Law (LAW)

This required course for Law majors and minors provides an introduction to the study of law in America. We will begin by asking what "law" is, where it comes from, and what preconceptions we have about what it should do. We will then turn to the origins and structure of the American legal system, how our legal decisions are made and preserved, and what effect those decisions have had, and will have, on our institutions and our culture.

The one credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps transition to UB through an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 198 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester.

The three credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps students with common learning outcomes focused on fundamental expectations for critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and oral communication, and learning at a university, all within topic focused subject matter. The Seminars provide students with an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 199 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester.

This class introduces students to basic concepts in the common-law fields of contract, tort (personal injury), and property. Students will learn what is required to make an agreement legally enforceable; when a person may be held responsible for accidentally injuring another; and about the rights of exclusion and other legal relationships governing control of valued resources. In addition, the class will introduce students to judicial decision-making in common law systems. Students will learn to read cases, identify holdings, and basic practices for communicating about cases. They will learn about precedent, the doctrine of stare decisis, the power of judges to make new rules of the common law, and the social functions of judicial governance of legal relationships created by private individuals.

This course will introduce students to public law, which describes the scope and limits of the government¿s authority over individuals. Students will learn about the substantive bodies of law that regulate individual conduct, such as criminal law and governmental regulations. The course will also cover the manner in which these substantive laws are enforced through the governmental institutions¿police, prosecutors, and regulatory agencies¿that are charged with their administration. Last, students will be introduced to constitutional limitations, such as the Bill of Rights, that constrain the power of the government in cases where individual rights are implicated. In short, this course will provide students with a basic understanding of the relationship between the government and the individual in American law.

This innovative approach to sports law instruction features full on-line access, providing a broad range of experiential knowledge delivered by UB law professors and third-party sports professionals in actual practice. The course will be taught from three perspectives: (1) law and the athlete, (2) law and sports management, and, (3) law and multi-event facility operations. Career employment opportunities in the sports industry for both lawyers and nonlawyer graduates of the program will be identified.

A comparative study of the relationship between justice, law, and society in pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Thought. This course is the same as JDS 284 and RSP 284, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

In Kenneth Vandevelde¿s words, lawyers read and analyze legal sources to find rules that ¿identify the rights and duties that exist among particular individuals or entities under a given set of circumstances.¿ This course is an introduction to some methods and strategies of analysis and reasoning involved in this task. We will examine the principal sources of legal obligation ¿ enacted laws and judicial decisions ¿ and the techniques lawyers use to derive legal rules from these sources. In particular, we will look closely at the nature of legal rules and how statutory text, precedential authority, and considerations of policy figure in the process of translating legal texts into guidance about what the law permits or requires people to do.

This course introduces students to basic legal research in New York state law using primary and secondary legal resources. Federal law will be explored as well. Online legal research will be the focus of this course; however, print research will be integrated when instructive.

This course provides an introduction to the complex relationship between lawyers and their clients. We will begin by examining how this special relationship developed, then move on to examine how it has been circumscribed by ethical, political, and legal rules. We will look at various examples of the lawyer/client relationship in film, literature, and history.

The purpose of the course is to introduce the principles and objectives of substantive criminal law. While considerable attention is placed on examining the doctrinal framework undergirding American criminal law, the course also seeks to develop an understanding of the ways in which the state uses punishment as an instrument of social control. Finally, the course studies the constitutional, statutory, and jurisprudential limitations that are placed on the state¿s authority to punish, and, therefore, its power to use the criminal law as a means of shaping social interactions.

Introduction to family law issues, including proceedings in Family Court and NYS Supreme Court, as well as out-of-court alternative routes (such as mediation, arbitration, separation agreements, prenuptial agreements), enforcement procedures, and agencies with an ancillary role in family law. This course covers the practical aspects of family law in New York State. In addition to general knowledge of family law issues, the focus will be on four areas: custody, child support, separation agreements, and divorce actions. Students will learn which courts handle which types of cases, filing procedures, ethical issues, and substantive law.

This course provides an overview of contracting practices in the American Economy as might be experienced by employees who are in charge of documenting and monitoring them in businesses of various sizes and of the law that structure such practices as well as clean up when they go wrong. After an introduction to the commonalities across contracting practices, the course highlights four sectors of the economy so that the different, but similar, ways of contracting and making money can be experienced by the students enrolled.

This course will introduce students to the theory, doctrine, and institutions behind intellectual property regimes in the United States, including copyright, patent, and trademark. Intellectual property protects a host of human activity, often the things we seek out in our free time or use to make our lives better: music, books, movies, technology. Intellectual property law tries to strike a balance between using the law to encourage this creativity activity while not overly stifling other socially beneficial activities that build on this output. Students will learn what is protectable under each intellectual property regime; the steps required to protect a creative work, brand, trade secret, or invention; the judicial tests for infringement of intellectual property rights; and the defenses, both judicial and statutory, to infringement.

This course provides a broad overview of fundamental business law concepts, including legal contracts, business entities and finance. We will look at different types of business entities including their purpose, formation and how business is conducted by a business entity. We will look at business combinations generally, including mergers, joint ventures, licensing deals and asset sales. The course also will provide an overview of securities laws, the uniform commercial code, corporate governance and the negotiation of business deals. We will use a variety of real world examples and scenarios, as well as real documents, to make these concepts relevant.

