LAW 713 - State Supreme Court Bloginar

This unique course is part of a new IBRL project called the State Supreme Court Initiative which aims to create a blog about an important source of law in this country that receives scant media coverage: our state supreme courts. In effect, the project seeks to establish a ‘SCOTUSBlog for the states.” The first component of the course is classroom-based. This course will meet once a week for 70 minutes. For the first three weeks, Professors Devins and Green will lecture on media law and topics related to the structure and output of state supreme courts. The course will also feature guest speakers from the National Center for State Courts and elsewhere. Subsequent meetings will consist of students presenting their work and discussing worthy cases to cover emanating from state supreme courts. The second component of the course is blogging. Students will be assigned specific states and topics (death penalty, elections, and so forth). Students will prepare 10 memos on assigned state supreme court outcomes. Each memo will contain considered legal analysis. Students will turn in a preliminary draft for comments. A final version will be posted on the State Supreme Court Initiative Blog. Each memo must be 800 words (minimum). The grade for this course will be determined on the basis of the quality of memos submitted. Materials: Materials will be distributed in the form of weekly handouts. Materials will consist of law review and political science literature about state supreme courts and cases/law review articles on medial law topics. Registration: This course is limited to 10 students. Students must apply before they will be allowed to register. To apply, students should submit (1) a short writing sample; (2) a resume; (3) a transcript; and (4) a paragraph about why they are interested in taking the course.