Prerequisite: For JD students, this course is open to those who have completed Constitutional Law: Separation of Powers, Federalism, and Fourteenth Amendment. For LLM students, instructor permission is required to enroll in this course.

Exam Type: Please refer to the Fall 2020 Tentative Exam Schedule

This course offers a study of the role of the federal courts in the operation of the federal system. It is an advanced course in public law, judicial administration, and constitutional and civil rights litigation and will assume a knowledge of substantive constitutional law. Topics include the case or controversy requirement; the power of Congress to regulate the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts; federal question jurisdiction; doctrines of sovereign and official immunity; federal common law; Supreme Court review of state court judgments; abstention; and federal habeas corpus.

Textbook(s):
Hart & Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System (7^th edition 2015)
ISBN 978-1-60930-427-0
Authors: Richard Fallon, John Manning, Daniel Meltzer, & David Shapiro
Textbook Supplement:   2020 Supplement, to be published later this summer