ELEMENTS EG: INFORMATION MEMO #1 (8/15/08)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A. INFORMATION ABOUT THE COURSE (pp. 1-11)

B. INFORMATION ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR (pp.12-14)

C. OUT AT FIRST (pp.14-15)

D. INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS (pp.16-17)

A. INFORMATION ABOUT THE COURSE

What is Elements? This course primarily is designed to teach you how to read cases and how to use cases to make legal arguments. In addition, we will spend some time learning about the basic operation of the American legal system. Of course, your other first year courses will also address these issues, but they also will try to give you an overview of a large body of legal rules in a particular field. By contrast, in Elements we will be able to study a relatively small number of cases in great detail. This very careful review of material will give you the opportunity to acquire and practice reading, analysis, and argument skills you can use throughout law school and your legal career.

Many groups of cases would be appropriate vehicles for learning these skills. I have chosen cases that all relate to one recurring problem in the law: the tension between individual property rights and the needs of society. We will begin by looking at the common law regarding the ownership of wild animals. We then will examine the common law of the ownership of oil and gas. We will conclude the course by examining the federal Constitutional protection of private property rights and how it interacts with government attempts to regulate land use or protect natural resources. I chose these cases because the facts of most of them are relatively simple, because they implicate important and recurring policy issues, and because many students find the animals cases in particular to be fun to work with.

Logistics: Materials: Materials and other information related to the course will be posted on the course page online. The course materials for the first four classes are available now; the rest of the course materials will be posted as the semester progresses. During the semester, I will also post various supplementary documents, including, most importantly, additional “Information Memos” with clarifications of points from class discussions, answers to questions received by e-mail, and comments and sample answers regarding case briefs and written assignments. You should treat these information memos as required reading for the course.

In class we will regularly refer to specific language in the cases and frequently refer back to cases we read earlier in the semester, so you will find it helpful to put the course materials in a secure binder and bring them to every class. You probably will also want a hard copy of this memo in the binder along with syllabi and assignment sheets as they become available.

You may well discover a market in supplemental materials (briefs, notes, outlines, etc.) prepared by prior years’ Elements students. I strongly suggest you do not heavily rely on them. For one thing, I switch my coverage and emphasis from year to year, so the old materials may not be particularly helpful to understand what is happening in our current class. More significantly, an important part of learning, particularly in a course focused on skills, is working through things yourself, in a way that makes sense to you. Relying on someone else’s perceptions or analysis deprives you of a chance to hone your own skills and may not be very helpful if your thought processes differ. If you’re having trouble understanding things on your own, I think you’d be much better off to talk to me or to your current classmates than to rely on materials from prior years that are of uncertain quality and relevance.

Office Hours & Other Out-of-Class Interactions: I will have office hours on Monday from 3:45-5:15 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:00 a.m.-noon, and by appointment. You can set up appointments with me in person or by leaving a message on my voice mail (305-284-3914) or e-mail <>. My assistant does not keep my calendar, so you can only schedule appointments with me directly.

Feel free to stop by my office (Law Library Room 280) without an appointment. If I’m free, I’ll be happy to talk to you; otherwise I’ll make an appointment for a later time. Note that I also teach Tuesday andThursday from 8:00-9:20 a.m. so those times as well as the hour before your class are not optimal times to stop by absent a crisis.

If you have questions about the course or about law school generally, e-mail is a good way to communicate. I check my messages at least daily during the work week, and I am likely to respond as soon as I get the message. If I think a question you ask is worth sharing with the class, I may copy your question and my answer and circulate them to everyone, deleting your name and other references to you.

In addition, beginning the second week of the semester, I will have lunch with students in this class in groups of six or seven on selected days. During the first week of school, I will pass around a sign-up sheet so you can schedule a lunch at your convenience. I intend these lunches simply to be an informal opportunity for you to ask whatever questions are on your mind that week and for me to get to know you better.

Cancellations and Make-up Classes: We will not meet on Monday, September 29 nor on Wednesday October 1. We will make-up the missed classes by extending our class meetings by 25 minutes on the first four Wednesdays of the semester.

