This is an introductory lesson about using District of Columbia secondary sources. The secondary sources that are featured in this lesson will help students when they are searching for pertinent discussion and information about District of Columbia law and references to relevant District of Columbia primary sources of law.
This lesson is designed to help students understand the basic principles of diversity and alienage jurisdiction in the federal district courts. It examines both the constitutional authority for diversity and alienage jurisdiction, U.S. Const. Art. III, § 2, and the statutory provisions that bestow diversity and alienage jurisdiction on the federal district courts, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1)-(a)(3). It consists of both text and explanatory problems.
One of the best ways to learn and remember something is to connect it to something that you already know. Once you have made that connection, it becomes easier to use the new information, because you are connecting it to something that you already understand. Making these connections is called transfer. You can transfer vertically (i.e. from one topic in criminal law to another, or from Contracts 1 to Contracts 2), or you can transfer horizontally from course to course (i.e. from contracts to criminal law).
Prof. Andersen has written a CALI lesson that provides students with extensive flowcharts designed to aid in learning the analytical framework necessary for understanding the Dormant Commerce Clause. In this podcast, Prof. Andersen gives an overview of the Dormant Commerce Clause, including a brief discussion of the June 2005 U.S. Supreme Court Gonzales decision, concerning states regulation of medical marijuana. He also offers tips for tackling this topic and explains the best way to use his related lesson.
In this lesson, you are presented with a hypothetical defamation case and instructed to compose a complaint for a diversity action in federal court.
This exercise reviews some substantive principles of contract law and demonstrates the application of that substance to the process of drafting. The exercise begins with a form contract that the user must rewrite to suit the needs of the client. On completion, the user has reviewed applicable principles from both the common law and the U.C.C. In addition, the user has learned principles of drafting that can be applied either to revision of a form or to drafting from scratch.
A large percentage of litigation arising out of contracts results from poor drafting. In order to eliminate this litigation, it is imperative that students and legal professionals master good drafting skills. One of the most important aspects of drafting a contract is the operative language--language that affects legal relationships. This lesson is designed to introduce law students to operative language commonly used in drafting contracts, in particular, language of obligation (shall), language of authorization (may) and language of condition precedent (must).
Drafters of contracts, wills and statutes are plagued with the ambiguities inherent in the use of these two connectors. This lesson is designed to identify these ambiguities and then help students to draft with conjunctions which eliminate those ambiguities.
This lesson deals with the duration of offers. The existence of an offer is often an essential element of the bargaining process. Sometimes the offeree's power of acceptance will end so that the offer is no longer valid. This lesson will look at termination of the power of acceptance by termination of the offeror, revocation and counteroffer, rejection, death and lapse.
This lesson explores the duress and undue influence defenses to contract formation.
This lesson covers the subject of the duty to retreat as a requirement for the justification defense of self-defense. The lesson reviews the common law and current status of the duty to retreat. This subject matter is not particularly complicated, but there are some details that require close scrutiny.
This lesson covers the historical evolution of Congress's authority to enact legislation pursuant to the Commerce Clause. Congress's contemporary Commerce Clause authority is covered in a separate lesson.