LAW 7073 :
Legislation:Process & Interper

This course focuses on the process by which legislatures consider and adopt statutes and the approaches courts take in determining the meanings of statutes. The first part of the course examines various aspects of the legislative process. Topics include competing theories of how legislatures work; rules that govern the structure and composition of legislatures; procedures that govern legislative deliberation; and the force and character of statutory law as contrasted with judge-made law. The second part of the course examines theories of statutory interpretation as well as specific sources and canons of statutory construction. A central theme of the course is how the realities of the legislative process should and do affect the judicial process of statutory interpretation. By the end of the course, students will be able to advance sophisticated arguments about the meaning and purpose of statutes, and they will be able to make incisive critiques of courts' constructions of statutes.