At common law, as well as under modern statutory codes, the crime of murder was defined as a homicide committed with "malice aforethought." Some modern statutes divide the crime of murder into degrees. In this lesson, we examine these statutes in an effort to see when and how they apply. The lesson is intended for students who have studied the murder by degree statutes in class, and who wish to refine and enhance their knowledge and understanding of the topic.
Read moreThis is one of a series of lessons on homicide, and it examines the definitions of "death" and "life" for purposes of the law of homicide. Homicide is a "result" crime in that defendant must have caused the death of another person, and questions necessarily arise regarding when life begins and when life ends. In this lesson, we explore questions related to the definition of death and life in the law of homicide. This lesson is intended for students who have studied these issues in class, and who wish to refine and enhance their knowledge of the topic.
Read moreThis is one of a series of lessons on homicide, and it deals with the topic of felony murder. At common law, one way to commit murder was to show that defendant caused the death of another during commission of a felony (the so-called "felony murder doctrine"). This lesson examines that doctrine. It is intended for students who have studied the doctrine in class and who seek to refine their knowledge and understanding of the doctrine.
Read moreThis is one of a series of lessons on homicide. In earlier lessons, we focused on the crime of murder, examining the common law, modern statutes and the Model Penal Code formulation. In this lesson, we continue our examination of homicide by focusing on the crime of involuntary manslaughter. This lesson is intended for students who have studied these issues in class, and who wish to refine and enhance their knowledge and understanding of the topic.
Read moreThis lesson provides an overview of the branches of the U.S. government and how each branch makes law.
Read moreThis lesson will walk you through things to consider before setting "foot" (physically or virtually!) in a law school doctrinal classroom. You'll learn about how to listen for and capture the most important information, how to maximize your note-taking efficiency by using symbols and shorthand, and the various software options available for taking notes. It is recommended by the author that this lesson be completed before Note-Taking 101: Case-Based Content, which tests your note-taking skills in practice.
Read moreThis lesson will discuss ways to identify the legally significant facts within cases using pre-reading strategies.
Read moreThe goal of this lesson is to introduce you to the basics of conducting company and industry research. Company research is the process of gathering information about a specific company. Once you have information about a company, you may need to know how that company is faring within its industry. Companies within an industry can be compared to one another, or an analysis of the industry itself can be done to see how it is performing.
Read moreThis lesson is intended to teach you the basic approaches to finding statutes. It is assumed that you are already familiar with the forms of statutory publication when you run this lesson. See the lessons "Introduction to State and Federal Statutes" or "Forms of Federal Statutory Publication" or "Codification" if you need to review these matters first.
Read moreThis lesson is second in a series that takes a look at formation of agreements governed by the U.N. Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG). The CISG provides a uniform set of rules for international sales contracts where the parties are located in different signatory countries. There are 11 separate provisions on contract formation under the CISG. This lesson sets out the basic requisites for determining whether an offer exists, when it is accepted and how to address a battle of the forms if the CISG applies. The general attributes of domestic contracts and other CISG contracts are covered in other lessons.
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