volunteer program open to first year students. The upper division clinic students will representing an indigent client in filing a bankruptcy case, and will be in charge of the team supervising the first year student volunteers. The clinic students will be responsible for obtaining from the clients all of the information required by the Bankruptcy Code for filing a bankruptcy case, organizing that information, drafting the petition and schedules, and representing the client at the official meeting of creditors. Students will also address any legal issues that arise in the case. The class component will involve formal training basic consumer bankruptcy law and practice, and an open discussion of issues that arise in the cases.

6 Credits | Fall, Spring

This clinical course will focus on representation of the elderly in a variety of substantive areas, with initial focus on administrative proceedings regarding public benefits, especially Medicaid. Students will have substantial opportunities to interview and counsel clients, conduct fact investigation, grapple with thorny ethical issues unique to elderly clients, and advocate for clients in a variety of settings, including in administrative proceedings. Students will have primary responsibility for their cases, under the guidance of the faculty member. There may be opportunities for collaboration with medical staff from the SUNY Upstate Geriatric Clinic and other professionals working with the elderly.

3 Credits | Fall, Spring

The Low Income Taxpayer Clinic offers legal assistance to low income taxpayers who have controversies with the I.R.S. The controversies may include collection, examination, appeals or Tax Court matters. Student attorneys will also be involved in community outreach and education regarding income tax matters.

6 Credits | Fall, Spring

Provides legal assistance to small investors who have lost some or all of their investments as a result of improper conduct on the part of stockbrokers, investment advisors, securities firms, and mutual funds. Students enrolled in the SAC provide representation to eligible investors who are required to use the arbitration process for the resolution of their disputes.

​6 Credits | Fall, Spring

The Disability Rights Clinic is dedicated to providing representation to individuals and groups in our community who are unable to secure representation elsewhere. One reason DRC clients are unable to find other lawyers to represent them is due to their lack of financial resources. In our community, as elsewhere, the vast majority of lawyers provide legal assistance only to those who can afford to pay for their services. And in recent years, federal funding, the major source of funding for legal services for people with low or no incomes, has been reduced dramatically. A second reason DRC clients are unable to find lawyers elsewhere relates to the types of cases they may have which may involve controversial issues or conflicts of interest for other lawyers. DRC student attorneys practice in federal and state courts, and before administrative agencies in a broad range of civil rights matters, including race, gender, age and disability discrimination, sexual harassment, prisoners rights, immigration, accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and employment matters.

​6 Credits | Fall, Spring

The Veterans Legal Clinic offers legal assistance to veterans on discharge upgrade cases and benefits claims before the Department of Veterans Affairs. Students will have substantial opportunities to interview and counsel clients, conduct fact investigation, and advocate for veterans in a variety of settings. Students will assist veterans in navigating the process of applying for disability benefits, appealing decisions at the local level, and providing assistance all the way up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in Washington, D.C. Students will have primary responsibility on their cases, under the guidance of a faculty member. In addition to case work, students will learn about military culture and the military discharge process. Students will understand the intricacies of VA administrative law process, including the impact of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury on these cases. Students will also focus on the policies behind the regulations set forth by the VA and how those intersect with the statutes set out by Congress.

​6 Credits | Fall, Spring

The Community Development Law Clinic is one of only a handful of law school clinics nationwide which provide students the opportunity to represent not-for-profit housing and community organizations involved in affordable housing development and community economic development for people with low incomes.

6 Credits | Fall, Spring

This combined clinical offering is designed for students interested in developing legal skills in the area of children’s rights and in handling various civil cases. Students will assist in cases pertaining to education, school disciplinary hearings, suspension hearings, children’s access to public education and public housing. Students will also represent clients in court and in negotiations to enforce child and spousal support and on divorce and custody cases. Representation of the clients includes interviewing witnesses, gathering evidence, negotiation settlements, appearing in court, and conducting hearings and trials. During the seminar, students will discuss the fundamentals of interviewing, counseling, negotiation, and written and oral advocacy as well as the substantive areas of family and public interest law, public assistance, and social security.