Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professors Allegra McLeod and Robin West

J.D. Seminar 481 | 4 credit hours (year long)

Introduction to Contemporary Legal Scholarship Seminar is intended to familiarize students who may be interested in pursuing a career in academic law with the methods, disciplines, and current interests of contemporary legal scholarship. This four credit seminar will run a full year and satisfy the upperclass legal writing requirement. In the fall, we will spend each week examining one or two examples of a particular genre or sub-genre of legal scholarship. We will look carefully at representative examples of contemporary doctrinal scholarship in both private and public law, some recent empirical legal scholarship, jurisprudential and critical writing, and interdisciplinary work, including law and humanities, law and economics, legal history, and law and culture. When possible, authors will be invited to the seminar to discuss their work. Additionally, students will identify a topic and begin to research their own scholarly paper. In the spring, students will continue to work on their papers, and deliver them during the seminar meeting times. Students will also read and comment on the work of co-students. The goal is familiarity with the genres of legal scholarship, and for each student to finish the seminar with a paper of publishable quality.

This is a year-long, 4-credit seminar.