All Course Descriptions

Formerly known as Legal Practice II. Updated to Lawyering Fundamentals II in Fall 2015. 

The course covers the legal aspects of water and water rights with primary focus on Hawai‘i. Topics include: Native Hawaiian water rights, pre-McBryde case law, McBryde and post-McBryde developments, water pollution, ground water designation, institutional relationships, and various types of allocation systems.

Study of principles and practices of teaching scholarly legal discourse and appellate advocacy one-to-one, transferring composition theory and linguistics into individualized methods make the legal writing process efficient and the product effective. Instructor approval required. Repeatable one time. (Spring only)

Legal Research provides a theoretical understanding of the process of law making and of developing and implementing a research plan. 

This course examines the interrelationship between the legislative and judicial branches of government in creating and interpreting laws and prepares students to work with complex statutory schemes.  In modern times, legislatures have taken a larger role in creating law through the enactment of statutes, and this has resulted in a relative shrinking of purely judge-made common law.  As legislatures increasingly play the role of lawmakers, lawyers and judges become more engaged as interpreters of statutes and administrative regulations.  But because statutory interpretation sometimes equates to law creation, the respective role of courts and legislatures in the law-making process has become less well defined and more controversial.

This class explores the synergies and tensions between law “making” and law “interpreting” and prepares students to work in a legal environment dominated by statutory and regulatory sources of law.  Along the way, it covers the federal and Hawai‘i law-making processes, mechanisms of direct democracy, theories of the legislative process, techniques of legislative and quasi-legislative drafting, theories and doctrines of statutory interpretation, and the many approaches to statutory interpretation employed by lawyers and judges in their roles as advisors, advocates, and decision makers.
Course Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, students should have:

1. Gained a basic understanding of the federal and Hawai‘i legislative processes;
2. Gained a basic understanding of the leading theories of the legislative process, and of how those theories inform different approaches to statutory interpretation;
3. Gained an understanding of the major methods and theories of statutory interpretation, including formalism, purposivism, the new textualism, and legal pragmatism, and be able to deploy these theories in predictive and normative analysis;
4. Improved their skills in researching federal and Hawai‘i legislative history;
5. Improved their ability to apply statutory interpretation methods and doctrines in legal analysis; and
6. Developed basic skills in legislative drafting, and, in the process, reinforce principles of English for Legal Purposes covered in Legal Practice I and II.

Law and Literature both inhabit the realm of interpretation, rhetoric, form, ethics and epistemology. They mediate our relationship to society and share how we imagine the world, each other and ourselves. In this course, we will read and analyze literary texts to explore issues that have been central to the scholarship and teaching of Critical Race Theory. How does the law inform how we talk about or imagine race? What is the social/political/legal/aesthetic construction of whiteness and how are black, brown, Asian, and native peoples constructed by these regimes? How does racism pervade civil institutions? What are the complex intersections of race, gender, class and sexuality? In what ways do subordinated and colonized communities internalize and reproduce racist idelogies, constructions and narratives? How do these communities resist racism and create counter narratives, oppositional texts, culture, morals, epistemology and law? 

Students in this workshop receive training in mediation and alternate dispute resolution techniques and simulated experience in the mediation of community disputes.

An honors program for students who prepare for and compete in national advocacy. Travel/Registration Fees required. (B) Black Law Students Association; (C) Client Counseling; (D) Hispanic Bar Association; (E) Environmental Law; (H) Native American; (J) Jessup International; (K) International Environmental Law; (M) Intellectual Property; (N) Labor; (O) Other. Repeatable one time. CR/NC only. Pre: selection by competition.

This course examines the evolution of the rights of Native Hawaiians to land and resources and the important statutes and laws affecting Native Hawaiians. Areas of study include the Hawaiian land tenure system, the Mahele and conversion to fee-simple land system, traditional and customary rights, the public land trust (Government & Crown Lands), the Hawaiian Home Lands trust, and the charitable trusts established by ali‘i to benefit Native Hawaiians. The course will look particularly at current cases and legislation relating to the political status of Native Hawaiians.

This course offers a study of the Uniform Commercial Code provisions that deal with commercial paper (Article 3), bank collections and deposits (Article 4), funds transfers (Article 4A) and letters of credit (Article 5), as well as material on alternative payment systems, including credit cards, electronic fund transfers and related federal law. Topics include negotiability, the holder-in-due-course doctrine, the demise of the holder-in-due-course doctrine in consumer transactions, allocation of risk for forgery and fraud, the bank-customer relationship, letters of credit, unauthorized use of credit cards, and risk of loss in funds transfers.

