J.D. Courses

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to the law of property, both real and personal. Real property concepts are emphasized. Topics include historical development, common law principles, gifts, estates in land, licenses, easements, restrictive covenants, future interests, contracts for the sale of land, conveyancing, mortgages, the recording system and possessory rights. Land-use regulation will be introduced if time permits.

Course Description

Through our Prosecution and Government Clinical Externship Program, students train in a prosecution or
government office on the federal, state or municipal level. Students will gain valuable hands-on experience
representing the government in a variety of settings, including criminal prosecutions. Students may be
certified to appear in court at some of these sites. Students will participate in a weekly seminar with
classmates who are working in a variety of prosecutorial and government placements.

Course Description

Through this program, students will be representing low-income clients. Students may choose from a variety of placements in civil legal services offices, public defender offices, immigration non-profit offices, and any other non-profit law office that provides direct representation to low-income or marginalized clients. Students may be certified to appear in court under a student practice order. The seminar will focus significantly on the issues of race and socio-economic status that impact marginalized communities and particularly low-income clients seeking legal help for civil, immigration, and criminal issues.
4 Credits- 180 hours (approx. 2 days/week for 14 weeks)

Course Description

Through this program, students will be representing low-income clients. Students may choose from a variety of placements in civil legal services offices, public defender offices, immigration non-profit offices, and any other non-profit law office that provides direct representation to low-income or marginalized clients. Students may be certified to appear in court under a student practice order. The seminar will focus significantly on the issues of race and socio-economic status that impact marginalized communities and particularly low-income clients seeking legal help for civil, immigration, and criminal issues.
6 Credits- 270 hours (approx. 3 days/week for 14 weeks)

Course Description

Through this program, students will be representing low-income clients. Students may choose from a variety of placements in civil legal services offices, public defender offices, immigration non-profit offices, and any other non-profit law office that provides direct representation to low-income or marginalized clients. Students may be certified to appear in court under a student practice order. The seminar will focus significantly on the issues of race and socio-economic status that impact marginalized communities and particularly low-income clients seeking legal help for civil, immigration, and criminal issues.
8 Credits- 360 hours (approx. 5 days/week for 10 weeks)

Course Description

The course will provide both a historical overview and a current assessment of the relationship between race and American law and provide critical analytical tools on the issue that students can use in various aspects of their legal education and in future practice. The course will examine the ways the American law has created and continues to perpetuate racial hierarchy in the United States, benefiting those deemed white and privileged, and how these actions have influenced the development of American law. The roles that white supremacy and racial hierarchy play in current legal systems, including legal education, the legal profession, the criminal justice system, immigration, the housing market, and public education will also be covered. Finally, the course will take a critical look at current anti-racist theories of action, approaches, and tactics and explore ways in which unjust and racially discriminatory systems can be dismantled. This is a novel course team-taught by three faculty members and it is mandatory for all second-year law students. One of the main purposes of the course will be to find ways to integrate these important topics into the larger law school curriculum.

Course Description

The course will examine the reality of continued race discrimination and racial privilege against the backdrop of a legal regime and political system that claim to foster a color blind meritocracy. The readings will be from several sources including the work of Tim Wise in Between Barack and A Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama.

Course Description

Critical Race Theory is the intellectual movement developed by legal scholars to confront the role American law has played in legitimizing and upholding racial hierarchy. This course will explore some of the foundational works in this influential movement from scholars Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, Kimberle Crenshaw and others. The course will conclude with a one hour exam and will be taught by Diana Hassel.

Course Description

This seminar will focus on asylum law and practice in the US within the context of international refugee law and human rights policy. Specific topics to be addressed include the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, the Refugee Act of 1980, and other related policies and statutes. To expose students to the practical aspects and problems of asylum advocacy and practice, the class may watch one or more videos on the asylum process, have the opportunity to observe asylum hearings in immigration court, or may have the option of working on a part of a real asylum case. Students have the option of writing a seminar paper or drafting a brief for an asylum case.

