Publish your work with the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law!

The California Writing Workshop provides students a chance to write and publish articles on recent developments within the California criminal law system. This class will give you the opportunity and resources to discover trending topics, exhaustively research your thesis, and produce polished, high-quality papers.

You can satisfy their writing requirement through this workshop. If accepted by BJCL, your article will be published on Westlaw, Lexis, and Hein Online.

If interested, please send a five page writing sample to (gy@berkeley.edu) to apply.

238.5T- Criminal Writing Workshop
2 Units (+1 if you’re doing your writing requirement)
Th 3:35-5:25p

The new seminar will explore the burgeoning field of cleantech law and policy from multiple perspectives: environmental protection; energy regulation; technology and intellectual property policy; and business finance. The class would be jointly taught by Professors Peter Menell and Steven Weissman, with assistance from Sarah Barker-Ball (Fall 2010 Energy & Cleantech Program Fellow) and other faculty and fellows of Berkeley Law centers.  The seminar will develop a framework for analyzing the interrelationship between cleantech and environmental policy. Based upon this framework, each student in the seminar will develop an in-depth case study of a major cleantech project. Possible projects include major wind initiatives, building transmission capacity in the Mojave desert, biofuels, electric vehicles, smart grid technologies, high-speed trains, and nuclear energy. Students are welcome to propose other topics as well. Students will meet with advisers — from the faculty and legal practice — as they explore their projects.

The course will extend over both the fall and spring semesters, with 2 units offered each /semester.  The class would comprise: (1) lectures by faculty and guest lecturers on topics such as climate change, environmental regulation, environmental ethics, intellectual property, and cleantech financing frameworks; (2) meetings among students and TAs / professors to discuss project progress; and (3) a special lecture series involving cleantech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. During the Fall semester and early Spring semester, students will be required to meet a series of research and writing deadlines, such as topic summary, pathfinder, outline and various drafts.

Application: Admission is based on an application process. The application is here and must be submitted to the box outside Boalt 354 no later than April 30, 2010. 

Teaching Assistants: The course will use 2-3 TAs, who will receive academic credit for their participation. Please use the same attached application to apply to be a course TA.

Boalt students interested in independent study for supervised legal research and drafting concerning revision of the CAMPUS CODE OF STUDENT CONDUCT, should contact Stephen Rosenbaum, Lecturer, at srosenbaum@law.

Berkeley Law is working to develop an official Energy & Clean Technology program. As part of that, there is a proposal to create a student scholarship seminar in which law students would earn credit for writing publishable-quality papers relating to energy and clean technology. Because of the inter-disciplinary nature of this field, the resulting papers may be published in some format as a collaboration of the BTLJ, ELQ and BBLJ student journals, with the possible assistance of BERC@Boalt.

ALL Berkeley Law students are encouraged to please fill out this questionnaire so that we can gauge student interest and to determine viable formats for a new seminar.

Thank you for taking a few moments out of your time. If you have any questions, you may direct them to barker-ball@berkeley.edu.

All students enrolled in Professor Swift’s Evidence class must attend the first meeting on Wednesday, January 13. Please drop the class as soon as possible if you do not plan to take it.

Students on the Wait List who still want to enroll must also attend the first class meeting. Preference will be given to students who have an exigent academic reason for needing to take this class. The assignment for the first class is pages 1-38 in the Allen, Kuhns, Swift & Schwartz Evidence casebook, which is on Course Reserve in the Library. Please do not purchase the casebook from the Bookstore if you are not enrolled in the class.

The first meeting of the class is on Wednesday, January 13, 2010, starting at 3:20 p.m., in the Dean’s Seminar Room, 215B Boalt Hall.

As previously announced, enrollment is limited to 18, and third year students will be given priority. All interested students—whether or not enrolled or placed on the wait list by Telebears—must attend the first session in order to be admitted. Any student who does not attend the first class may be dropped by the instructor.

Due to the use of simulation exercises throughout the course as well as the need to determine the members of the class as soon as possible, the usual provisions of “Drop/Add” do not apply. If you wish to enroll, you must commit by no later 2:00 p.m., on Friday, January 15, 2010, the last day of the first week of spring semester classes.

There is no assigned reading for the first class. All course reading materials will be provided by the instructor.

If you have any questions, contact Professor Henry Hecht, by e-mail (hhecht@law.berkeley.edu) or by telephone (510-642-1787).

This course has been recently rescheduled. For the Spring 2010 term, the course now will be offered Tu/Th, from 6:20 to 7:35.  Students consistently provide ringing endorsements of this course. (Representative comments are available here.) Those planning to litigate, engage in business transactions, or safeguard individual financial security will find the course particularly advantageous.