Just thought I’d let people know what I’m taking now that I’m choosing my own courses.
Copyright: In looking at my classes, especially given that I’m waiting until Spring to take either Tax or Corps, I wanted to have a solid blackletter law class. Having decided on IP, I had to choose between Copyright with Pam Samuelson, or a broader class with Yochai Benkler (and one more hour of class time per week). After having looked at the syllabus for Benkler’s class, I decided that I was less interested in patents and more interested in trademarks and copyrights, so I decided to take Samuelson’s copyright class. So far I’m quite glad with my decision. The class is interesting, and we’re focusing on cases and controversies as well as statutory framing issues with respect to the Copyright (although I should note the latter is a much more indirect enterprise for us than for Visiting Prof. Samuelson’s Copyright Reform seminar).
First Amendment Law: This year HLS cut Conlaw into two classes, First Amendment and Separation of Powers/Federalism/Fourteenth Amendment. I plan on taking both, but my main conflict this semester was between the transactional clinic and taking a Conlaw class with Charles Fried. My summer boss convinced me rather quickly of the inanity of even considering the clinic. I should thank him for that some time soon, because Professor Fried is not only engaged by the material, he’s engaging, and probes the cases in novel ways. In particular, I enjoy when he points out the importance of looking at cases in a different way when your goal is to win the case than when your goal is to understand the role free speech should play in a free society.
Comparative Constitutional Law: I originally was leaning towards Professor Nesson’s Trials in Second Life class, and I enjoyed the first class with Prof. Nesson, but once I did the reading for Comparative Conlaw’s first week and realized that one of the two had to go, Second Life was going to have to be resurrected. I like thinking about legal issues that relate to self-reference (which is only natural for any law student fan of Raymond Smullyan), and judicial review along with constitution-writing provide an abundance of them.
International Trade Law: Before this summer, I hadn’t heard of Trade Law. After looking at the firm pages for our outhouse lawyers, I realized that was the practice area I was in this summer! Then I watched the movie Black Gold, which made me actually start thinking about the more international-law aspects of International Trade, as opposed to the domestic law I was working with over the summer (Export Controls and FCPA mostly). When I saw the course on the syllabus with a former WTO panelist as prof (Visiting Professor Seung-Wha Chang), it quickly moved to the top of my bidlist.
I unfortunately won’t be continuing German this semester because I felt the on-campus interviewing and then fly-out week would make it too difficult, but I plan on cross-registering again for Dab in the Spring (if I get departmental permission).
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