Academic Programs

Over the past 15 years, the Law Center has regularly reviewed and refined its academic programs. The quality of the legal education provided – always strong – is now even more vigorous.

     In 1989, following up on a recommendation in the long-range plan for that period, the school developed Curriculum B, an alternative first-year program. Professor Louis Michael Seidman led the committee that developed the innovative curriculum. Students taking Curriculum B cover the same subject matter offered in the more traditional Curriculum A, but rather than taking the usual first-year courses such as Civil Procedure, Contracts, and Torts, Curriculum B students approach the material from a perspective that emphasizes the sources of law in history, philosophy, and political theory, as well as the influence of other fields, including economics. The idea, says Assistant Dean Carol Q. O’Neil, was that traditional subject matter boundaries were breaking down. Rather than learning the common law of contracts and torts individually, the innovators’ view was that these subjects should be studied together in a course called “Bargain, Exchange, and Liability” giving students opportunities to approach legal problems from several different directions. Other courses offered in Curriculum B include “Government Processes,” which introduces students to the regulatory state – a dominant aspect of modern law generally not studied in the first year – and a seminar on legal theory.
     After three years of experimentation, the inventive coursework was permanently integrated into the first year. Now, one of four first-year sections is dedicated to the new curriculum, to which interested students are assigned by lottery.
     The Long-Range Plan for 1994 - 1999 noted that “an expansive view of the true dimensions of ‘lawyering’ in the 21st century makes a global outlook ever more crucial.”

WHILE BUSINESS LAW HAS BEEN THE FOCUS OF NEW FACULTY EXPANSION,
IT IS NOT SURPRISING
THAT CONSTITUTIONAL
LAW HAS LONG BEEN
ONE OF THE HALLMARKS, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THE SCHOOL’S LOCATION .... MORE THAN A QUARTER OF THE FACULTY CURRENTLY TEACHES CON LAW, MANY OF WHOM HAVE SERVED IN THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE FEDERALGOVERNMENT.

     Faculty recruitment in recent years has also concentrated on the rapidly expanding and complex allied fields of business law, drawing leading experts into the classroom including corporate securities scholar G. Mitu Gulati and Donald Langevoort, who directs the Sloan Project on Business Institutions. Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and begun in 2000, the Sloan Project encourages discussion within the academic community on the nature of the firm, the opposing interests, and the appropriate roles of corporate officers, directors, and shareholders. Another goal is to investigate the roles legal and extra-legal institutions play in corporate influence. Research sabbaticals, summer research grants, research workshops, and support for visiting scholars are among the project initiatives. In November 2003, in the wake of several corporate scandals, the Sloan Project hosted a conference titled, “Restoring Trust in America’s Business Institutions.” As the issues affected by business law grow, Georgetown continues to expand its curriculum. One innovative upper-level course offered this past fall, “Corporations Under Fire: Law, Ethics, and Decision-making,” was taught by Paul Saunders (L’66), Distinguished Visitor from Practice and a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York. The course examined the role of lawyers in advising, investigating, representing, prosecuting, defending, repairing, and making public policy with respect to the issues faced by corporations such as Enron, Microsoft, Tyco, and the Archdiocese of Boston –all facing enormous internal crises.
     While business law has been the focus of new faculty expansion, it is not surprising that constitutional law has long been one of the hallmarks, especially given the school’s location, a short walk from the Capitol and the United States Supreme Court. And yet, Dean Judy Areen has said, “no one could have imagined just how strong or how broad the faculty’s interests are.”

    More than a quarter of the faculty currently teaches constitutional law, many of whom have served in the executive branch of the federal government. At least a dozen constitutional law professors have argued before the Supreme Court, while still others have been called upon to advise and testify before Congress.

