HLS 2033 Conflict of Laws

Semester: 

N/A

Offered: 

2021

Joseph Singer, HUNAP Faculty Member
Open to Upper Level JD students
Mondays/Tuesdays, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

 

This course examines how courts choose which law should be applied to transactions, relationships, or occurrences having contacts with more than one state in the United States, or with a state in the United States and a foreign nation. The course will also touch on adjudicatory jurisdiction, recognition of foreign judgments, and tribal sovereignty of American Indian nations. We will address the various approaches adopted by states and/or advocated by scholars, focusing on cases involving torts, contracts, property, family law, procedure, and tribal sovereignty. Roughly one-half of the class days will be devoted to a series of moot court exercises. Students will present oral arguments and act as judges, both asking questions and meeting in conference to decide the cases. Students will be required to write short, two-page single-spaced memoranda on six of the problem cases over the course of the semester, as well as  a 5-page single-spaced proposed opinion on one of the moot court cases at the end of the semester.