Rachel E. Barkow

Courses

• Administrative Law

  The modern legal system and modern legal practice overwhelmingly depend on laws promulgated by agencies. This course will explore the major legal doctrines that govern federal agencies so that students will have the tools they need as lawyers to represent their clients’ interests before these bodies and in challenges to agency action before the courts. We will examine the procedures under which agencies operate and the variety of regulatory approaches available to them. We will also explore the relationship between agencies and the constitutional structure of separated powers. In particular, we will analyze judicial, legislative, and executive controls on agencies. Because agencies are creatures of statutes, we will also address the role of statutory interpretation in the administrative state.

• Criminal Law

  This an introductory course on the jurisprudence of substantive criminal law. It deals with the necessary conditions of blameworthiness as a precondition for criminal liability, including such topics as strict liability, negligence, causation, accomplice liability and attempts. It examines justifications and excuses, including necessity, self-defense, duress, intoxication and insanity. Because criminal law is codified, the course provides a solid introduction into reading and interpreting statutes.

• Legislation and the Regulatory State

  The modern legal system and modern legal practice overwhelmingly depend on laws promulgated by agencies. This course will address the public law institutions and procedures of the contemporary regulatory state. We will explore congressional lawmaking processes, the implementation of statutes by federal administrative agencies through rulemaking and other procedures, and the role of courts in interpreting statutes and reviewing administrative action at the behest of affected private parties.