     Following the interests and expertise of the faculty, the constitutional law offerings are “stunningly broad,” says Associate Dean Wendy Collins Perdue, with a growing selection of courses and seminars on the issues of national security and international affairs.
     The school’s innovations in the field of constitutional law are not limited to the classroom. The Supreme Court Institute, established by Professor Richard Lazarus in 1999, now moots more than half of the Supreme Court cases each year. The free, non-partisan public service is available to any attorney with an upcoming case before the Court on a first-come, first-served basis while also providing students with a rare insiders’ view of the process. The Institute was founded with the intent of promoting an understanding of the history, significance, and dynamics of Supreme Court decision-making. It offers regular conferences, lectures, workshops, and brown-bag discussions on Court-related issues.
     The Law Center is also home to the Constitutional Studies Center co-chaired by Professors Mark Tushnet and Susan Low Bloch, an umbrella group designed to further constitutional scholarship. Over the past decade, the annual Georgetown Discussion on Constitutional Law (informally known as the “Con Law Schmooze”), a free-form discussion on a predetermined topic, bringing together both seasoned and up-and-coming constitutional law scholars, has become one of the premier constitutional law exchanges in the country.
     Another area in which the Law Center has focused its resources is Alternative Dispute Resolution. While a decade and a half ago there was one class in negotiation taught by two adjunct professors, today the school boasts a large curriculum in negotiations and multi-party dispute resolution, thanks, in large part, to the work of Carrie Menkel-Meadow, a national expert in alternative dispute resolution, feminism, and legal ethics, who came to Georgetown after 20 years at UCLA Law. Menkel-Meadow teaches an advanced seminar in multi-party dispute resolution and established the Georgetown-Hewlett Program in Conflict Resolution and Legal Problem Solving in 2002. Sponsored by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the program funds public lectures and other scholarly events related to the field of dispute resolution. It also provides for two-year fellowships for post-J.D. candidates who write and teach in the field.

THE SCHOOL HAS KEPT PACE WITH THE QUICKLY CHANGING DEMANDS OF HEALT H LAW. FIVE FULL-TIME PROFESSORS SPECIALIZE IN HEALTH LAW, EACH BRINGING SPECIFIC EXPERTISE TO THE SCHOOL’S DIVERSE, NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED PROGRAM.

    The school has kept pace with the quickly changing demands of health law. Five full-time professors specialize in health law, each bringing specific expertise to the school’s diverse, nationally recognized program. Health law covers a wide range of issues including public health, health care policy issues, and bio-ethics, a field that grows and changes with the flow of discoveries, medical capabilities, and threats. Professor Lawrence Gostin has examined the legal and ethical issues that accompany the rapidly evolving field of genetics. His article “The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act: Planning and Response to Bioterrorism and Naturally Occurring Infectious Diseases” (with coauthors) appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Professor Patricia King has explored the ethical and legal ramifications of such complex issues as scientific research on fetal tissue.
     Intellectual property arrived with the appointments of Julie Cohen in copyright and trademark law and John R. Thomas, an expert in patent law. The school now offers more than 30 courses and seminars in the field and sponsors an Intellectual Property Colloquium that brings some of the nation’s leading scholars in the field to Georgetown to present papers.
     The Law Center recently restructured its environmental curriculum in order to offer a deeper exploration of this relatively new but increasingly complicated field. Though few would have imagined it 25 years ago when environmental law was in its infancy, environmental requirements have had a far-reaching effect on areas of law as disparate as bankruptcy, criminal law, and securities regulation.

 The Law Center is fortunate to have several noted environmental law experts on the faculty. Professor Hope Babcock has helped shape environmental law policy and has participated in some of the most important environmental cases of our time, including the EXXON-Valdez litigation. Professor Richard Lazarus, who serves as the faculty director of the law school’s Supreme Court Institute, is a leading environmental law scholar and the author of a forthcoming history of modern environmental law, The Making of Environmental Law, to be published by the University of Chicago Press this fall. Articles by Professor Lisa Heinzerling were named among the ten best environmental or land use articles of 1998 and again in 1999. [See essays by Professors Heinzerling and Lazarus in the Faculty Articles section of this magazine.]
        Under the leadership of Professor Babcock, the Environmental Equity Clinic, established in 1991, began tackling environmental problems that afflict low-income communities. Its approach is a straightforward one: “Bringing skilled and enthusiastic advocates to poor neighborhoods and empowering residents to change their futures,” Babcock has explained. One early success came when students presented legal arguments that were persuasive enough to stop the dumping of car parts, battery acid, and other auto-related fluids into a tributary of the Anacostia River.
     Recognizing that good writing skills are essential to being a good lawyer, the Law Center has invested significant time and resources in the J.D. Legal Research and Writing Program, directed by Professor Jill Ramsfield. Formerly staffed by instructors, the program is now taught by legal research and writing faculty. The change put Georgetown at the forefront of a national trend and has enabled the highly experienced attorneys who teach writing to become even more professional, more productive, and more prolific. Another innovation was the creation of the Writing Center, in 1991. The first of its kind, its mission is to work with students on a one-to-one basis.