This course will introduce students to employees¿ and employers¿ individual rights and responsibilities in an employment relationship under both common law (judicial decisions) and statutory law. This will include a study of matters such as job security, employee mobility, and employees¿ privacy and speech protections. Students will also study the coverage of worker protection statutes with respect to issues such as minimum wage, maximum hours and worker safety.

This class is designed to give students a practical understanding of the laws and regulations encountered by banking and financial professionals. This course begins with an overview of the ¿dual banking¿ system in the United States and the distinct state and federal regulations and bodies that govern financial institutions. Students will learn to navigate the different sources of regulation, evaluate and prepare guidance memoranda for internal use, and address inquiries and enforcement proceedings brought by regulators.

This course provides students with an overview of the laws, rules, and regulations that apply to the sports industry. General legal risk management principles will be introduced, which will then be applied in a variety of amateur and professional sports contexts, including both amateur and professional sports entities. The unique nature of both professional and amateur athletics organizations will be examined from both a legal and a business perspective. Amateur eligibility concerns arising from gender, race, and disability issues will also be addressed. Ownership, relocation, and transfer of professional sports franchises will be covered. Finally, a summary view of labor relations in professional sports will provide background for a discussion of the agent-athlete relationship.

This course is an introduction to federal income tax law in the United States. Law and legal issues, rather than accounting, will be the central focus. Instead of filling out tax returns or working with complex mathematical formulas, we will examine how federal income tax law is created and the policy considerations that underlie their enactment. Students will learn about the roles of the three branches of the federal government in creating, interpreting, and applying federal income tax law. In addition, we will think conceptually (and practically) about how different federal income tax laws apply to different fact situations. In the end, students will learn how to read, interpret, and communicate the various tax authorities relevant to economic and non-economic decisions made by United States persons.

This course focuses on significant themes and developments in American legal history between 1900 and 1960. It addresses major changes in constitutional law, common law, statutory law, legal theory, and the legal profession as they intersect with, and are spurred by, broader transformations in American society, politics, and culture. In addition to substantive coverage of historical material, we will also explore the emerging field of legal history. Legal history is a relatively new area of scholarship, one that overlaps with the more established and well-known academic disciplines of doctrinal legal studies (taught primarily in law schools), and social and political history, but that is distinct in its methodologies, areas of inquiry, and foundational assumptions. We will explore what eminent legal historians have to say about the boundaries of this field and how the study of legal history can help us understand the past as well as the present and future of American law, policy, and the legal system.

Specialized topics in law.

This course will introduce students to the origins, history, procedures, and challenges of the jury trial.

Because law is deeply implicated in our political, economic, and social worlds, pursuit of social change invariably involves an engagement with law. In this course, students will grapple with the ways law has been used to both effect social change and oppose it, with particular emphasis on the limits of the law as a tool for social change. Over the course of the semester, students will study the legal aspects of both historical and on-going campaigns for social change. Specific campaigns will include the campaigns for free speech, civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights, as well as conservative campaigns in favor of religious liberty and in opposition to affirmative action. Discussion may include examples drawn from other countries, such as Gandhi's campaign for independence in India or the campaign against apartheid in South Africa. Students will also study the ethical responsibilities of lawyers as activists, and various strategies used by groups in power to oppose a campaign for change.

Have we reached the end of nature? Are the dire predictions of a human-inflicted apocalypse something we need to worry about, or are they exaggerated? And what does the end of nature even mean for humans, non-humans, and our environments? Proclaiming that the natural world is disappearing is nothing new. As far back as Plato, people have complained about humans altering nature beyond repair. Is there anything that sets the period we are living through, newly referred to as the Anthropocene, apart from those earlier times? And does this situation really change everything, as Naomi Klein argues in her book about climate change? Finally, how do our scientific and legal systems account for this change? These questions are particularly acute in light of the assaults by the current political administration in the United States on the EPA, national parks, and efforts to mitigate climate change. This interdisciplinary course will draw on legal, scientific, and cultural perspectives to discuss climate change, species extinction, biodiversity loss, capitalism, and the Anthropocene. We will read books and articles from various disciplines, host experts from multiple fields, watch documentaries, and discuss the great ecological changes and challenges of our time, emphasizing the interconnections between law, science, and society. Graduate students from all schools and departments, including law, geography, history, sociology, anthropology, English, urban planning, and media studies are welcome. No background in environmental studies or law is required. Contact the instructor at irusb@buffalo.edu with inquiries and to check for crosslisting options with your department.

This course introduces students to various aspects of privacy and information law, including changing understandings of the very concepts of privacy and information. We will study different approaches by which law has attempted to protect privacy and access to information, including contract and tort law, statutory and regulatory protections, and criminal law. We will also address the roles of privacy and management of information in corporate governance, litigation, government information and national security, and the obligations of lawyers to protect client privacy. This course is dual-listed with LAW 573.

Undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) assist professors and adjunct instructors in preparing and grading assignments, exercises, and teaching materials, and tutoring students in the instructor¿s primary courses. In the course of this work the UTAs learn to thoroughly understand the material being taught. Helping to instruct the students is a valuable learning experience for the UTAs.

This course is designed to provide students an opportunity to gain practical hands-on training, skill development and experience in a professional setting within the School of Law¿s Clinical Legal Education Program or outside of the university and under the guidance of professionals in a work environment related to law or law-related work. The number of credits is variable, from two to three. For each credit hour, a minimum of 45 hours at the internship site must be completed.

LAW students may pursue topics of their choice with faculty members who agree to work with them. Students should contact a faculty member directly and explore topics and scope of project. LAW 499 will require a detailed syllabus or agreement be made for each student.