Law - S.J.D. First Year Seminar

Catalog description

This seminar is required of all first year S.J.D. candidates. During the first semester we will read and discuss a number of topics including a basic introduction to the American legal system and the American legal profession, common law reasoning and analysis, including the theory of precedent, introduction to common law research, legal scholarship, law reviews and other professional publications, and basic principles of academic writing including introduction to copyright and plagiarism. Students will be required to write a series of short papers on several of these subjects. During the second semester students will work on topics related to their dissertation research and will present the results of their research to the seminar as a whole for critique and analysis. Students will also be expected to prepare a written version of this research that is suitable for publication. The seminar will meet for two hours bimonthly throughout the academic year.