Master of Laws (LLM)
Colorado Law offers one-year, full-time LLM degrees in three specialty areas:
- Entrepreneurial Law
- Information Technology and Intellectual Property Law
- Natural Resources Law
Juris Doctor of Laws (JD)
First Year
First-year courses lay the foundation and all JD candidates take these courses to learn to “think like a lawyer.” Common law courses taught in the Socratic Method allow students to develop legal reasoning and critical thinking skills. All first-year students are assigned to a small cohort to help build strong relationships and study groups with classmates.
Fall Semester
- Civil Procedure: Rules governing pleading, joinder of parties, discovery, jurisdiction of courts, right to jury trial, appeals, and res judicata and collateral estoppel, with emphasis on the Federal and State Rules of Civil Procedure
- Contracts: Contract liability, offer and acceptance, consideration, frauds statute, contract remedies, the parol evidence rule, contract performance, conditions, changed circumstances
- Legal Writing: Legal analysis and document preparation, objective legal analysis techniques, legal rule synthesis, authority use to explain rules, and rule application to case facts
- Legislation and Regulation: Statutory interpretation, architecture of the administrative state, and interpretation and review of regulation.
- Torts: Nonconsensual allocation of losses for civil wrongs, focusing on negligence and strict liability
Spring Semester
- Legal Writing II: Appellate brief and document preparation, oral arguments before a three-judge mock court, techniques of persuading a court to accept a client’s view of the law and facts, professional judgments within ethical boundaries, and lawyer credibility
- Constitutional Law: Constitutional structure, including judicial review, federalism, separation of powers, and constitutional rights of due process and equal protection
- Criminal Law: Statutory and common law of crimes and defenses, the procedures by which the law makes judgments as to criminality of conduct, constitutional limits
- Property: Personal property, estates and interests in land, landlord–tenant, basic land conveyancing, and private land use controls
- Academic Support
Second and Third Years
The elective program in the second and third years builds upon the foundation laid in the first-year curriculum. Students must take Evidence and Legal Ethics and Professionalism courses and a seminar course. Colorado Law encourages a balance between experiential learning and classroom studies, graded courses and non-graded courses, and study within and outside the law school.
Elective Courses
Business
- Accounting Issues for Lawyers
- Advanced Contracts: Commercial Transactions
- Agency, Partnership, and the LLC
- Antitrust
- Bankruptcy
- Business Planning
- Business Transactions
- Corporate Finance
- Corporations
- Creditors’ Remedies and Debtors’ Protection
- Deals
- Humanizing Contracts
- Government Regulation of Business
- Law Practice Management
- Mergers, Acquisitions, and Reorganizations
- Payment Systems
- Secured Transactions
- Securities Regulation
- Sports Law
- Venture Capital and Private Equity
Criminal
- Capital Punishment in America
- Comparative Criminal Procedure
- Criminal Procedure: Investigative Phase
- Criminal Procedure: Adjudicative Process
- White Collar Crime
Family, Gender, and Health
- Domestic Relations
- Domestic Violence
- Family Law
- Gender, Law, and Public Policy
- Health Law I: Finance, Administration and Organization of Health Care
- Health Law II: Medical Malpractice Litigation
- Juvenile Justice
- Legal Rights of Children
- Parent, Child, and State
- Sexuality and the Law
Government and Public Interest
- Administrative Law
- Advanced Torts
- Civil Liberties Legislation
- Civil Rights Legislation
- Conflict of Laws
- Education Law
- Election Law
- Employment Discrimination
- Employment Law
- Federal Courts
- First Amendment
- Labor Law
- Lawyers for Social Change
- Legislation
- Local Government
- Poverty Law
- Race and American Law
- Remedies