In addition, we sometimes lose class days in the Fall to hurricanes and tropical storms and, very occasionally, when I am too sick to teach. If one or more classes is cancelled:

  • Assume that the next time the course meets, we will cover the material scheduled for the cancelled class (the first cancelled class if more than one).
  • We will make-up any cancelled classes by extending two subsequent classes to 80 minutes.
  • I will post revised assignment sheets as soon as I can reflecting any necessary adjustments and make-up classes.

Operation Of The Class: Courtesy: As a courtesy to me and to your fellow students, please be in your seats and ready to start at the time the class is scheduled to begin. If you arrive late, enter through the door at the back of the classroom and seat yourself quietly. If you do not sit in an aisle seat, please sit in the empty seats in the back of the room when you come in late. Do not climb over other students to reach your assigned seat.

Most of you greatly resent rustling, whisperings, tappings, and slurpings while you are trying to take notes or to respond when called on. Therefore, to the extent humanly possible, please do not whisper, tap, rustle or slurp in class. I get very annoyed when students talk to each other while another student is trying to address the class. If you do this, I may assume you wish to participate and will call on you, whether or not you are on call. I also may simply tell you to shut up. There is a time-honored method of communication during class that does not annoy others nearly as much: pass notes!

The proliferation of electronic devices has created new high tech versions of discourtesy that you should avoid. Before coming to class, turn off cellular phones and pagers that beep. If you use a laptop computer in class, turn the sound off. I find listening to the Windows theme music in class quite irritating, particularly after we have started to work. When using the laptop in class, only bring up onto your screen your notes, the course materials, or programs that consist entirely of text. Do not open computer games, movies, or other internet sites containing pictures or video, all of which can significantly distract the students sitting behind you. If you are caught violating the rule, I will give you a choice of taking a small penalty (to be subtracted from the points you receive toward your final grade) or doing without the laptop for a few classes. Repeated offenses will result in greater penalties.

The Panel System & Class Assignments: To facilitate high quality class participation, I employ a panel system. I will feel free to call on anyone for assigned material during the first four classes. After that, I will divide the class into five roughly equal panels (named, in this election year, after gaseous elements). I then will divide up the material we read so that one particular panel will be “on call” and have primary responsibility for most assignments. Of course, you should prepare all assigned material and anyone is free to volunteer to participate whether or not they are on call. However, I will start the discussion of assigned material by calling on people from the responsible panel. At the end of the third class meeting, I will ask you to turn in a list of people you’d like to study with (if any) so I can put you on the same panel. This will facilitate your preparing together when you are on call.

Your assignments for the first four classes are listed on the course page. By Sunday August 24, I will post on the course page an assignment sheet for the rest of the material in UnitIA, containing a rough schedule of what material we will cover in each class meeting andan indication of which panels will be responsible for it. I will post additional or modified assignment sheets on the course page as needed.

Note that a panel is responsible for particular material, not for a particular class hour; I will feel free to pick up an unfinished discussion about their material with panel members the next day or to ask you in later classes about material you prepared earlier. Note also that a few of the discussion questions on the assignment sheets will be listed as “ALL.” All of you should prepare those questions as though you were on call.

When you are on call, I will expect you to be prepared to discuss your assigned material carefully and will deduct points from your final grade if you are unprepared. Note that part of being prepared is organizing your notes and briefs so that they are readily accessible in class. If I ask you to respond specifically to one of the Discussion Questions or to give me part of a case brief, you shouldbe ready to do so right away. Please don’t keep the class waiting while you fumble through your notes or scroll through several screens on your laptop.

The panel system has several advantages. From your perspective, knowing in advance when you are likely to be called on can help you make decisions about allocating your time. You can spend more time preparing for the material for which you are responsible and, as part of this more intensive preparation, take the opportunity to review earlier material. In addition, you can do this preparation with study partners you have chosen. From my perspective, this extra preparation helps ensure that the students I call on are ready. In addition, my experience is that panel members I don’t call on often volunteer because they have thought through the material carefully.

The major drawback of the panel system is that some students don’t prepare very much when they are not on call. I urge you to approach class responsibly. I will not take attendance and I will not monitor whether you are doing the reading when you are not on call. However, the purpose of Elements is to improve your legal skills. You obviously will get more out of the class if you prepare thoroughly.