Examines the meaning, scope, and role of non-profit organizations in contemporary society, and focuses on selected non-tax laws and primary tax issues relevant to non-profits. Law students only. Recommended: 531 and 567. (Once a year)

An honors program for students who prepare for and compete in national advocacy. Travel/Registration Fees required. (B) Black Law Students Association; (C) Client Counseling; (D) Hispanic Bar Association; (E) Environmental Law; (H) Native American; (J) Jessup International; (K) International Environmental Law; (M) Intellectual Property; (N) Labor; (O) Other. Repeatable one time. CR/NC only. Pre: selection by competition.

Introduction for lawyers to peace studies and analysis of contemporary armed conflict, pacifism, just war doctrine, historical causes by war, theories of the way to peace and conditions for lasting peace. (Once a year)

A study of the lawyer’s legal obligations and professional responsibilities to clients, the profession and society under the rules of conduct and laws governing lawyers. Personal choices and the impact of those choices, along with the structure of the legal profession, also are explored.

U.S. cases and legal theory emphasizing law in the social construction of racial categories, shifts in race-based anti-discrimination law, and the interaction of culture and law in judicial decision-making.

This course is the foundation of all further study relating to land, its ownership, development, and regulation. As such, emphasis is on the theory underlying concepts of property and tenure. While elements of personal property are summarized, emphasis is on real property. Subjects covered include estates in land, future interests, concurrent ownership, eminent domain, covenants, easements, licenses, public land use controls, air rights, water rights, and adverse possession.

Seminar addresses a legally and socially important contemporary issue-healing present-day wounds of historic injustice. Considers how to repair the continuing social damage of injustice. (Once a year)

The principal purpose of this course is to help you to plan the prewriting process for scholarly assignments that you will encounter in Second Year Seminary (SYS), in co-curricular endeavors such as law review and moot court competitions, and in any course or experiential activity involving a scholarly approach to research and writing. 

This course is about getting paid. Lenders may reduce the risk of non-payment by obtaining an interest in the borrowers’ property as collateral to secure repayment. The course introduces students to the Uniform Commercial Code and examines the creation, perfection, priority, and enforcement of security interests in personal property under UCC Article 9.

The course is designed to facilitate the research and writing of SJD dissertation. During the first weeks of the course, the student shall submit his or her plans of dissertation research and writing for the semester. The dissertation adviser will review it and approve it with comments. In the middle of the semester, the students should submit a mid-term progress report. At the end of the semester, the student must submit the outcome of dissertation research and writing to the disseration adviser. Dissertation adviser grades the outcome on the satisfactory/unsatisfactory ground. Contact hours will be variable.

The purpose of the course is to survey and analyze the organization, powers, and duties of state and local governments, their interaction, and how they fit within the increasingly pervasive federal system. We will particularly emphasize finances, home rule, state and local antitrust liability, development agreements, impact fees, tax increment and other debt financing (including state and municipal bonds), the rapidly expanding liabilities of county government under Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act, executive privilege, and the limits to federal authority over state and local functions (the "Federalism" question). Cases, statutes, ordinances, and explanatory articles form the basis of the course. While we cover those aspects of state, local, and federal relations which have particular relevance to Hawai`i, the course will also touch upon certain aspects of those relations which are common elsewhere in the federal system. Control of activities of one level of government by others, both directly and indirectly by means of inducements, is a common theme.

Selected topics presented by faculty members or visiting scholars, focusing upon subjects in the Pacific and Asian area. (B) business; (C) China; (G) global; (H) Philippines; (J) Japan; (K) Korea; (P) Pacific; (S) Southeast Asia. LAW majors only for (B) and (H). Repeatable six times for (C), (J), (K), (P), (S); repeatable five times, up to 18 credits for (B), (H); not repeatable for (G).

Selected topics presented by faculty members or visiting scholars, focusing upon subjects in the Pacific and Asian area. (C) China; (J) Japan; (K) Korea; (P) Pacific; (S) Southeast Asia. Repeatable six times.

Selected topics presented by faculty members or visiting scholars, focusing upon subjects in the Pacific and Asian area. (C) China; (J) Japan; (K) Korea; (P) Pacific; (S) Southeast Asia. Repeatable six times.