"Hollywood's a Union Town," goes the chant, and it's true. An entertainment lawyer can't be effective without a solid understanding of the Hollywood guilds and unions, yet that information is hard to come by. Union issues arise frequently in practice, and clients and employers are always looking for lawyers with this specialized knowledge. The course focuses on issues that arise under the industry-wide collective bargaining agreements with the WGA and, to some extent, various other Hollywood guilds.

This hands-on course provides students a unique opportunity to learn evidence through practical in-court simulations. The course will expose students to complex evidence issues raised by the Federal Rules of Evidence and, where appropriate, the California Evidence Code. During the simulations, students will act as opposing lawyers, witnesses, and judges, and argue for the admission or exclusion of particular pieces of evidence. Prerequisite: Evidence (140).

This skills course is designed for students interested in learning about a career in the criminal law field from a practical perspective. Students will be taught how to read charging documents, evaluate police reports, and argue some of the most common pretrial motions. Students will have an opportunity to participate in simulations using real life cases.

This highly interactive course provides students the opportunity to refine their oral advocacy skills. Through the use of simulated exercises, the course provides instruction on verbal and nonverbal communication techniques to present powerful, compelling oral arguments, and to strategically design effective presentations to motivate and influence audiences of all kinds. Students will also develop techniques to implement communication strategies, including Psychodrama, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and audience analysis.

This course will build upon and expand essential legal research techniques and strategies introduced in the first year LAWS course. New topics include legislative history, administrative law resources, plus the full range of secondary sources, including practice guides. In addition to LexisNexis and Westlaw, students will be exposed to low or no-cost internet legal sources. Research hypotheticals will require research of both California and federal law.

This course provides an introduction to patent application drafting techniques for students interested in pursuing patent law as a career. Students are afforded the opportunity to prepare an entire patent application. Although an overview of statutory requirements is included in this course, prior exposure to patent law is considered helpful.

Legal Arguments about Moral & Political Issues Seminar. This seminar examines the central importance of law in resolving the most vexing moral and political arguments of the past 40 years. Topics include: abortion; euthanasia; death penalty; drug legalization; and interrogation torture. This seminar will examine real cases from the perspective of legal, political, and moral principles.

This seminar focuses on the law that relates to the education of children with disabilities. It covers the concept of appropriate education, the right to an education in the least restrictive environment, the entitlement to related services, due process rights, and additional central ideas in special education law. Students will research those topics and others relating to legal entitlements to public school services for children with disabling conditions.

This seminar builds on the first-year Criminal Law course to examine a group of contemporary issues: domestic violence against both women and men; prosecutorial discretion and the abuse to which that sometimes leads; juvenile offenders, juvenile court, and constitutional limits on juvenile sentencing; and the history of, and proposals to abolish the death penalty. Guest speakers will be featured.

This course is a negotiation skills course in which students will engage in a series of seven mock negotiations - modeled after actual industry deals - covering various types of television/series and motion picture deals, and perhaps other types of deals such as graphic novel, live stage, and professional sports deals.