Of course, I am well aware that life does not always permit you to be as prepared as you’d like. If you are unprepared, come to class anyway. Generally, you will get even more lost if you miss class discussion. If I call on you and you have not done the reading, please say so. I may then give you questions you can answer without having read the material or skip your turn until the next time your panel is on call. In any event, I will treat unexcused absences when you are on call as the equivalent of being unprepared when called on, so you gain no advantage by failing to appear.

Attendance: Beginning with our second meeting, I will pass around an attendance sheet each class. You are allowed six absences over the course of the semester and, absent extraordinary circumstances, I will not distinguish between “excused” and “unexcused” absences. If you have more than six absences, I will deduct one or more points from your total score in the course, which might result in a lower grade. I will increase the penalty for students who miss substantially more than six classes.

For purposes of this policy, being late is defined as arriving after the attendance sheet has passed your seat and will count as one-third of an absence. If you arrive after the attendance sheet has circulated, please make sure you check in with me after class to ensure you get charged with a lateness rather than an absence.

Some Thoughts on How to Prepare for Class: Reading Cases: A primary goal of the course is to help you to become a skilled reader of judicial opinions. At the beginning, you almost certainly will find it difficult to identify which information in the cases is significant and sometimes you may even have trouble just figuring out what happened. Here are several suggestions for getting the most out of your reading:

Read Material More Than Once: Reading a case several times will greatly improve your comprehension. I would suggest that you begin by reading through the case quickly to get a sense of the “plot:” the parties, the major issues, and the result. Then reread more carefully at least once (making notes as you go) to get a more precise sense of the details of the case, particularly focusing on the court’s reasoning.

Because we will rarely finish a case in a single class, you also should get into the habit of re-reading cases we are continuing to work on shortly before we resume our discussion. This will help you assimilate earlier discussions and refresh your memory about the details of the case. Rereading a case yet again after we have completed class discussion will help you correct any misapprehensions you had based on your earlier readings and is likely to help set in place what you’ve learned from class discussions.

Look Up Words You Don’t Know: One of the most difficult problems at the start of law school is the weight of new vocabulary. Get into the habit of looking up words you do not know or are not sure of. To help you with this process, for the older cases, I have provided glossaries of terms that you are less likely to know. For cases decided after 1900, you are on your own.

Read and Answer the Discussion Questions: I have included in these materials a series of discussion questions after each reading. These questions will constitute the bulk of our class discussion that is not taken up simply determining what the cases say. The assignment sheets will let you know (roughly) which questions we will address in each class session.

I expect you to take the questions seriously in at least two ways. First, reading through the questions as you prepare the case will give you some ideas about what I think the important issues are. I suggest you skim the questions after your first reading of the case to help you reread it more intelligently.

Second, after reading the case, I expect you (perhaps along with a study group) to work through the assigned questions thoroughly, probably jotting down some notes and ideas, so that you are well prepared to address them in class. Note that when I call on you in class regarding one of these questions, I do not want you to respond by reading aloud a long carefully drafted paragraph. Instead, I am looking for you to be ready to discuss intelligently the issues raised by the questions, ideally without having to refer constantly to your notes.

To prepare most effectively, you need to read the questions carefully to determine what you are being asked to do. Some ask you for information from the readings; others ask you to provide information from your own experience. Some ask how a particular legal authority would resolve a problem; others ask you to think about the ideal way to resolve the problem.

Once you’ve identified your task, push yourself to go beyond the most obvious responses. If I ask you to make a list, spend time to try to add more items to those that occur to you immediately. If I ask for arguments about a particular topic, assume that there are several reasonable responses and try to identify as many as you can. If the question makes reference to prior readings, go back and reread the original text rather than relying solely on your memory or your notes.

Finally, although a few discussion questions have clear correct answers, most of them are much more open-ended. You should not expect to be able to identify all (or even most) of the possible responses prior to our discussions in class. For some questions, a really thorough discussion often requires the contributions of many students with differing backgrounds (in terms of, e.g., ethnicity, religion, family history, geography, education and work experience). Other questions are designed to introduce concepts that we will explore in more depth later in the course. Thus, after each class, you should make time to review the discussion questions we covered and to correct or supplementyour prepared responses in light of the class discussion. In addition, you might want periodically to look over questions we covered earlier to see if more recent material changes the way you think about them.