This course studies the interaction between law, courts, and social movements in shaping domestic and global public policy. Examines how groups mobilize to use law to affect change and why they succeed and fail. The class uses case studies to explore the interplay between law, social movements, and public policy in current areas such as gender, race, labor, trade, environment, and human rights. Finally, it introduces the theories of public policy, social movements, law and society, and transnational studies.

Most socially significant issues from America's past were brought before the nation's courts. Subject introduces the themes and events of American law since 1787, focusing on three recurring themes in American public life: liberty, equality, and property. Readings consist mostly of original court cases, especially from the US Supreme Court. Subject also focuses on the historical connections between cases and broader social, political, and cultural trends.

This textbook provides context and essential concepts across the entire range of legal issues with which managers and business executives must grapple. The text provides the vocabulary and legal acumen necessary for businesspeople to talk in an educated way to their customers, employees, suppliers, government officials—and to their own lawyers.

Provides a basic understanding of legal issues that corporations meet during their existence. Follows one firm throughout its life; from birth to bankruptcy, first as a breakaway from an established high-tech firm, then proceeding through initial funding efforts, establishment of its capital and corporate structure, and through problems in labor, trade secrets, contracts and antitrust, product liability, and resolution of transnational and domestic business disputes. This course provides a basic understanding of legal issues that corporations face during their existence. The course starts by providing the basic building blocks of business law. We then follow a firm through its life cycle from its "breakaway" from an established firm through it going public. The materials covered during 15.647 (the first half of the semester) emphasize the organization and financing of the company. In the second half of the course we examine a broad array of law-sensitive issues relating to intellectual property, product development, M&A transactions, international trade, the duties of directors and officers, business disputes, and bankruptcy and reorganization. The goal of the course is not to impart technical legal skills, but to enhance the judgment which students will bring to their responsibilities as entrepreneurs, managers in established companies, or consultants and advisors. There are two take-home exercises, and no exams.

In The Law of Corporate Finance and Financial Markets, much of the course focuses on M&A and the law-sensitive aspects of financial services and financial markets. The course is designed to be an introduction to business law which covers the fundamentals, including contracts, liability, regulation, employment, and corporations. 15.617 provides an in-depth treatment of the law of finance.

Runway extension, construction of works in protected areas, subsidizing sustainable projects... they all happen within a design space, limited amongst others by legal rules and requirements. To make optimal use of the design space, you have to know about these rules and requirements. When does a contract have to be tendered out, what rules are then applicable, what can be subsidized and what are the restrictions, how to comply with air quality requirements and can a frog really block a project? What alternative designs can be given in order to avoid legal problems? These and other problems will be addressed in this course.

Provides an introduction to legal and institutional arrangements for the establishment, transfer, and control over property under US and selected comparative systems including India and South Africa. Situates the debate about property in the context of international development and planning. Examines the relationship to the use of land by individuals, entities, communities, and the State through "private" and "public" regulation. Emphasis on efficient resource use, institutional, entitlement, and cultural approaches to property, distribution, and other social aspects, and the relationship between property, culture, and democracy. This course is designed to offer an advanced introduction to key legal issues that arise in the area of property and land-use in American law, with a comparative focus on the laws of India and South Africa. The focus of the course is not on law itself, but on the policy implications of various rules, doctrines and practices which are covered in great detail. Legal rules regulating property are among the most fundamental to American, and most other, economies and societies. The main focus is on American property and land use law due to its prominence in international development policy and practice as a model, though substantial comparative legal materials are also introduced from selected non-western countries such as India and South Africa.

Introductory examination of the US law of intellectual property, with emphasis on patents and copyrights, and a brief look at trademarks and trade secrets. Comparisons made with regard to what can and cannot be protected, what rights the owner does and does not obtain, and how these rights come into being. Issues relating particularly to new information technologies highlighted. Assignments include case and statutory readings, written preparatory exercises, and student case presentations.

During the last fifteen years, nations across the globe embarked on a historic transformation away from centrally planned economies to market-oriented ones. However, in the common pursuit for economic growth, these transition economies implemented widely different reform strategies with mixed results. With over a decade of empirical evidence now available, this new course examines this phenomenon that has pushed the discourse in a number of disciplines, requiring us to reconsider fundamental issues such as: - the proper relationship between business, government, and the public interest; - the possible synergies and tensions between economic growth and equity; and - how economic transition has reshaped cities. The premise of the course is that the primary issue in transition involves institution-building and re-building in different contexts.

Examines alternative economic, political, and social perspectives of property rights and their policy and planning implications. Focuses on institutional and governance structures, power and control mechanisms, distributional consequences of different property rights arrangements, and problems of incomplete contracts as presented in theory and practice. Deals with property-rights issues related to two or more of the following: land, natural resources, infrastructure, or industrial organization.

