This course provides an overview of the law as it relates to modern families, including defining a family, the parties' relationships with each other and their children as well as the consequences of dissolution of the family. The main topics covered will be marriage, divorce, spousal and child support, encroachments on family privacy, and rights and obligations of individuals in families. The subject matter also covers abortion, alternative methods of bringing a child into a family as well as government involvement in the family. Family law is in a period of rapid change in the 21st. century. Participants in various family situations search for legal change to accommodate the rapid change in society. Court decisions, lawyers' arguments and the legal issues themselves all show the impact of societal, political, and economic change in the field of family law practice. The course will also explore how the law has evolved, and is continuing to evolve, in recent years. Class time will be used for lecture and discussion regarding text materials. The course is designed to cover the law on a national scope.

Immigration law is complex and multi-faceted; it touches on other substantive areas of the law including constitutional law, criminal law and foreign policy. By the end of the semester students should be able to think critically about the historical, theoretical and constitutional context of immigration law, including division of immigration power between federal and state government as well as limits to the federal immigration power under the United States Constitution and the Amendments; possess a good understanding of the core principles of immigration law, its norms and practices; develop analytical skills to question and appraise immigration law policies and practices; identify current immigration issues in the United States, including analyzing the constitutionality and rationality of recent state and federal legislative enactments and proposals; and explore causes of present immigration problems and violations and what possible steps might Congress or states take to remedy flaws in current legislation on immigration. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.

Privacy is the study of society?s efforts to draw boundaries between different contexts in which information flows. In recent years, privacy law has become one of the most important and pressing issues for businesses, consumers, and government officials of all kinds. This course will survey legal regimes governing the collection, use, and dissemination of information. Topics of discussion will include information dissemination and the First Amendment, associational privacy, the privacy torts, consumer privacy on the internet, the role of the Federal Trade Commission, medical privacy, government surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, privacy and national security, and international privacy regimes.

Professional Responsibility provides an in-depth study of the law of lawyering. The coverage includes the provisions of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, bar admission, malpractice, and the "business of law," such as multijurisdictional practice, advertising, and practices with professionals from other disciplines. The course will also expose students to the criticism of the ethics of the legal profession and discuss the use of the adversarial system as the dominant model for our justice system. The course will use the problem-method as its primary vehicle to structure the discussion. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.