Government and Public Policy

General Advice

The curriculum offers a wide variety of courses for students who anticipate working in the public sector as elected officials or in staff or agency positions; for students who expect to represent clients whose activities are extensively regulated or must be coordinated with government action; and for students who plan to pursue public interest law practices. A number of general cross-cutting courses, each of which deals with issues and problems of governmental organization, power, limit and responsibility, are listed below. For more specialized offerings, students are directed to consult the Environmental/Land Use, Economic Regulation, Property, Health, Employment, and Corporate Law sections of this booklet. Students should also consider the concentration in Urban Development, Land Use and Environmental Law.

Specific Courses/Frequency of Offering

• Constitutional Law II (3 hrs.) (every year/day; alternating years/evening)
  
• Administrative Law (3 hrs.) (every spring/day; alternating years/evening)
  
• State and Local Government Law (3 hrs.) (every year/day or evening)
  
• First Amendment (3 hrs.) (every year/day; occasionally/evening)
  
• Legislation (3 hrs.) (alternating years/day or evening)
  
• Federal Courts (3 hrs.) (every year/day; alternating years/evening)
  
• Introduction to European Union Law (2 hrs.) (alternating years/day)
  
• International Law (4 hrs.) (every fall/day; occasionally/evening)
  
• International Human Rights (3 hrs.) (alternating years/day)

Seminars (most offered in late afternoon)

• Founders' Constitution (2 hrs.) (occasionally)
  
• Law, Religion, and Morality (2 hrs.) (alternating years)
  
• The President and the Constitution (2 hrs.) (occasionally)

Course Sequence

Students should enroll in Administrative Law in their second year.

Special Opportunity - Housing Issue Symposium

The Housing Issues Symposium has been offered several years now as a way for students from Law (SLU), Public Policy (SLU), Social Service (SLU), and Architecture (Washington University) to work in teams to study and address a specific housing issues during the course. With a variety of guest lecturers and presentations by the several participating faculty members, students gain insight into different ways of approaching a problem.
Students collaborate on a project that requires them to pool their information, bring their different backgrounds and experiences to the table, and work out a proposal. They often must struggle to understand their different nomenclature, their different theoretical perspectives, and their different values as they work through the problem. But the work is the richer for the struggle, and the students benefit greatly from their exposure to different aspects of the same problem. The following spring, the results of the team efforts are presented at a symposium attended by a variety of interested groups: city workers, non-profit agencies, professionals, consultants, advocates, providers and so forth.

Other Information

Students interested in government-related practices are encouraged to join and become active in the school's Public Interest Law Group.
The School of Law also sponsors The McCormack Lectureship which features prominent experts in the area of housing and community development, often in conjunction with the Housing Law Clinic.