Public Law Courses

This is a rule drafting course.ÿ Students, working with Professor Wroth in his capacity as Reporter to the Vermont Supreme Court's Advisory Committees on procedural rules, will be briefed on judicial rulemaking and federal restyling guidelines and will draft proposed amendments to sets of Vermont Rules , with explanatory notes. Students will participate in the judicial rulemaking process by orally presenting their drafts to the appropriate Advisory Committee, which will ultimately propose a restyled set of Rules to the Court.

This seminar examines legislative and judicial regulation of the political process.  It stresses two main themes: 1) the ways in which Congress and the state legislatures regulate campaigns, elections, and participants in the political process and 2) the ways in which courts can justifiably intervene in that process..

Covers the core issues of First Amendment law: free speech, free press, free exercise of religion, the establishment clause, and freedom of association.

This course will examine legislative law and the legislative process.  The course will consider the nature and history of legislative power, legislative structure and procedure, legislative advocacy, drafting statutory law, statutory construction, legislative history and legislative oversight.  The course will consider the role of legislative attorneys in the process and the development of public policy through examination of a current public policy issues.

Students are assigned to a standing committee of the Vermont General Assembly, under the supervision of the committee's chair and a legislative counsel, and are required to complete legal research and drafting projects relating to that particular committee's pending legislation.  Students are required to be in attendance at the General Assembly in Montpelier for at least two days each week.  The course runs concurrently with the session of the General Assembly, which means that it begins in early January and concludes in April.

Explores lawyers' involvement in the formulation and implementation of United States foreign and national defense policy through the examination variety of domestic, constitutional, and international law issues such as authority for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, intelligence gathering at home and abroad, detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects, planning for the next terrorist attack, protection of sensitive government information, and other current topics.Perspective & AWR 

Classes offered under this designation explore special areas of interest, including newly developing areas of law, or specialties of visiting faculty and fellows.

Classes offered under this designation explore special areas of interest, including newly developing areas of law, or specialties of visiting faculty and fellows.

Examines the interaction between federal, state and local governments, with particular attention to resource management, pollution control, and human rights. The course also covers non-state jurisdictions such as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Indian Country.

This seminar will explore the impact of state constitutional law on individual rights, constitutional interpretation, and significant issues of public policy.    Is the "new judicial federalism" (i.e., the renewed reliance by state courts on state constitutions as independent sources of constitutional rights) a principled jurisprudence or merely result-oriented interpretation to circumvent decisions of the United States Supreme Court?