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2015-2016 Undergraduate Bulletin [ARCHIVED BULLETIN]
The College of Law
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Professors
Chuck Adams
Gary Allison
Thomas Arnold
Marianne Blair
Barbara Bucholtz
Robert Butkin
Russell Christopher
Lyn Entzeroth
Evelyn Hutchison
Janet Levit
Vicki Limas
Marla Mansfield
Johnny Parker
Tamara Piety
Judith Royster
Bob Spoo
Ray Yasser
Rex Zedalis
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Clinical Professor
Winona Tanaka
Associate Professors
Sam Halabi
William Rice
Associate Clinical Professor
Elizabeth McCormick
Assistant Professors
Stephen Galoob
Karen Grundy
Matt Lamkin
Melissa Luttrell
Melanie Nelson
Gina Nerger
Assistant Clinical Professor
Anna Carpenter
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The University of Tulsa College of Law is ranked as a top 100 law school in the nation by U.S. News and World Report 2014 Best Graduate Schools rankings. As one of the smallest law schools in the country, the College of Law offers six degree programs: the Juris Doctorate; an LL.M. degree in American Indian and Indigenous Law; an LL.M. degree in American Law for Foreign Lawyers; an L.L.M. in Energy and Natural Resources Law; an online Master of Jurisprudence in Indian Law; and an online Master of Jurisprudence in Energy Law. In partnership with the Graduate School, the College of Law offers 10 joint J.D./master degrees, including J.D./M.A. degrees in anthropology, clinical psychology, computer science, English, history and industrial psychology; J.D./M.B.A; and J.D./M.S. degrees in biological sciences, finance, and geosciences.
The College of Law’s J.D. program is comprehensive with a broad-based curriculum but also offers specialization opportunities in sustainable energy and resource law, Native American law and health law. Students have opportunities to develop the professional skills needed for transitioning into the practice of law through the Boesche Legal Clinic’s Immigrant Rights Project and Family Advocacy Clinic, the Legal Externship Program, the Judicial Externship Program, and the many career-building programs offered by the Professional Development Office. The Tulsa Law Review and the Energy Law Journal provide students with opportunities to publish articles demonstrating their legal reasoning and writing skills.
The College of Law offers students opportunities for small class sizes, one-on-one interactions with professors, and individualized career counseling. Professors and students enjoy newly-renovated facilities that include state-of-the-art electronic classroom technology. Academic life is enriched by the College of Law’s many lectures, conferences, and programs which are open to the entire Tulsa community.
Mabee Legal Information Center (MLIC)
The Mabee Legal Information Center (MLIC) holds more than 430,000 volumes and features a solid general legal collection as well as specialized collections in energy and environmental law and Native American law. All MLIC users have access to a vast number of law-related electronic resources, including LEXIS and WESTLAW. In addition, the MLIC houses two student journal offices, the Board of Advocates, and the Public Interest Board. The Utsey Family Native American Law Center is a beautiful and inviting reading room featuring Native American rare and primary resources and artwork representing all the Oklahoma tribes.
Boesche Legal Clinic
The Boesche Legal Clinic, through the Immigrant Rights Project and the Lobeck Taylor Family Advocacy Clinic, operates as a law firm. Students gain experience interviewing and counseling clients, negotiating with attorneys, planning cases, conducting factual investigations, drafting documents, examining and preparing witnesses, working with federal, state, and local government agencies, and providing written and oral advocacy and community education workshops.
The faculty and students of the Immigrant Rights Project represent non-citizens in immigration matters. Clients primarily include persons seeking asylum in the United States as a result of persecution or a fear of persecution in their home countries. The clinic may also represent non-citizen victims of domestic violence, unaccompanied non-citizen minors, or other non-citizens subject to removal and immigration detention.
In the Lobeck Taylor Family Advocacy Clinic, students serve the Tulsa community by providing representation that increases access to justice for low-income individuals and families. Clinic cases may involve legal issues related to domestic violence, housing, public benefits, consumer debt, or collateral challenges that stem from clients’ involvement in the criminal justice system.
Price and Turpen Courtroom
The Price and Turpen Courtroom, designed for the future of legal instruction, includes a state-of-the art sound system, broadcast and recording capabilities, videoconferencing technology, and wireless network access. The room is a working courtroom and the venue for several Oklahoma civil and criminal cases each year.
