Courses

This is a policymaking class focused on a controversial, highly-relevant, and rapidly-evolving public policy issue – “government ethics” (the laws governing conflicts of interest, lobbying, and campaign finance). The class provides students with an opportunity to research a “government ethics” topic of their choice, giving each student the opportunity to pursue in depth an issue of particular interest to that student based, for example, on past experience or employment aspirations, and to strengthen their oral advocacy skills in a simulated “study committee” setting. The skills learned will be useful in practice with a private law firm, non-profit, public interest group, state or local government, etc., as well as in public policymaking by legislatures and administrative agencies. There is increasing concern about ethical issues in government at the federal, state, and local levels. Furthermore, private clients are finding it increasingly difficult to conduct business with government officials and agencies without their counsel having a reasonable grasp of “government ethics ”rules and practices. There are myriad issues to discuss and research. Regarding conflicts of interest, for example, should the remedy for a legislator’s conflict of interests be disqualification from participation in the consideration of a matter, or merely a requirement to disclose the conflict, leaving it to the electorate to decide at the ballot box whether a person has engaged in inappropriate conduct? Or should there be civil penalties, or even fines and imprisonment? Should the appearance of a conflict be treated the same as an actual conflict? Similar challenging issues will be addressed with lobbying and campaign finance. The class is taught using sample statutes as vehicles for debating the issues raised in each of these three areas. The instructors, who bring decades of experience with these issues, have found that the “committee” discussions and policy debates are as good as (and sometimes better than) their real-world counterparts. An “overview” class on each of these three topics will be followed by several classes debating amendments offered by the students and the two instructors to the sample statute on that topic that raise challenging issues involving that topic. There also will be a visit by a leading journalist on dealing with the media (both as a private lawyer and as a government official). The instructors will be available outside class for consultation throughout the semester.