Is marriage a patriarchal institution? Much feminist scholarship has characterized it that way, but now in the context of the recent Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, the meaning of marriage itself demands serious re-examination. This course will discuss history, literature, film, and legal scholarship, making use of cross-cultural, sociological, anthropological, and many other theoretical approaches to the marriage question from 1630 to the present. As it turns out, sex, marriage, and the family have never been stable institutions; to the contrary, they have continued to function as flash points for the very social and cultural questions that are central to gender studies scholarship.

Subject provides a conceptual framework for thinking about taxes. Applications covered include mergers and acquisitions, tax arbitrage strategies, business entity choice, executive compensation, multi-national tax planning, and others. Aimed at investment bankers and consultants who need to understand how taxes affect the structure of deals; managers and analysts who need to understand how firms strategically respond to taxes; and entrepreneurs who want to structure their finances in a tax-advantaged manner.

Examines a number of famous trials in European and American history. Considers the salient issues (political, social, cultural) of several trials, the ways in which each trial was constructed and covered in public discussion at the time, the ways in which legal reasoning and storytelling interacted in each trial and in later retellings of the trial, and the ways in which trials serve as both spectacle and a forum for moral and political reasoning. Students have an opportunity to study one trial in depth and present their findings to the class.

This Intellectual Property Supplement from eLangdell Press contains the text of federal laws and regulations in the area of copyright, trademarks and patents. The editors have endeavored to gather all relevant laws, rules and regulations. This collection is intended to be used primarily as a statutory supplement for law students and legal scholars in academic settings, although practitioners in this area of law will also find it useful.This volume, Volume 1: Copyright Statutory Law contains the text of Title 17 of the United States Code as it appears on the most current edition available on the U.S. Government website FDSYS. Updates to the U.S. Code not yet found in the FDSYS published editions can be found in the United States House of Representatives Office of Law Revision Counsel's Classification Tables.

This Intellectual Property Supplement from eLangdell Press contains the text of federal laws and regulations in the area of copyright, trademarks and patents. The editors have endeavored to gather all relevant laws, rules and regulations. This collection is intended to be used primarily as a statutory supplement for law students and legal scholars in academic settings, although practitioners in this area of law will also find it useful.This volume, Volume 2: Patent Statutory Law contains the text of Title 35 of the United States Code as it appears on the most current edition available on the U.S. Government website FDSYS. Updates to the U.S. Code not yet found in the FDSYS published editions can be found in the United States House of Representatives Office of Law Revision Counsel's Classification Tables.

Securities Law: Selected Statutes and Regulations contains the text of federal laws and regulations in the area of securities as published by the United States Government Printing Office on the FDSYS website. The currency of each law and regulation can be found in its header block. The editors have endeavored to gather all relevant laws, rules and regulations related to this area of law, including Securities Act of 1933, The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Company and Investment Advisors Acts of 1940, Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank and the regulations and forms promulgated under them. It also contains the Attorney Standards of Conduct in this area. It is intended to be used primarily as a statutory supplement for law students and legal scholars in academic settings, although practitioners in this area of law will also find it useful.

This Intellectual Property Supplement from eLangdell Press contains the text of federal laws and regulations in the area of copyright, trademarks and patents. The editors have endeavored to gather all relevant laws, rules and regulations. This collection is intended to be used primarily as a statutory supplement for law students and legal scholars in academic settings, although practitioners in this area of law will also find it useful.This volume, Volume III: Trademark Statutory Law contains Chapter 22 of Title 15 of the United States Code as it appears on the most current edition available on the U.S. Government website FDSYS. Updates to the U.S. Code not yet found in the FDSYS published editions can be found in the United States House of Representatives Office of Law Revision Counsel's Classification Tables.

This course examines the problem of mass violence and oppression in the contemporary world, and the concept of human rights as a defense against such abuse. It explores questions of cultural relativism, race, gender and ethnicity. It examines case studies from war crimes tribunals, truth commissions, anti-terrorist policies and other judicial attempts to redress state-sponsored wrongs. It also considers whether the human rights framework effectively promotes the rule of law in modern societies. Students debate moral positions and address ideas of moral relativism.

Exploration of the changes and continuities in the lives of South Asian women. Using gender as a lens, examine how politics of race, class, caste, and religion have affected women in South Asian countries, primarily in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Current debates within South Asian women's history illustrate the issues and problems that arise in re-writing the past from a gendered perspective. Primary documents, secondary readings, films, newspaper articles, and the Internet.