Spring 2026 Class Schedule: Center for Legal Studies

Spring 2026 Class Schedule

To read course descriptions, click on the course titles below.
Note that courses are subject to change.

Course	Title	Instructor	Day/Time
LEGAL_ST 207-0-20	Legal Studies Research Methods (also SOCIOL 227)	Jesse Yeh	MW 12:30-1:50
LEGAL_ST 207-0-20 Legal Studies Research Methods (also SOCIOL 227) Legal Studies Research Methods introduces students to research methods used in interdisciplinary legal studies, including jurisprudence and legal reasoning, qualitative and quantitative social science methods, and historical and textual analysis. The course is a prerequisite for the Advanced Research Seminar in Legal Studies, 398-1,- 2, and is intended to prepare students to design their own research project to be conducted in 398-1, -2. Through exposure to and engagement with interdisciplinary research methods on law and legal processes, the course will provide students with a deeper understanding of law in its historical and social context. The course will provide students with a set of research tools with which to conduct research on legal institutions. The course builds on content from LegalStudies 206/Sociology 206, a prerequisite for this course. While part of the Legal Studies major sequence, the course will enrich the analytic skills of students from many fields who are interested in law or in interdisciplinary research methods. Prerequisite: LEGAL_ST206/SOCIOL 206. Taught with LEGAL_ST 207; may not receive credit for both courses. The topical focus of the course will be violence by the police and capital punishment in the United States. These topics will be explored with interdisciplinary readings and relevant legal cases. Students will be exposed to several research tools and research processes, as they also engage with material on police violence and capital punishment. In addition to shorter assignments, students will develop a research proposal on a topic of their choosing.
LEGAL_ST 221-0-1	Famous American Trials (also HIST 221)	Joanna Grisinger	TTH 12:30-1:50
LEGAL_ST 221-0-1 Famous American Trials (also HIST 221) The American courtroom has provided a venue through which Americans have grappled with moral panics, political tensions, celebrity scandal, and mass violence. The high-profile prosecutions of people ranging from Lizzie Borden to OJ Simpson had a powerful hold on American culture at the time. And although these trials rarely had a significant effect on the law, they remain potent cultural touchstones, their stories told and retold through movies, television shows, podcasts, songs, and souvenirs. This course examines several famous American trials—famous both in their time and today—to understand and examine key themes in American political, legal, social, economic, and cultural history. We will focus largely on the twentieth century—a period of multiple “Trials of the Century” —to see how each trial crystallized broader political and social tensions over ethnicity, gender, race, religion, politics, sexuality, and social status. Each trial combined elements of both formal law and public theater; through these trials, we’ll examine the relationship between legal reasoning and storytelling. We will also examine how and why we return to such stories; how do they endure in historical memory, and what tensions do they help us think about today?
LEGAL_ST 276-0-1	Introductory Topics in Legal Studies: Education Politics	Jesse Yeh	MW 3:30-4:50
LEGAL_ST 276-0-1 Introductory Topics in Legal Studies: Education Politics Description coming soon.
LEGAL_ST 308-0-1	Sociology of Law (taught with SOCIOL 318)	Bob Nelson	TTH 9:30-10:50
LEGAL_ST 308-0-1 Sociology of Law (taught with SOCIOL 318) This course examines the relationship between law and the distribution of power in society, with a particular emphasis on law and social change in the United States. Readings will be drawn from the social sciences and history, as well as selected court cases that raise critical questions about the role of race, gender, and sexual orientation in American society. Among the material we will examine are the documents made public in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Students should be aware that some of this material is graphic and disturbing.
LEGAL_ST 310-0-2	Moral Panics	Abigail Barefoot	MW 11:00-12:20
LEGAL_ST 310-0-2 Moral Panics How and why do some issues, real or imagined, get blown out of proportion? In this course, we will explore what moral panics are, how they occur, and how we respond to them via legislation and policing. We will think intersectionally, analyzing how race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability shape who or what is seen as “dangerous” or ‘deviant.” Along the way, we will develop a robust theoretical toolkit, combining an interdisciplinary range of perspectives from critical criminology, sociolegal scholarship, cultural studies, and creative non-fiction journalism to help us recognize and critique dubious claims.
LEGAL_ST 331-0-1	Politics of the Supreme Court (taught with POLI SCI 331)	Matt Pryor	TTH 11:00-12:20
LEGAL_ST 331-0-1 Politics of the Supreme Court (taught with POLI SCI 331) This course offers a thorough examination of the U.S. Supreme Court in the American political system. We will focus primarily on the Court as an institution—that is, the set of norms, rules, and policymaking processes that lead to the High Court’s decisions. Although the study of legal doctrine (e.g., constitutional law) is central to understanding the Supreme Court’s role in American government, this course will emphasize the institutional processes by which the justices create substantive policy (and not the content of legal doctrine itself). In doing so, we will investigate how the Court operates as both a legal and political institution, as well as its place in the larger political system. This course will also emphasize the social scientific study of the Supreme Court, involving topics such as judicial selection, the Court’s agenda-setting and control of its docket, and decision making on the merits.
LEGAL_ST 394-LK-20	American Lawyering: Education and Practice	Seth Meyer	M 10:00-12:50
LEGAL_ST 394-LK-20 American Lawyering: Education and Practice Attorneys are central to American life and popular culture, but the profession is undergoing dramatic change. For years, the supply of lawyers has vastly outstripped the demand for legal jobs and the resulting lawyer bubble has grown. Meanwhile, those who land law jobs have different challenges: recent surveys report many attorneys' growing disenchantment with their work and dissatisfaction with their lives. This seminar will examine the profession's multidimensional crisis. What changes occur in attorneys, both individually and systemically, emerging from law schools and finding their roles in the legal realm? Why is working within the most lucrative big firms now regarded by many as the pinnacle of private practice? What other options are available? It will explore life after law school, examining the disparate places law graduates might find themselves. The course invites prospective law students to consider their potential places, as individual lawyers, in what remains a noble profession. It also invites those students in other undergraduate disciplines who may be curious about trajectories open to them in this post-graduate academic and, ultimately, career field.