Legal Studies Courses Fall 2013

***Always check the OSOC for the latest most up-to-date info.***

R1B:   Law, Society & the Internet, F 2-5pm, Tal Niv, 4 units, Area N/A

**This course is lower division and will not count towards the major.**          

Does the Internet have rules and if so, what are they, who creates them and who makes sure that they are followed? Is it government, websites operators, users? Putting fact aside, does the Internet need laws? What should they be? These are examples for law and society questions, which we will be posing and then trying to present and discuss in our written work with our prospective readers in mind.

**This course is lower division and will not count towards the major.**

We will read Supreme Court cases, as well as political and legal commentary from across the political spectrum, and consider not only the opinions of the Justices, but also why they hold those opinions. We will seek to discover the way in which courts use authority and craft law.

100: Foundations of Legal Studies, Kutz, MWF 12- 1:00pm, 4 units, Area I or II or III (New Plan: Core)

This is a liberal arts course designed to introduce students to the foundational frameworks and cross-disciplinary perspectives from humanities and social sciences that distinguish legal studies as a scholarly field. It provides a comparative and historical intro to forms, ideas, institutions, and systems of law and sociological ordering. It highlights basic theoretical problems and scholarly methods for understanding questions of law and justice.

109: Aims & Limits of Criminal Law,  Perry, MWF 3-4:00pm,  4 units  Area III or IV (New Plan: Area I)

This course focuses on the analysis of the capacity of criminal law to fulfill its aims. What are the aims of criminal Law? How are they assigned relative priority? What principles can be identified for evaluating the effort to control disapproved activities through criminal law?

132AC: Immigration & Citizenship, Volpp, TTh 12:30- 2:00pm, 4 units, Area III  (New Plan: II or IV)

We often hear that America is a “nation of immigrants.” This representation of the U.S. does not explain why some are presumed to belong and others are not. We will examine both historical and contemporary law of immigration and citizenship to see how law has shaped national identity and the identity of immigrant communities. In addition to scholarly texts, we will learn to read and analyze excerpts of cases and the statute that governs immigration and citizenship, the Immigration and Nationality Act.

147: Law & Economics II, Instructor TBD, TTh 8-9:30am, 4 units, Area I or III (New Plan: Area III)

Microeconomic theory will be applied to government and regulation. Topics include the economic analysis of constitutional law, administrative law, regulation, corporations, and environmental law.  To illustrate, the behavior of legislators who want to maximize the votes that they receive will be described and predicted.  Similarly, the behavior of regulatory agencies who seek to maximize their own budgets will be predicted. The best forms of regulation will be identified assuming that parties subject to it minimize the cost of compliance, as when corporations try to satisfy environmental controls at least cost.  Law &  Economics I (LS 145) is not a prerequisite. 

151: Law, Self & Society, Dan-Cohen,3 units, MW 1-2:00pm, Area I (New Plan: Area II)

Contemporary moral and political philosophy has been increasingly interested in how conceptions of the self relate to various aspects of our social and political life.  These issues have an important bearing on legal theory as well.  Law is shaped by certain implicit assumptions about the nature of individuals and collectivities, while it also actively participates in forming the identities of persons and in structuring collective entities such as families, corporations, and municipalities.  This course will explore some theoretical approaches to this reciprocal relationship between law and the different social actors that it governs.

155: Government & the Family, Hollinger, 4 units, TTh 9:30-11:00am, Area III or IV (New Plan: Area II)

How has the law constructed and deconstructed “family” relationships? What are the common law, statutory, and constitutional principles that affect the formation, regulation, and dissolution of families? How do these principles, as well as diverse cultural and social values, guide the State in determining who may or may not marry, who may or may not become a legal parent, and the circumstances that justify State intervention in otherwise private and autonomous families to protect children against neglect or abuse? Should children have legal “rights” and, if so, to what and against whom? Special attention is given to the laws, policies, and current debates concerning marriage and domestic partnerships, child custody and adoption, and the public child welfare system. These issues are explored through a variety of readings in the law and the social sciences.

