Registration Deadline: August 5, 2024
Estimated Time to Complete: 25 hours
Insights programs are in-depth professional development programs for international and U.S. students, legal educators, and legal professionals.
Join expert Boston College Law School faculty for this popular five-day introduction to the U.S. legal system – now offered online!
Participants will learn about:
- The system of justice and legal problem-solving in the U.S.
- Transactional law practice
- The role of the lawyer in the U.S.
- Criminal law
- Pre-trial practice
- How evidence works
- Human Rights & business law
- Intellectual Property (IP) law
- Environmental law and lessons for the future
- The role of constitutional courts
Each of the five days will offer a two-hour, live synchronous session and a two-hour, recorded asynchronous session. The live sessions offered via Zoom will be interactive; participants may attend recorded sessions at a time that is convenient. Live Q&A sessions with instructors will follow the recorded sessions.
Total program hours: 25
Session Information:
Session I: Introduction to the U.S. Legal System and Legal Problem-Solving
Monday, August 12, 2024, 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM EDT (Synchronous)
Instructor: Joan Blum
This session introduces the fundamentals of the U.S. legal system. Topics include an overview of the U.S. Constitution, federalism, the structure and function of courts, sources of legal authority, and common-law methodology.
Session 2: Introduction to Transactional Law Practice
Monday, August 12, 2024, 2 Hours (Asynchronous)
Instructor: Paul Tremblay
Most lawyers in the United States engage in transactional practice. Unlike litigators who represent
clients in court or administrative hearings, lawyers work with individuals or businesses to arrange their affairs, establish legal and organizational structures, and advise about compliance. This introduction will focus on one increasingly relevant aspect of that work—representing startups. The session will outline the typical steps in organizing a new business, including choosing an appropriate entity, arranging the relationships among the founders and any new investors or workers, protecting the enterprise’s intellectual property, and addressing any ethical issues that arise.
Session 3: Professional Responsibility and the Role of the Lawyer
Tuesday, August 13, 2024, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM EDT (Synchronous)
Instructor: Judith A. McMorrow
Through professional responsibility and legal ethics we will explore the significant responsibility lawyers have to shape law in a common law system, and their responsibility to advocate for clients in the adversary system. The session will also explore how professional responsibility norms differ slightly around the world, reflecting the varying visions of independence and the balance of client-centered and social responsibility.
Session 4: Introduction to Criminal Law
Tuesday, August 13, 2024, 2 Hours (Asynchronous)
Instructor: Hon. Christine McEvoy (Ret.)
This session will provide an overview of Criminal Law and Procedure as well as the fundamentals of the criminal justice system in the United States. Relevant topics include: crime types, statutory and common law, and federal and state systems. The session will also explore roles of the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, the grand jury, and judges. We will also provide an overview of pre-trial due process motions, including discovery issues, constitutional suppression motions, and motions to exclude prejudicial evidence. Finally, we will review jury trials, sentencing, and appellate issues.
Session 5: Introduction to Civil Litigation: Pre-Trial Practice
Wednesday, August 14, 2024, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM EDT (Synchronous)
Instructor: Alan D. Minuskin
This practice-focused, interactive session provides an overview of the development of a civil case from client interview through conclusion of a matter. Stages and skills covered include client interviewing, case planning and pleading, fact investigation (including discovery), client counseling, and negotiation. The session also highlights how a civil litigator's often competing ethical responsibilities (to the client, to the court, to the legal system, to the opposing side, and others) naturally lead to challenges in making strategic decisions.
Session 6: Introduction to Evidence
Wednesday, August 14, 2024, 2 Hours (Asynchronous)
Instructor: Jeffrey M. Cohen
U.S. judges use rules of evidence to control the flow of information that a jury is allowed to hear.
Evidentiary rules seek to balance access to relevant information with a desire to avoid evidence that is unreliable, inflammatory, or repetitive. This session will explore the reasons for Rules of Evidence and cover some of the major topics, including relevance and hearsay.
Session 7: Human Rights & Business Law
Thursday, August 15, 2024, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM EDT (Synchronous)
Instructor: Daniela Urosa
States must guarantee protection against human rights abuses within their jurisdiction by third parties, including corporations. In addition, beyond the right to economic development and private initiative, companies must respect the principles of corporate responsibility, due diligence, cooperation, and accountability. They must respect the centrality of human rights and human dignity, even extraterritorially within the framework of global business.
This session introduces the fundamental International Human Rights Law standards on business and human rights, the scope of the State's human rights obligations in the context of corporate activities, and the disparate impacts on vulnerable populations. In particular, this session will focus on the current challenges of labor rights, environmental rights and climate change, corporate tax practices, and information and communication technologies.
Session 8: Intellectual Property (IP) Law
Thursday, August 15, 2024, 2 Hours (Asynchronous)
Instructor: Joseph Liu
This session provides a general overview of the major areas of U.S. intellectual property law: copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret. It will provide students with a general introduction to the main doctrines and cases in each of these areas, and an understanding of how the individual subject areas compare.
Session 9: Environmental Law and Its Lessons for Future Governance
Thursday, August 15, 2024, 1.5 Hours (Asynchronous)
Instructor: Zygmunt Plater
Environmental protection law is a relatively young sector of law in the U.S. and abroad; however, patterns and frameworks have evolved that illuminate major themes and necessities of long-term societal governance and sustainability. Environmental protection law is one of the only areas of the U.S. legal system that explicitly takes into account the needs of future generations in establishing its regulatory standards. In this session, we will explore some of the specific features of U.S. environmental law that have direct relevance in other national systems, as well as its general thematic features, which are relevant in virtually all modern national states.
Session 10: The Role of Constitutional Courts in Democracies
Friday, August 16, 2024, 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM EDT (Synchronous)
Instructor: Pedro Lenza
Constitutional democracies around the world face a common issue in justifying and accepting judicial review. When a constitutional court strikes down legislative enactments passed by a body elected by the people, it raises a “counter-majoritarian legitimacy” issue. Why should unelected judges be able to overturn the legislatively determined will of the people? This session will analyze precedents to explore the roles played by the courts in constitutional democracies – counter-majoritarian, representative, and enlightened.
Closing Session
Friday, August 16, 2024, 1:00 PM to 1:30 PM EDT (Synchronous)
Facilitators: Judith McMorrow and Pedro Lenza
