M.S.L. Courses
Master of Studies in Law students have the opportunity to take a wide range of course at the law school.
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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 Type
Core CourseCourse Credits
5.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Jonathan M. GutoffR
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 Type
SeminarCourse Credits
1.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Diana J. HasselCourse 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 Type
SeminarCourse Credits
1.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Diana J. HasselCourse 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 Type
SeminarCourse Credits
2.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Melanie ShapiroCourse 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 Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
3.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Miriam RossCourse 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 Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
3.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawCourse 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 Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
3.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawCourse 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 Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
3.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawS
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 Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
3.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Susan Schwab HeymanMarine Affairs Institute
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 Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
1.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawCourse 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 Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
3.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
John ChungCourse 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 Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
3.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawPrerequisite
LAW.635 – Business OrganizationsFaculty Associated
Andrew SpaconeCourse 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 Type
SeminarCourse Credits
2.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawCourse 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 Type
SeminarCourse Credits
2.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawCourse 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 Type
SeminarCourse Credits
2.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
David A. LoganThis course meets for six weeks
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.
Course Type
SeminarCourse Credits
1.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Anthony R. LeoneCourse Description
This course explores aspects of the legal regulation of sexuality. Among the questions on which we will focus throughout the semester are these: How has sexuality (and related notions such as sexuality and gender) been defined, posed and addressed as a problem in and for the U.S. legal system? What role do various conceptions of sexuality play in framing the terms, the argumentative strategies and resolution of legal disputes? What shaping functions do legal constructions of sexuality exert in and on broader political conversations about sex and social justice in the contemporary U.S.? Topics to be discussed include the scope and limits of the “public/private” distinction as a conceptual framework in U.S. sex law; legal efforts to define and distinguish sex, gender and sexuality, sexual acts, gender identities and expressions (male, female, transgender, transsexual, intersex), and sexual identities (“homosexuality,” “heterosexuality,” and “bisexuality”); law, sexuality and intimate association; sexuality, gender, and reproduction; gender, sexuality, surveillance and citizenship; law, sexuality, kinship and family relations; gender identity, sexuality and the legal construction, and regulation, of the human body; sex.
Course Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
3.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawThis course will meet for six weeks.
Course Description
The text is the Pulitzer-Prize winning Simple Justice, by Richard Kluger. The book traces the line of cases from Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education, blending constitutional and historical analysis with fascinating portraits of the lawyers (and their litigation strategy) and the judges (and their personal struggles with how to dispense justice a changing society) who were involved in the history-making journey from “separate but equal” to the death of state-sponsored racial segregation in public schools. The grade will be based on class participation and a take-home exam.
Course Type
SeminarCourse Credits
1.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
David A. LoganCourse Description
The law is used not only to secure justice for parties in individual cases but also to bring about social change. This course examines how lawyers have done that. The readings will be autobiographies, biographies, and other books about lawyers who pursued their visions of social justice. The class will discuss what motivated these lawyers, how they designed overarching strategies to achieve their objectives, the tactical decisions they made along the way, and their leadership styles. There will be no prescribed definition of “social justice.” Instead, students will be asked to think about what “social justice” means to them, and lawyers with different ideological perspectives will be studied. This course is designed for students who hope to pursue public interest careers and for students who hope to find opportunities to advance the public good while engaged in an ordinary legal practice.
Course Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
3.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Carl T. BogusThis course will meet for four weeks
Course Description
This course will be taught by Professor Colleen Murphy explores a lawyer’s identity and purpose beyond the “material” aspects of practicing law. The readings in the course, evidencing a variety of religious and secular perspectives, address topics such as the integration of deeply-held personal values into the practice of law; clients who have deeply held values that are in tension with the dominant values of the legal system; exploring with the client whether justice, peace, or reconciliation is the client’s true goal; and the extent to which a lawyer might engage the client in moral conversation.
Course Type
SeminarCourse Credits
1.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Colleen P. MurphyThis course will meet for six weeks.
Course Description
The course will consider the federal government's waiver of sovereign immunity in the Public Vessels Act and the Suits in Admiralty Act, as was well as state sovereign immunity in maritime proceedings. Some prior knowledge of maritime law and practice would be helpful.
Course Type
SeminarCourse Credits
1.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Jonathan M. GutoffT
Course Description
This course will examine primarily the taxation of corporations and other business organizations under the federal tax law. Consideration will also be given to international taxation issues, as well as the systems of taxation developed in the various states.
Course Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
4.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawCourse Description
This course surveys software systems that embody specialized legal knowledge and know-how, considers the role of technology on lawyering and the legal services delivery system, and provides hands-on instruction in current technologies including document assembly, automated client interviews, social media marketing, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data analytics, project management, and virtual law practice. The course will also examine the burgeoning literature on the practicalities and ethics of “e-lawyering,” with attention to the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Student projects will provide hands-on experience in current technologies with broad application in public interest and pro bono contexts, as well as application appropriate to solo and small firm practitioners.
Course Type
ElectiveCourse Credits
2.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Larry ApplemanThis course will meet for six weeks.
Course Description
This course will ask students to take a hard look at crime and punishment in the United States in the age of mass incarceration. The phenomenon of mass incarceration commonly refers to the historic increase in the prison population in this country over the past 40 years, unexplained by the crime rate and in stark contrast to the incarceration rates of other countries, that has had a disproportionate impact on certain racial, ethnic and social classes (particularly younger African American men living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage). A critical examination of Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, will guide us in exploring the phenomenon of mass incarceration, its historical context, causes and consequences, and the future of crime and punishment in America. The course will be taught by Justice Judith C. Savage, Rhode Island Superior Court (ret.).
Course Type
SeminarCourse Credits
1.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawCourse Description
Tomorrow’s Lawyers will focus on the future of law practice in the United States. Our primary focus will be the book of the same name authored by Richard Susskind, but we will also look at some materials published by the American Bar Association on the subject. We will look at the ways in which cost pressure, competition from non-lawyers, and technology are changing law practice and how young lawyers can prepare for those change
Course Type
SeminarCourse Credits
1.0Course Degree
Juris DoctorMaster of Studies in LawFaculty Associated
Michael J. YelnoskyCourse Types
We have classified RWU Law classes under the following headers. One of the following course types will be attached to each course which will allow students to narrow down their search while looking for classes.
Core Course
Students in the first and second year are required to take classes covering the following aspects of the law—contracts, torts, property, criminal law, civil procedure, and constitutional law, evidence, and professional responsibility. Along with these aspects, the core curriculum will develop legal reasoning skills.
Elective
After finishing the core curriculum the remaining coursework toward the degree is completed through upper level elective courses. Students can choose courses that peak their interests or courses that go along with the track they are following.
Seminar
Seminars are classes where teachers and small groups of students focus on a specific topic and the students complete a substantial research paper.
Clinics/Externships
Inhouse Clinics and Clinical Externships legal education is law school training in which students participate in client representation under the supervision of a practicing attorney or law professor. RWU Law's Clinical Programs offer unique and effective learning opportunities and the opportunity for practical experience while still in law school.