Externships
The externship program offers 2L and 3L students the opportunity to earn academic credit while gaining practical client experience in the field. Students work in a legal setting under the direct supervision of a licensed attorney or judge while also taking a contemporaneous academic course which provides the opportunity for reflection and additional substantive knowledge. Externships provide students the opportunity to move from thinking like a lawyer in the classroom to thinking like a lawyer in a practice setting through work on real cases and legal issues. Opportunities exist in a broad range of civil and criminal litigation as well as transactional law. Placements include courts, law firms, government agencies, non-profit organizations and corporate legal departments. Full semester out-of-state placements are available during the summers and/or the last semester of the 3L year.
Sustainable Energy and Resources Law Program
The Sustainable Energy and Resources Law (SERL) Program has three principal objectives: 1) offer comprehensive training in the fields of energy, environmental, and natural resources law; 2) produce nationally and internationally recognized scholarship and research that contributes to the public policy debate; and 3) facilitate communication among the many individuals, companies, organizations, and public bodies interested in energy, environmental and natural resources, with the expectation that such communication will lead to more enlightened national and international laws and policies.
SERL accomplishes its objectives through an advanced curriculum; the scholarship and public presentations of the SERL faculty and members of the SERL Board of Visitors; publication of the Energy Law Journal in conjunction with the Energy Bar Association; publication of the Environment, Energy, and Resources Law: The Year in Review in conjunction with the ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources; and student-centered co-curricular activities in conjunction with the student-led Resources, Energy, and Environmental Law Society (REELS). SERL’s curricular offerings include a Sustainable Energy and Resources Law Certificate for J.D. students, an LL.M. for Foreign Graduates, and an online Master of Jurisprudence in Energy Law designed primarily for non-lawyers. SERL’s co-curricular activities include opportunities to work and network with members of its partner organizations, including the Energy Bar Association; the ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources; REELS; and the SERL Board of Visitors, which is comprised of energy, environmental and natural resources professionals in the midst of prestigious careers.
Native American Law Center
The College of Law is located in Indian Country, within the original borders of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. The Native American Law Center (NALC) is the umbrella organization overseeing various aspects of TU’s Indian law programs. The College of Law boasts several full-time faculty specializing in Indian law and offers a significant number of specialized Indian law courses including a certificate in Indian law. In addition, it has an LL.M. (Masters in Law) in American Indian and Indigenous Law and a Master of Jurisprudence in Indian Law for non-lawyers offered completely online. An active Native American Law Students’ Association, as well as a variety of externship opportunities with local tribes, provides opportunities for student activities and interaction with the Indian community.
Minor
Law
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LAWU 2013 The Law, Ethics and Psychology of Responsibility
(3 hours) Block 2
Examines philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific debates about the possibility of responsibility, with particular emphasis on how these debates apply to criminal and tort law. -
LAWU 2023 Steal This Course: Piracy from the High Seas to the Internet
(3 hours)
Explores many kinds of “piracy,” beginning with piracy on the high seas and emphasizing intellectual-property piracy, lawful and unlawful, in today’s Internet culture. Readings include Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island (1883), Lawrence Lessig’s Remix (2008), and materials on YouTube, Google, and other media. Students will complete specified writing assignments. -
LAWU 2033 Law and Knowledge
(3 hours)
Explores the various ways in which law both creates knowledge and, more commonly, becomes a place in which disputes about knowledge are adjudicated. It is common place in law to say that we are trying to discover “what happened,” to “get to the bottom” of a case, to “discover the truth,” to produce knowledge. But the more you know about how trials work, the more difficult it is say that what a trial produces is knowledge. Plato famously said that knowledge is “justified true belief.” But how can we say which of our ideas are justified or true? There are some questions of truth or falsity which can be resolved fairly readily: “Does the earth revolve around the sun or vice versa?” Others are more
difficult but potentially solvable: “Is my friend lying to me?” And there are still others which cannot be confirmed, such as the existence of god or the meaning of life, and which have defied the efforts of philosophers for millennia. -
LAWU 2043 Law of Nations
(3 hours) Block 2
Introduces students to great works of legal philosophy and ethical reasoning, encourages students to carefully construct coherent arguments while at the same time urging skepticism toward “authority” used to support argumentation generally. It offers a thoroughly interdisciplinary focus, drawing from discussions in diplomatic history, economics, philosophy, and law. It requires students to engage both primary sources and secondary analyses. -
LAWU 3013 Federal Indian Law
(3 hours)
