Dept Sem: Const Law Supr Crt

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course will be taught by Erin Murphy in Spring 2016. Please follow this link for her bio: http://www.bancroftpllc.com/professionals/erin-e-murphy/. This seminar will focus on the practice of litigating constitutional cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Using several of the Court’s recent high-profile cases, the course will explore the tools that both the Court and the advocates who practice before it utilize when approaching the resolution of constitutional questions. Students will have the opportunity to take an in-depth look at some of the Court’s most important recent decisions and the briefing and oral arguments behind them, and to try their hand at approaching cases from both sides of the podium. As part of the course, students will be given legal writing assignments from the perspective of both an attorney arguing the case and a Justice deciding it, and also will have the chance to participate in moot courts as both an advocate and a Justice. The professor, a partner at a major Washington law firm, is an experienced Supreme Court litigator and argued the landmark McCutcheon v. FEC on the subject of campaign finance. This course is the annual Giles Seminar on constitutional law.