LS 162AC – Restorative Justice Abrams/Frampton (4 units) Area III or IV (New Plan: Area I or Area IV)

This course will examine the theory and practice of restorative justice, with an emphasis on the ways that criminal justice systems implicate the emotions and the social integration of both victims and offenders.  The course will begin with a critical examination of the current focus of the criminal justice system on retribution and incarceration. It will explore the racially disproportionate effects of this system, a product both of governmental failures to recognize the continuing economic, social and psychological effects of slavery and Jim Crow, and law’s failure to look beyond a narrow, individually-oriented notion of discrimination. The course will also interrogate the ways that existing approaches function – at times, purposefully – to foster vengeance and contempt toward offenders as a social category, complicating the process of re-entry and reintegration.

163: Juvenile Delinquency & Juvenile Justice, Zimring, 4 units, MW 4-5:30pm, Area III or IV (New Plan: Area I)

This course examines the premises, doctrine, and operational behavior of juvenile courts, particularly in relation to the commission of seriously anti-social acts by mid-adolescents. Topics include the history of theories of delinquency; the jurisprudence of delinquency; the incidence and severity of delinquency; police response to juvenile offenders; the processes of juvenile courts and youth corrections; and reforms or alternatives to the juvenile court system.

170: Crime & Criminal Justice,  Perry, 4 units, MWF 1-2:00pm, Area IV (New Plan: Area I)

This course examines the scope and causes of the crime problem in America, and the uses and limits of our criminal justice system in dealing with it. The class will look at recent trends in crime and at how our crime problem compares with that of other countries. Topics include the massive expansion of the American prison system in recent years and its effect on the crime rate, critical analyses of different theories of the causes of crime, strategies for preventing and controlling crime, death penalty, gun control, white-collar crime, and crime in the family.

LS 176: 20th Century American Legal History, Brown, 4 units, TTH 3:30-5:00pm, Area II (New Plan: Area V)

The opponents of the federal Constitution in 1787 insisted that the new government write into the Constitution limitations on the power of the federal government and a pledge that all powers not given to the federal government would be retained by the people and the states.  Yet in 2007, the federal government, through Supreme Court rulings and Congressional legislation, rights of individuals and limits the ability of states to invade those rights. The ultimate irony of the Constitution is that the Bill of Rights, which was intended to limit the federal government, became the means by which federal government power expanded dramatically. We will begin this course by tracing the relationship of federalism and individual rights from the framing through the adoption of the Civil War amendments. We will then examine the constitutional settlement of the Lochner era and the dramatic 20th-century restatement of federal-state relations in 1937. We will then study the Warren Court’s creation of a new constitutional order of individual rights, and the ratification of those rights in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965,  ending with a survey of the current battle on the Roberts Court between two different sets of constitutional values.

177: American & Constitutional History, McClain, 4 units, MWF 10-11:00am, Area II (New Plan: Core or Area II or III or V)

This course explores the history of American legal institutions and doctrine from colonial times to the present.  It deals both with the history of American constitutional law (through the study of major U.S. Supreme Court opinions) and with the development of certain important bodies of non-constitutional law, such as the law of property, the law of torts (civil wrongs), and criminal law.  In exploring how American law has developed over time the course may serve as something of an introduction to our current legal and constitutional order.

181: Psychology & Law, Plaut, 4 units, TuTh 11-12:30am, Area I (New Plan: Area II) (This course originally was to be team taught by Professors MacCoun and Plaut. It will now be taught solely by Professor Plaut.)

This course will examine the implications of cognitive, social, and clinical psychology for legal theory, policies, and practices. The course will analyze the psychological aspects of intent, responsibility, deterrence, retribution, and morality. We will examine applications of psychology to evidence law (e.g. witness testimony, psychiatric diagnosis and prediction), procedure (e.g., trial conduct, jury selection), and topics in criminal, tort, and family law.

