Administrative Law

This basic 3 hour course in Administrative Law seeks to provide exposure in some depth to the fundamental principles of Administrative Law. It will use a traditional casebook, focused on federal administrative law - where the core principles have been most fully developed. The course will also examine how those principles have been applied in the context of state administrative law, seen through the lens of New Mexico administrative law and practice.

The course will be taught in three fundamental blocks dealing with:

1. the nature and purpose of administrative agencies, including their statutory mandates, the non-delegation doctrine, and methods of executive, legislative and judicial oversight;
2. the essential functions of administrative agencies, including various methods of policy formulation, the exercise of adjudicatory power, the exercise of rule-making power, the enforcement of administrative decisions, and the processes of licensing; and
3. indirect controls on administrative agencies via freedom of information laws and legal requirements making administrative processes open to public scrutiny.

Advanced Problems in Legal Ethics

Course Description

This seminar is being offered for the benefit of those students who have taken the basic course in ethics and wish to explore some of the fundamental dilemmas of legal ethics in more depth.

The course will involve a number of selected topics, with advanced readings on those topics and class discussion. The topics will cover the core duties contained in the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility--competence, confidentiality, loyalty zealousness, and obligations to the legal profession and the public. The particular topics will be drawn from problems faced by real lawyers in their daily practices. To the extent possible, we will have the lawyers whose problems we use, join us for class discussion of those particular problems at the weekly two-hour scheduled class.

In addition, this will be a "paper" class, in which each student will be required to produce and present a paper on a legal ethics problem of his or her own choosing. Paper topics must be chosen very early in the semester (to avoid overlap with those topics planned for class discussion prior to student presentations), and individual tutorial meetings with the instructor will be arranged to supervise the progress of student written work.

The seminar may be used to satisfy the writing requirement for graduation, and will be limited to 12 students.

Civil Procedure I

Civil Procedure I is an introduction to procedures employed by state and federal courts for resolution of civil disputes. The course will investigate the process of forum selection, the pleadings stage of litigation, the discovery process, and the summary judgment mechanism as a device for terminating litigation prior to trial. In addition, the course will investigate alternatives to traditional civil litigation such as arbitration and mediation.

Constitutional Rights

This course involves an in-depth inquiry into the building blocks of civil rights law; freedom of expression (speech and press), equal protection, due process, and religious freedom. There will be discussion of litigation strategy and the decision-making processes of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ethics

We will study the rules governing the professional conduct of lawyers and explore the values of the legal system which justify and explain those rules. Specific subject matter includes: the duties of competence, confidentiality, and loyalty; acquisition and retention of clients (including undertaking representation, advertising, solicitation, and withdrawal from representation); and problems concerning the manner of representation (the "Principle of Professionalism" and "zealous advocacy within the bounds of the law").

Federal Jurisdiction

This course concerns the proper place of the federal courts in a federalist system. The nature of federal judicial power, its relationship to federal and state legislative power, and its relationship to state judicial systems are analyzed. The civil rights case is the primary vehicle for this analysis. The course also examines the relationship of tribal judicial systems to federal and state courts.

Introduction to Constitutional Law

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the study of Constitutional Law. The focus will be on the structural framework established by the Constitution, including principles of federalism and the role of the Supreme Court in policing the constitutional order. Among other things, we will study the doctrine of judicial review, the reach of federal legislative power, limits on the reach of state power, the workings of the Supreme Court, and separation of powers and limits on the exercise of federal judicial power.

National Moot Court Competition

Course Description

The ABA Law Student Division National Appellate Advocacy Competition emphasizes the development of oral advocacy skills through a realistic appellate advocacy experience.  Competitors participate in a hypothetical appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The competition involves writing a brief as either respondent or petitioner and then arguing the case in front of the mock court.

Web Site
http://www.abanet.org/lsd/competitions/naac

Coaches
Attorney Ed Ricco

Students who are eligible
2L and 3L students only

Dates and timeline overview
The competition is in March

Try-out details
Members of the prior year’s ABA National Moot Court Team give a problem (often a modified version of a problem from the national competition) and have applicants write a brief and present an oral argument based on the problem. The selection process begins early in the fall semester because the team must be in place by early November.

What to Expect
The ABA releases the national competition problem one to two weeks before Thanksgiving.  Briefs are due around mid January. The regional oral argument competition occurs in four or five venues around the country during late February or early March; teams usually get their first or second choice of venue. For teams that survive the regionals, the national oral competition is held in Chicago in April.

From soon after the problem is released, students should expect to be involved in intensive research on difficult, current issues of the sort that would engage the U.S. Supreme Court. They can expect to discuss the problem and the brief with the team coach and faculty members. Their research will be turned into a polished appellate brief. The coach and faculty may provide guidance but are prohibited from providing assistance in writing or editing the brief. This effort will consume considerable time during winter break. 