Course Description

This course is intended to introduce students to the growing field of corporate compliance. Students will learn the fundamental elements of an effective corporate compliance program and will analyze the practical and legal issues involved in designing, implementing and operating such a program. A compliance program is an organization’s policies, procedures, and practices designed to create an ethical corporate culture and to prevent and detect wrongdoing.

Course Description

The remedies course surveys what a court can do for a claimant who has been, or might be, wronged by the defendant. We will address the principal remedies: damages; injunctions (orders to do or refrain from doing certain conduct); restitution (including the possibility of recovering the defendant's gains from a wrongful act, even if the gains exceed the amount of the plaintiff's loss); remedies that simply declare the rights of the parties; pre-judgment remedies before a determination of liability; and the various means of enforcing remedies (including contempt and seizure of property). Throughout the course, we will discuss which of the several remedies are best for the plaintiff, and how to determine the extent of the remedy that the plaintiff may obtain.

Course Description

This course will explore the question of how to directly address the economic losses caused by the American history of white supremacy. UsingRepair:Redeeming the Promise of Abolitionby Katherine Franke, as well as other sources, we will discuss how the costs of racial hierarchy could be calculated, how those losses could be addressed, and the how acknowledgement of these losses would change our understanding of American history

Course Description

This course will examine how sexual and reproductive health laws may impede or increase access to reproductive health care and shape how we understand what constitutes sexual and reproductive health. The course will incorporate the understanding of legal doctrine, public health research, and will critically assess issues arising from sexual and reproductive health law. The course will draw on various tools of analysis including critical race theory, feminist theory, critical legal theory, human rights, and a range of public health methods. Topics covered will include, amongst others, sexual and reproductive health law as it pertains to abortion, sexuality, pregnancy, assisted reproductive technology, health care in prisons, and immigrants.

Course Description

An in-depth study of civil and appellate procedure in Rhode Island, from commencement of a civil action in the Superior Court to appellate review in the Supreme Court, with insights from a practitioner’s perspective.

Course Description

A study of Civil Procedure in Rhode Island, its transition in 1966 from a common law and equity system to a procedure patterned upon the Federal Procedure and its substantial revision in 1995. In depth consideration of the progression of a civil action from its commencement in the
Superior Court to appellate review in the Supreme Court.

Course Description

Despite its small size Rhode Island has a significant and influential history of involvement with various mass torts that have significant influence outside the State. This course will explore the rich history of asbestos, tobacco, lead paint, medical device, and opioid litigations in the state and the influence on the development of mass torts outside the state. Each class will include a mix of the legal principles underlying each of these complex tort litigations and the practical tools that have been developed to successfully manage these actions.
In particular this course will teach:

• Forum selection and pleadings in mass tort actions

• Management of litigation through various case management techniques

• Complex discovery including e-discovery, fact depositions and motion practice

• Coordination with litigation outside of Rhode Island

• Expert reports and depositions

• Pretrial motion practice

• Jury selection and trial of complex cases

• Resolution techniques for complex litigation

This course will be a mixture of classroom lecture and practical hands- on exercises. Homework and class preparation will include key motions and orders from Rhode Island federal and state courts supervising mass torts, critical cases decided by the Rhode Island Supreme Court including State v. Lead Industries Association, and a review of the key distinctions between federal rules of civil procedure and evidence and Rhode Island’s rules.

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to the law related to the sale of goods (moveable personal property) under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC"). Topics to be covered include: formation, terms, performance, risk of loss, express and implied warranties, disclaimers, breach, and remedies of the aggrieved buyer and seller. The course assumes familiarity with basic contract principles, though core concepts will be reviewed.

