Core Courses
Property (4)
Property law is studied as a social and legal institution to facilitate the acquisition, retention, disposition, and use of personal and real property. Students explore a variety of rights and responsibilities in property, including distinctions between real and personal property, the nature of ownership and possession, adverse possession, landlord-tenant law, present and future estates in land, concurrent ownership, conveyancing and deeds, recording, common law land use controls (e.g., nuisance and trespass), private land-use restrictions (e.g., easements, covenants, and equitable servitudes), public land-use regulations, and eminent domain. The course may include introductory exposure to trusts, donative transfers, intellectual property, fixtures, mortgages and financing land transactions, and ownership of natural resources (e.g., water, oil, gas, other minerals, wildlife).
Constitutional Law (4) - California Bar Tested
This course covers the powers of the three branches of the federal government, the relationship of the branches of the federal government to each other and to the States, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, including the effect of the Fourteenth Amendment on the application of the Bill of Rights to the States and an introduction to issues involving equal protection.
Core Electives (Must complete at least two (2) of the following)
Environmental Law (3)
This course constitutes an analysis of the ends and means of environmental protection through study of statutes, administrative regulations and practices, and judicial decisions treating the protection of the environment in the United States. Topics may include statutes that regulate pollution emissions (e.g., Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act); procedural requirements (e.g., National Environmental Policy Act, California Environmental Quality Act); administrative law (e.g., standing, standards of judicial review); hazardous and toxic substances and wastes; risk assessment and management; natural resources and wildlife conservation; enforcement and liability; and environmental justice.
Land Use Regulation (3)
This course examines the politics, policy and law of land use development. The material covers land use planning, zoning, subdivision controls, historic preservation laws, constitutional and state law constraints on regulation, the economics and politics of land development, growth controls, racial and class segregation, sprawl, affordable housing policy, gentrification, environmental regulation, and much more. The course blends traditional case readings with readings from urban theory, history, philosophy, economics and sociology to give students a context for understanding modern land use regulation. The course will have a take-home examination that counts for approximately 50% of the total grade, with the remaining percentage of the grade determined by a series of short reaction papers assigned during the semester as well as class participation. The take-home examination will have a strict word/ page limit. Students will receive the final examination at the beginning of the exam period and have until the end of the exam period to turn it in.
Real Estate Transactions (3)
A study of various aspects of real estate transactions and financing. Topics may include contracts of sale, brokerage, buyer-seller rights and obligations, title insurance, development, commercial leasing, mortgages, deeds of trust, liens, foreclosure, receivership, priorities, subordination, suretyship, securitization, tax considerations, and strategies of negotiation and drafting.