After the brief is submitted, students can expect to spend several evenings per week through January and February developing, refining and presenting oral arguments on both sides of the problem to panels drawn from faculty members and local judges and practitioners. They will learn how to think on their feet and can expect helpful and incisive commentary from the coach and panel members.

Team members will see their appellate advocacy skills grow commensurately from their hard work and can expect to have fun at the oral arguments.

New Mexico Law Review

New Mexico Law Review I - Fall

This course is limited to second year students who are selected through a writing competition. Coursework includes research, writing, proofing, and preparing materials for publication. Under editorial supervision, staff members are required to write a case note or comment of publishable quality in their first year on the NMLR. Additionally, there is a class room component that focuses on the craft of legal scholarly writing with an eye towards facilitating the completion of the case note or comment. Concurrent enrollment in a Legal Research course is highly encouraged.

New Mexico Law Review II - Spring

The second semester of law review is limited to second year students who enrolled and participated in NMLR I. The course builds on the skills acquired in the first semester and culminates in the submission of a case note or comment to be considered for publication. NMLR II also includes a classroom component.

New Mexico Law Review III - Fall

This course is limited to third year members of the NMLR and includes research, writing, proofing, preparing materials for publication, and the opportunity to be published.

New Mexico Law Review IV - Spring

This course is limited to third year members of the NMLR and includes research, writing, proofing, preparing materials for publication, and the opportunity to be published.

Reading & Applying Cases: A View from the Appellate Branch

Course Description

Professor Ransom served on the New Mexico Supreme Court for ten years, from 1986 to 1997. This course will focus on opinions written by him during that time. The goal of the course is to foster in first year law students a better understanding of the principles and practicalities that are involved in the making of judicial opinions—from the impact of the parties’ briefs to the internal processes of the appellate court that help shape the judicial opinion. The central theme of the course is that students will become better “readers” of judicial opinions as they become more familiar with the forces that shape them.

There is no required text or casebook. Each week students will receive a packet of readings, usually including a New Mexico Supreme Court opinion, articles, supporting cases, or appellate briefs. Topics will range from the broad (Can and should judges totally ignore their personal views and beliefs when deciding cases? How should judges construe statutes to assure that the court does not encroach upon legislative prerogatives?) to the narrow (How does the standard of appellate review influence the drafting of opinions and their stare decisis effect? Why is there a requirement that alleged errors must have been brought to the attention of the trial court if they are to be the subject of an appeal and why are there exceptions to this “preservation of error” rule?).

There will be no final exam. Students will be evaluated based on periodic short assignments during the semester and a ten page paper due at the end of the semester.

State Constitutional Law

This course explores some of the fundamentally different ways in which state constitutional doctrine law is developed, applied, and interpreted. We will look at the historic origins of state constitutions; how and why they have developed differently from the federal model; and the particular content of state constitutions. The course will focus on the interpretive devices used when dealing with state constitutions, and much of the substantive content of the course will involve the expansion of state constitutional rights in an era of shrinking federal constitutional rights.

The course will not be entirely "rights-based," and may cover other state constitutional issues such as the structure of state government, local government, state taxation, spending and borrowing, and the process of state constitutional amendment. There is a good deal of flexibility in the materials, and enrolling students will have some say with respect to both the content of the course and the teaching method. The course will, in any event, require a substantial paper.

State Constitutional Law and History

Prerequisite: Constitutional Rights

This course explores the American constitutional tradition from a perspective that will reconceptualize standard assumptions about constitutionalism. Those standard assumptions entail views about American constitutional law and history that have been shaped by a predominant focus on the federal constitution. As a consequence of that focus, the significance of state constitutionalism and its history, as well as the interplay between state and federal constitutions, has not been fully appreciated. The course uncovers a new richness in constitutional law, theory, and history by focusing on the vibrant pattern of constitution-making in the states before and after the federal effort in 1787. We will then apply that learning to a series of contemporary issues in state constitutional law, with particular emphasis on the New Mexico constitution.

Supreme Court Decision Making

The focus of this course will be on the process of Supreme Court decision-making. The process questions to be considered during the semester will include the use of history, the treatment of constitutional facts, reasoned decision-making, principled decision-making, the value of precedent, the "art" of overruling, and the retroactivity of constitutional doctrine.

The class will also sit as "The Court" in a pending case selected from the Supreme Court docket. Each student will be assigned the role of a sitting Justice. After consideration of the briefs and a "Conference" on the case, each member of the class will produce a written opinion expressing the views of his or her Justice.