182: Law, Politics & Society, Feeley, 4 units, TTh 8:00-9:30am, Area III or IV (New Plan: Core or Area IV or V)

This course examines the theory and practice of legal institutions in performing several major functions of law: allocating authority, defining relationships, resolving conflict, adapting to social change, and fostering social solidarity. In doing so, it will assess the nature and limits of law as well as consider alternative perspectives on social control and social change. 

184: Sociology of Law, Hillary Berk, 4 units, TTh 3:30-5:00pm, Area III or IV (New Plan: Core or Area IV)

This introductory course explores major issues and debates in the sociology of law.  Topics include theoretical perspectives on the relationship between law and society, theories of why people obey (and disobey) the law, the relationship between law and social norms, the “law in action” in litigation and dispute resolution, the roles of lawyers, judges, and juries in the legal system and in society, and the role of law in social change.  The course will examine these issues from an empirical perspective.

190.1: Law, Politics & Literature, M. Shapiro, 4 units, W 3-6:00pm, Area II (New Plan: Area II or V)

This course will examine some key issues of politics through the close reading of a number of literary works.

190.2: Legal Theory Seminar,  Dan-Cohen, 3 units, 5-7:00pm, Area I (New Plan: Area II or IV)

In this seminar we’ll discuss a number of texts that cover a wide range of issues in the theory of law. Roughly speaking, they fall into two main categories. Some of the readings look at law from the outside, posing the question, what is law and what is the source of its authority? The answers proposed concern the distinction between natural law and positivism, and the relationship between law and morality. The other set of readings adopt an internal perspective, focusing primarily on theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of substantive legal issues. The aim is to identify salient ideas and values that shape legal discourse and inform legal policy. Enrollment is restricted.

To receive permission to enroll, email Professor Dan-Cohen (mdancohen@law.berkeley.edu) and include your major, any philosophy coursework you’ve done, and a short statement of interest in the course. He will email you back with either a Class Entry Code that allows you to register via TeleBEARS, or a message to put yourself on the waitlist. If you are instructed to put yourself on the waitlist, you will be notified during the first class meeting if you will be admitted into the course.

190.3:  Law Politics & Society in Asia, Stern, 4 units, TTh 2-3:00pm, Area II (New Plan: Area II or IV)

This course aims to give students a comparative perspective on law and legal institutions. Above all, looking comparatively helps shed light on our own system and question what is “normal” or “natural.” From what it means to be a lawyer to notions of what is “just” or “fair,” courts and dispute resolution outside the United States can be both very different and, at times, surprisingly familiar. After an overview of concepts, history, and classic approaches to the study of law and society, the course will explore these differences and similarities in three Asian settings: China, Japan and India.  We will look at several topic areas, including mediation, illicit sex and environmental protection, to see how each country’s history, political structure, values and interests shape how legal issues are defined and play out.

190.4: Business Law in Japan and the U.S., Shishido, 1 unit, To be scheduled at Boalt soon, Area II (New Plan: Area III)

This is an intensive course taught at the law school with law students in the comparative study of Japanese and American business systems, law, and regulation. Rather than study the subject through traditional legal categories (e.g., contracts, torts, corporations), this course takes a topical approach. In each class, we will discuss a specific Japanese topic or phenomenon, many of which are well known (albeit often misunderstood) in the United States, such as, administrative guidance, keiretsu, and main banks. The readings will consist of basic materials on both Japanese and American law and business behavior, and have been selected to stimulate class discussion. At the same time, this course will cover most of the important areas of business law. By participating in the discussion, students will not only deepen their understanding of Japanese business, but learn important distinctions between Japanese and American legal systems, and, by extension, between US and other non-Anglo-American ones. This is a 5 week course. There are only 5 spaces for declared Legal Studies undergrads.