Winter 2025
Randal C. Picker
James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law
The Law School, The University of
Chicago
The seminar will meet on Thursdays from 4:00-6:00. Students will do blog posts in weeks 1-7. In weeks 8 and 9, student groups will do presentations. Groups will have 2-5 students and the presentations should run roughly 9-12 minutes per student. Once you have formed a group, sign up for a presentation slot here. Allocation to the presentation weeks is first come, first served, but we will need to have roughly the same number of students in weeks 8 and 9.
On the blog posts, you can do up to three of the six posts on the readings as group posts, where your group can be 2-4 students. That group need not be the same group as your presentation group. The idea behind the group post is that you will need to talk through one of the readings with one or more of your classmates before writing your blog post. If you do a group post, please put all of the names of the members of your group on the post. The group post is purely optional, so if you would prefer to do six individual posts on the readings, you are absolutely free to do that.
The blog posts will satisfy the Law School′s WP (but not the SRP) writing requirement. The seminar is given for three credits. That is based on our class schedule and my understanding of the amount of time that you are likely to spend out of class. That will likely be a substantial amount of time with the readings, the blog posts and the group presentations.
You will see a variety of deadlines below. I think that they are useful for making the course work. Students don′t need to hit them perfectly, but I do expect a good faith effort to hit them, as again, I think that will help the overall operation of the seminar.
- Be familiar with the general approaches to the study of law and legal reasoning.
- Demonstrate the ability to identify and understand key concepts in substantive law, legal theory, and procedure.
- Have the ability to write a competent legal analysis.
- Demonstrate the ability to conduct legal research.
- Demonstrate communication skills, including oral advocacy.
- Demonstrate professionalism consistent with the legal profession′s values and standards
- Demonstrate an understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of law and the contributions that other disciplines can make to the study of law.
In week 1, we will
try to survey possible topics for the group presentations in Weeks 8 and 9.
Each student will choose a topic and then do a blog post on that topic. These
are intended to be preliminary looks at these topics, so you can do as much or
as little research as you would like. A good post will describe why the topic
might be of interest and might include relevant links. These topics need not be
focused on the particular topic of the seminar this
year but can be about anything related to tech policy. These posts need to be
up by Thursday, January 4 at Noon.
Each student in
blogging group 1 will need to post by Monday, January 6 at 5 pm. Each student
in blogging group 2 will need to post by Wednesday, January 8 at 5 pm. Monday
posts need to discuss the reading; Wednesday posts need to discuss the reading
and at least one of the Monday posts.
Group 2 will do
posts by Monday, January 13 at 5 pm. Group 1 will need to post by Wednesday,
January 15 at 5 pm.
Group 1 will do
posts by Monday, January 20 at 5 pm. Group 2 will need to post by Wednesday,
January 22 at 5 pm.
Group 2 will do
posts by Monday, January 27 at 5 pm. Group 1 will need to post by Wednesday,
January 29 at 5 pm.
Group 1 will do
posts by Monday, February 3 at 5 pm. Group 2 will need to post by Wednesday,
February 5 at 5 pm.
Group 2 will do
posts by Monday, February 10 at 5 pm. Group 1 will need to post by Wednesday,
February 12 at 5 pm.