Course Description

Students enrolled in this program work under the professor’s supervision on a legal research project on behalf of an outside organization. Projects are assigned by the professor and will focus on a specific research question related to ocean and coastal law or maritime law. Law Fellows have the opportunity to work with stakeholders on important issues, to gain in-depth substantive knowledge on the applicable law and its real-world application, and to draft a high-quality written product, and may have the opportunity to present their work in a professional setting. Certain projects can satisfy the Graduation Writing Requirement. Law Fellows must dedicate a minimum of 10 hours per week during the semester, but hours are flexible. The professor’s permission is required to register.

Course Description

This course surveys Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code and focuses on financing and creation of a security interest in personal property and fixtures.

Course Description

This course covers the important federal securities laws and corresponding Securities & Exchange Commission [“SEC”] rules and regulations interpreting the securities laws. The overall objective of the course is to make the students conversant in the “language” of securities laws, the major statutory provisions and rules and how these all play out in corporate American today. Special attention is paid to applying the “theory” behind securities law to practical situations leveraging the Professor’s extensive in-house experience with a Fortune 300 public company. As such, many of the materials used in the course are taken from securities matters which the professor was personally involved with. Business Organizations is a prerequisite. Students who have taken the M&A course especially useful and relevant.

Course Description

Callie from California and Max from Massachusetts get into a car accident with each other in the parking lot of Disney World (Florida). Max returns home to Massachusetts and sues Callie and Disney World in Massachusetts state court. Does the Massachusetts court have jurisdiction over Callie and/or Disney World? If so, what law would a Massachusetts court apply to the dispute – Massachusetts law? California law? Florida law? If Max obtains judgment against Callie and Disney World, are these judgments enforceable in California and Florida? If Callie moves to France and obtains a declaratory judgment there that she is not liable to Max for the car accident, would this French judgment be recognized by a Massachusetts court to preclude Max’s lawsuit? These are the questions to be explored in this Conflict of Laws seminar. The seminar will focus

Course Description

This seminar will use several full-length, award-winning documentaries regarding specific criminal cases as fodder for the examination of timely criminal justice issues, primarily with a constitutional inquiry. Film verities allow the overlapping of doctrinal and practical problems for analysis, deconstruction, and reconstruction. Role-playing may be utilized. Topics covered will include: character evidence, investigative techniques, a variety of police and prosecutorial misconduct, racial and gender assumptions, mental health issues, evidence and emotions, the forensic science paradox, and epistemological questions regarding truth. The required paper may fulfill the graduation legal-writing requirement.

Course Description

We will look at a number of important issues in this seminar, and where possible, supplement discussion with a video that puts the given issue in high relief. Among the topics covered will be Media Law in the Internet era (including liability for “revenge porn,” cyberstalking, the liability of reviewing sites like Yelp, and whether bloggers can assert the “reporters’ privilege”);
Tort Reform (the movie “Hot Coffee”); causation (the movie “Merchants of Doubt”);
Products Liability (the movie “The Insider”); Alternative Compensation Systems (interview with Ken Feinberg who administered 9/11 and BP compensation plans); and Medical Malpractice (the movie “The Verdict”). Students will have the option to write a major paper to satisfy the “Graduation Writing Requirement” or 4 shorter “reaction papers” to materials we cover in class. Class participation will also be part of the final grade.

Course Description

This course may satisfy the graduation writing requirement.” This course covers current developments in transnational litigation-- procedural problems that occur in disputes arising out of commercial and civil transactions that cross national boundaries. The course will examine topics including: cross-border personal jurisdiction and jurisdiction over foreign defendants; choice of forum and forum non conveniens; parallel litigation; recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments; applying and proving foreign law; cross-border discovery; litigation involving foreign governments; and international human rights litigation in US courts. Students are expected to produce a paper on one of these or related topics (there is no final exam).

Course Description

Litigation involving nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and financial exploitation of the elderly is an expanding and complicated area of civil litigation. These cases provide a complex interaction between traditional tort law as embodied in medical malpractice cases along with contract issues, corporate law, access to the civil justice system and an understanding of state and federal regulations. This course will provide an academic and practical analysis of this complex niche practice area.