- Supreme Court Decision Making
Intellectual Property, Technology, and Telecommunications
- Computer Crimes
- Copyright
- Introduction to Intellectual Property Law
- IP and Technology Contracting
- Patent Law
- Patent Litigation
- Privacy and Security in the Digital Age
- Quantitative Methods
- Standards and Standardization Wars
- Telecommunications Law and Policy
- Trademark and Unfair Competition
International
- Comparative Employment Law
- Comparative Law
- Immigration and Citizenship Law
- International Business Transactions
- International Criminal Law: Theory and Practice
- International Dispute Settlement
- International Environmental Law
- International Human Rights
- International Law
- International Legal Order: History and Foundations
- Introduction to Islamic Law
- Introduction to Jewish/Israeli Law
- Refugee and Asylum Law
Jurisprudence and Perspective
- Economic Analysis of Law
- Jurisprudence
- Law and the Biology of Human Nature
Litigation
- Advanced Appellate Advocacy
- Complex Civil Litigation
- Jury Selection and History
- Litigation Drafting
Natural Resources and the Environment
- American Indian Law I
- American Indian Law II
- Climate Change Law and Policy
- Energy Insecurity and Sustainable Law
- Energy Law and Regulation
- Environmental Enforcement
- Environmental Law
- Environmental Litigation
- Foundations of Natural Resources Law and Policy
- Jurisdiction in Indian Country
- Land Conservation Law
- Mining and Energy Law
- Oil and Gas
- Public Land Law
- Toxic and Hazardous Waste
- Water Law
- Wildlife and the Law
Practice—Clinical
- American Indian Law Clinic
- Appellate Advocacy Clinic
- Civil Practice Clinic
- Criminal Defense Clinic
- Entrepreneurial Law Clinic
- Extern Program
- Family Law Clinic
- Juvenile Law Clinic
- Natural Resources Litigation Clinic
- Technology Law and Policy Clinic
Practice—Simulation
- Advanced Trial Advocacy
- Alternative Dispute Resolution
- Appellate Advocacy Competition
- Arbitration
- International Moot Court Competition
- Legal Negotiation
- Mediation
- Motions Advocacy
- Rothgerber Moot Court Competition
- Trial Advocacy
- Trial Competition
Property
- Construction Law
- Land Conservation Law
- Land Use Planning
- Real Estate Planning
- Real Estate Transactions
- Real Property Security
- Wills and Trusts
Research and Writing
- Advanced Legal Research
- Advanced Legal Writing
- Creative Writing for Lawyers
- Independent Legal Research: Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy
- Independent Legal Research: Journal on Telecommunications & High Technology Law
- Independent Legal Research: Law Review
- Judicial Opinion Writing
Taxation
- Corporate Taxation
- Estate Planning
- Federal Estate and Gift Tax
- Federal Tax Politics
- Income Taxation
- International Taxation
- Taxation of Conduit Entities
Seminars
- Advanced American Indian Law
- Advanced Constitutional Law Equality and Privacy
- Advanced Constitutional Law, Theory, and Practice of Free Speech in the United States
- Advanced Criminal Procedure
- Advanced Natural Resources Law
- Advanced Topics in Federalism
- Advanced Topics in Health Law and Policy
- Advanced Torts
- Affordable Housing
- Antidiscrimination and First Amendment
- Bioethics and Law
- Cities, Suburbs, and the Law
- Civil Liberties Litigation
- Class and Law
- Comparative Constitutional Law
- Comparative Public Health Law and Ethics
- Computers and the Law
- Constitutional Foundations: Core Ideas
- Constitutional Theory
- Consumer Empowerment
- Counseling Families in Business
- Gender Law
- Higher Education and the Law
- Information Privacy
- International Crimes and Punishment
- Jurisprudence
- Law and Economics of Utility Regulation
- Law and Literature
- Media, Popular Culture, and Law
- Modern Legal Theory
- Oil and International Relations
- Power, Ethics, and Professionalism
- Public Health Law and Ethics
- Securities Litigation and Enforcement
- Separation of Powers
- Tax Policy
- Theory of Punishment
Note: Not all courses are offered each semester. This is a composite list of the last three years of course offerings.