All VLS Courses

Advanced Legal Research Seminar

This seminar focuses on statutory law including legislative history, administrative law, municipal law, and case law as well as secondary sources not covered in the introductory research course. The seminar will review specialized resources for topics such as international law, tax law, and interdisciplinary research. 

Advanced Skills for Practice Seminar

Prepares students for legal research in various work settings by teaching advanced "practice oriented" skills as well as exposing students to new resources they are likely to encounter after graduating.  While the course gives students a chance to explore highly specialized databases on Lexis and WestlawNext, the course focuses on cost effective alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw such as FastCase, CaseMaker, BloombergLaw and others.

Agricultural Biotechnology and the Law

This seminar provides students with a multidisciplinary working knowledge of innovations in agricultural biotechnology, of the legal institutions involved in its development and use, and of the theoretical underpinnings and normative influences that shape the debate about agricultural biotechnology.

Air Pollution Law and Policy

An exploration of the major programs and regulatory strategies embodied in the Clean Air Act that are used to address conventional air pollution, toxic air pollution, and greenhouse gas pollution. 

Alternative Dispute Resolution

This course presents the theory and practice of negotiation, mediation, and arbitration that constitute the foundation of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) through lecture and simulations.  Examines the different theories and approaches to ADR, as well as the wide range of issues that arise in the selection and application of these dispute resolution techniques.

American Legal History: The Search for National Identity

A historical approach to questions about American identity that have arisen regularly in the history of the Constitution.  Are we a single people, or an uneasy gathering of different cultural groups? One republic, or a confederation? What are American values? Is a secular government appropriate, or should the American constitution reflect the spirituality of its people? The laws concerning citizenship and human rights are a record of answers given at different times.

America's Energy Crisis

This course addresses the fundamental crisis in which growing energy demands are threatening the buffering capacity of our global atmosphere, while also producing the greatest emissions of most primary pollutants, and the struggle to identify and create the legal elements necessary to promote and ensure solutions.

Download the 2013 Summer Course Syllabus

Animal Law

This course will illustrate how animal lawyers are advancing the U.S. legal system in the interest of protecting all animals. Although our laws view animals as personal property, these lawyers and policymakers craft legal and policy arguments, and act on innovative litigation strategies, to keep the law evolving.

Download the 2013 Summer Course Syllabus

Animal Rights Jurisprudence

A discussion of legal rights for nonhuman animals, the sources and characteristics of fundamental rights, why nonhuman animals are presently denied them, why all humans are presently entitled to them, whether they should be available for nonhumans under the common law and, and what strategies are available for obtaining them.

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Animals and the Law

This course considers the tensions inherent in trying to serve the needs of humans and animals, plus constitutional limitations of justifiability, due process, and First Amendment guarantees. Students  become familiar with litigation tools commonly used in animal law practice.