Courses

Explores special topics in law. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Examines the science of climate change and the broader role of science in public policymaking. Reviews the changing legal landscape to abate greenhouse gas emissions, and key issues in policy design. Reviews the Supreme Court's April 2, 2007, decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, overturning EPA's refusal to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from motor vehicle tailpipes, and the aftermath in the courts, Executive Branch and Congress.

Provides an introduction to energy law and regulation in the United States. Covers basic principles of rate regulation and public utilities, the division of jurisdiction between federal and state governments, and the key federal statutes and regulatory regimes governing natural gas, electricity, and nuclear power. Focuses on the basic federal frameworks for natural gas and electricity regulation, with an emphasis on understanding the messy and uneven transition to wholesale competition in these sectors and, in the electricity context, the experience with state restructuring and retail competition. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Examines renewable energy and how legal topics impact financing projects. Reviews structure, regulation, and functioning of electric energy industry and laws applicable to development, ownership and operation of renewable energy projects across technologies. Addresses legal policy, economic and financing issues associated with expansion and improvement of the transmission grid to support renewable energy development. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Equips students to deal effectively with experts, whether as consultants or as adverse witnesses, and to enable the identification of a quantitative issue. Helps students to become multi-dimensional in quantitative literarcy. Enables students to be comfortable reading statistical arguments, performing basic analyses, writing about statistics, expressing quantitative ideas in graphs, questioning an expert, and understanding the power of computer programming.

Offers an in-depth look at research resources and methods. Includes sources from the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of federal and state government; research in topical areas such as environmental law, taxation, and international law; and extensive coverage of secondary and nonlaw resources. Covers both print and electronic sources. Students will have several assignments and a final project.

Surveys resources and methods to effectively research Colorado law. Covers primary and secondary resources including Colorado statutes, cases and digests, regulations, and constitution and practice materials. Covers how to research Colorado municipal law and other Colorado topics. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Approaches legal research from a practice-focused perspective using hands-on sessions in the library. Instructs: how to find and use resources specific to a particular practice area; how to evaluate and weigh strengths and weaknesses of the various legal resources available; and, how to use legal resources efficiently. Includes research strategies and methods, primary and secondary resources, and research using library catalogs and Westlaw, Lexis, and other vendors. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Develops students' ability to think critically about and solve current legal problems. Evaluates the benefits and detriments of both print and on-line legal resources, and how to create an efficient research plan. Formulates and applies research strategies to real-world legal problems, and uses legal analysis to refine and improve research results. Note: students who have taken LAWS 6856 Advanced Legal Research course may not enroll in this course. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Advances and improves legal research and writing skills learned in first year. Proposes variety of assignment types across substantive and procedural areas to prepare for experiences as summer associates or new attorneys. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Looks at structure and jurisdiction of the federal courts, emphasizing problems of federalism and separation of powers and their relationship to resolution of substantive disputes.

Surveys common, statutory, and regulatory law as applied to the mass media. Focuses on the law as it affects the gathering and publishing of news. Also examines the regulation of the electronic media.

Examines typical state rights and procedures for the enforcement of claims and federal and state law limitations providing protection to debtors in the process. Includes prejudgment remedies, statutory and equitable remedies, fraudulent conveyance principles, and exemptions and other judicial protections afforded debtors. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Students deliberate over several important cases as "Justices" of the Supreme Court. Class is divided into three "Courts" with the first hour spent in deliberation and the second hour in discussion of the deliberative process as well as the substantive issues.

Examines speech and religion clauses of the First Amendment. Includes the philosophical foundation of free expression, analytical problems in First Amendment jurisprudence, and the relationships between free exercise of religion and the separation of church and state. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Enables a clinical; student an optional 1-2 credit course to complete an ongoing clinic project that does not reach its natural conclusion during the regular term of the clinic. The practicum may be used in connection with any existing clinical course, but only with permission, and under the supervision of the clinical faculty member. A clinical student must complete a minimum of 50 hours of work per credit taken. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Briefly examines nonbankruptcy business rehabilitation devices, followed by basic principles of federal bankruptcy law and the bankruptcy court system. Concludes with attention to business reorganizations under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. Recommended prereq., LAWS 6001 and 7011.

Studies the history of the jury from ancient times through the implications of Apprendi, the grand jury from the time of Henry II through modern federal practice, and current jury selection procedures, both federal and Colorado, both civil and criminal. Experienced trial attorneys will work with students to demonstrate jury selection.

Considers various contemporary legal problems involved in the ownership, use, development, and operation ofreal estate. Emphasizes the income tax and financing aspects of commercial and residential use and development such as shopping plazas and apartment buildings. Same as ACCT 6730.

Presents a comprehensive study of federal civil rights statutes briefly reviewed in other courses (e.g., Constitutional Law or Federal Courts). Studies federal civil rights statutes, their judicial application,and their interrelationships as a discretely significant body of law of increasing theoretical interest and practical importance.

Provides a clinical course that enables students to work on briefs of criminal cases being handled by the Appellate Division of the Public Defender or Attorney General's Office. Instruction in oral advocacy is given. Enrollment limited to eight students.

Focuses on the core banking law and works outward to cover a broader spectrum of bank-like financial institutions. Covers bank licensing, restrictions on bank business, regulating safety and soundness of banks, consumer protection of depositors and other bank customers, and regulatory examination and enforcement. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Focuses primarily on criminal procedure at and after trial. Looks at bail, prosecutorial discretion, discovery, plea bargaining, speedy trial, jury trial, the right to counsel at trial, double jeopardy, appeal, and federal habeas corpus.

Considers issues raised by the interaction of law and education. Issues may include the legitimacy of compulsory schooling, alternatives to public schools, socialization and discipline in the schools, and questions of equal educational opportunities.

Begins with value creation by transactional lawyers, and emphasizes the opportunity for lawyers to reduce information and agency costs, and mitigate strategic behavior by using tools such as disclosure, representation and warranties, incentive compensation and earnouts. Shifts to negotiation and drafting, focusing on basic drafting principles and strategies to advance one's clients' interests. Introduces the basic framework of contracts (recitals, reps, and warranties, capitalized terms, definitions, indemnifications and escrow). Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.