A study of the history, policy and law of the relations between the United States and the Indian tribes. Focuses on the powers and responsibilities of the federal government, the governmental status and authority of the Indian tribes, and conflicts over authority between tribal and state governments. -
LAWU 3023 Copyright in the Digital Age
(3 hours)
Explores the fundamentals of United States copyright law, including the subject matter of copyrights; ownership and transfer of copyrights; duration of copyrights; the fair use doctrine and other limitations on the copyright owner’s exclusive rights; copyright infringement; and remedies for infringement. Attention will be given to digital technologies. -
LAWU 3032 Medical Consumerism
(2 hours)
Examines the legal and ethical transformations being wrought by the increasing tendency to view medicine as commerce. Topics include corruption in pharmaceutical testing and marketing, “disease-mongering” (broadening conceptions of illness to enlarge the market for potential treatments), assisted reproduction commerce, and global medical tourism, among others. -
LAWU 3043 Critical Thinking
(3 hours)
Teaches critical thinking across the spectrum of disciplines, asking why certain arguments are persuasive and others are not. Students will examine the practice of law as a competitive sport of persuasion; the lawyering process in litigation; cognitive theory and analytical thinking in law; and analytical tools for building the client’s case. The course will conclude with the nexus between analysis and rhetoric, and rhetoric and the game of persuasion. -
LAWU 3053 The Law of Sports
(3 hours)
Covers legal issues related to amateur and professional sports including: the nature of the right to participate; constitutional law issues in sports; Title IX; antitrust law as it applies to the NCAA; the player-club contractual relationship; the player-agent relationship; antitrust and labor law issues in professional team sports; arbitration; relationships of teams in a league. -
LAWU 3063 The Administrative State
(3 hours)
The administrative state encompasses a wide-range of administrative agencies that issue regulations governing many facets of our life. It is not possible to understand how our government operates without understanding the administrative dimension. Using current case studies - from immigration to greenhouse gas emissions - this course introduces students to the operation of administrative state operates within our constitutional system. -
LAWU 3073 Capital Punishment
(3 hours)
Addresses the issues surrounding the death penalty and death penalty litigation. A wide range of issues are covered, including the history and philosophical debate surrounding capital punishment, the constitutional requirements for the imposition of the death penalty, the quality of capital counsel, jury selection in a capital trial, the sentencing phase of a capital trial, claims of innocence, and post-conviction relief. -
LAWU 3082 Law and Literature
(2 hours)
Libel law, obscenity law, and copyright law are explored and compared to corresponding present-day regimes in the United States. Topics involving each of these areas include The Oscar Wilde trials of 1895, United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, and Lawsuits by the Estate of James Joyce against individuals and entities for copyright infringement. -
LAWU 4012 Theories of Punishment
(2 hours)
Surveys the law and philosophy of punishment. Topics which may be covered include the conceptual definition of punishment, justifications of punishment, the problem of punishment of the innocent, the proportionality of punishment, the degree of punishment, punishment under plea bargains, the death penalty, and post-conviction, pre-execution confinement. -
LAWU 4023 Bioethics and the Law
(3 hours)
Examines intersections between law, medicine, and ethics. May cover medical research ethics, corruption in the medical industry, reproduction issues (assisted reproduction, prenatal genetic testing, eugenics), death and dying (assisted suicide, refusing life-sustaining treatment), emerging issues surrounding the uses and misuses of genetic information. -
LAWU 4033 Jurisprudence
(3 hours)
Examines fundamental issues of law and legal authority, including: What is law? Do laws have authority and, if so, how? What is the connection between law and morality and justice? Is there a moral obligation to obey the law? How do judges decide cases? How are fundamental questions resolved in specific areas of law? -
LAWU 4042 Sex Crimes
(2 hours)
Surveys the basic issues of the criminal law of rape and sexual assault. Objectives: learning the basic principles and elements of the substantive criminal law of rape and sexual assault; applying the basic tools and methods to analyze problems; understanding the policy issues and underlying theory; appreciation and recognition of the interrelation of
procedural and evidentiary issues with doctrines
of substantive law. -
LAWU 4053 The American Legal System
(3 hours)
Examines the basic structure of the U.S. legal system. Students explore how the main sources of U.S. law (the Constitution, statutory law, administrative regulations, and judicial decisions) intertwine to define and regulate specific legal institutions. Students will discuss not only legal concepts, but also how these concepts actually operate in the world. -
LAWU 4063 Climate Change
(3 hours)
Covers domestic and international legal and public policy issues related to climate change. Topics include climate science, risk and uncertainty; responses to climate concerns in various political fora, including international fora; the theory and operationalization of international, cooperative mitigation strategies; domestic mitigation strategies; and legal and policy issues related to climate change adaptation.
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