University of Michigan Law School is top-ranked in legal education and scholarship. Michigan Law has from its founding attracted students from around the country, and sent alumni out to practice law in every state. Michigan today has over 1100 students, and has historically been one of the dozen largest schools measured by full-time students. The University of Michigan is one of the world’s largest and finest public universities. Generous support from the people of Michigan over many years was essential to creating this outstanding institution, though the Law School is now funded almost entirely through tuition and private giving.
Courses
Civil Procedure
This course covers the basic institutions of civil litigation in an adversary jury trial system. It explores the different procedural devices that arise out of the relationships among the parties, the judge, and the jury. Many litigation topics are covered, including issues relating to pleadings, discovery, other pretrial procedures, joinder, preclusion, and jurisdiction.
Contracts
Is an introduction to commercial and consumer law and lays the foundation for advanced study in commercial transactions, corporations, restitution, consumer credit, and investment securities. Substantively, the Contracts course deals with how contracts are formed, which contracts are valid, when a contract has been breached and the various remedies for breach, including damages, specific performance, and restitution. The course is also designed to introduce the student to legal methodology and the techniques of statutory interpretation, particularly in connection with the Uniform Commercial Code.
Criminal Law
This course examines the application of legal principles as a limitation on the definition of crime; the theories underlying criminal law; and the problems of the imposition and execution of sentences. Also examined are various specific areas of substantive criminal law, including: (1) general principles applicable to all crimes, e.g., mistake, causation, legal insanity, intoxication, and rules of justification and excuse; (2) accountability for the acts of others; and (3) attempt and conspiracy.
Legal Pract:Writing & Analysis
Legal Practice: Fundamentals of Legal Writing and Analysis Legal Practice: Fundamentals of Legal Writing and Analysis is the first component of a yearlong set of courses taken by all first-year students, in which students begin to develop the skills that are necessary to practicing law. This course, comprising the first half of the first semester, introduces students to the fundamental analytical and writing skills that they’ll continue developing over the rest of the Legal Practice course sequence. The timing and range of specific skills covered in LP Writing & Analysis differs from professor to professor, but students will be expected to prepare at least one extensive written assignment, learning to present objective written analysis of a legal problem to a client or a fellow attorney, and to persuade their reader that their analysis is complete and accurate. In doing so, students come to appreciate how a commitment to scrupulously thorough writing promotes analytic rigor. Via intensive critiques from their professors, students learn how constantly revising their work product makes their analysis more precise.
Torts
Compensation at law for private wrongs and intentional wrongs as well as accidents, with principal emphasis on harms to person and property. Special areas such as product liability, defamation, or business torts will be treated selectively.
Library
With over one million volumes and more than 500,000 titles, many in electronic format, it is a center for legal research for students, faculty, lawyers, judges, and scholars from around the world. (International students and visitors often discover that materials on their native countries are more accessible and complete than at home.) Lawyer-librarians provide expert reference assistance in person, by phone, e-mail and its online chat system. They also provide expert instruction in using these electronic and print resources.
Additionally, law students can also use the other outstanding libraries and archives on campus, and electronic resources are available remotely to Michigan students. An audio tour of the Law Library and many research guides are also available. Our Library collection includes print and online access to reports of the American federal and state courts, as well as the court reports of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, and most European, Asian, and South American countries. The constitutions, codes, and statutes of each state and of most foreign countries are kept retrospectively and up-to-date. Legal documents for the UN, the EU, the WTO, and other inter-governmental organizations represent a particular strength of the collection. There are extensive special collections in the fields of Roman law, international law, comparative law, trials, biography, and legal bibliography. “Michigan’s Law Library, with its comprehensive collection of Anglo-American, foreign, comparative and international law resources, was a key factor for my happy decision, upon completion of the LL.M. program, to extend my stay in Ann Arbor as a research scholar.
Contact
The University of Michigan Law School
625 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
Telephone: 734.764.1358
Admissions Office
South Hall, Suite 2200
701 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-3091
Telephone: 734.764.0537\
Fax: 734.647.3218
Email: lawcareers@umich.edu
