All students are required to take a LAW 530 seminar for which they must write a substantial paper of publishable quality. This seminar is taken during the spring semester of a student’s second year. Seminar offerings will be announced early in the fall for the spring semester. Seminar placement is by lottery. Prior topics have… Continue reading Second-Year Seminar

Students perform research and write papers on selected legal topics or problems under the direction of a faculty member.

The Externship Program offers significant academic benefits not otherwise available in the prescribed curriculum. Students are provided field experience by being “placed” in an outside supportive environment to learn the panoply of lawyering skills. Mentors create situations specifically designed to maximize new learning, to develop new skills and to encourage creativity. Students discover their own… Continue reading Externship (Hawaiʻi)

This course revolves around the gratuitous transfer of wealth, beginning with underlying philosophical tensions and broad societal concerns, and then focusing on “who gets it when you go,” including the legal requirements for wills, revocable trusts and other will substitutes, and what happens in the absence of such a document.  Also considered are statutory protections… Continue reading Trusts & Estates

This course focuses on specific topic areas that will vary from year to year, depending upon current developments and issues in environmental law in Hawai`i, nationwide, and internationally, as well as the expertise of visiting faculty. Topics in the past have included Hawai`i environmental law, environmental law and the military, wildlife law, and toxic waste… Continue reading Topics in Environmental Law

The purpose of the course is to survey and analyze the organization, powers, and duties of state and local governments, their interaction, and how they fit within the increasingly pervasive federal system. We will particularly emphasize finances, home rule, state and local antitrust liability, development agreements, impact fees, tax increment and other debt financing (including… Continue reading State & Local Government Law

Building upon the foundation established in Contracts I and II, this course provides an in-depth study of the law governing domestic sales of goods under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code including: warranties; manner, time, and place of performance; buyers’ and sellers’ remedies for breach; and limitations on the freedom of contract. Pre: Secured… Continue reading Sales

This course examines the contract of sale, equitable conversion, and the deed. Aspects of real estate transactions which are unique to Hawai`i are also studied. To the extent that time permits, more advanced subjects, such as public land use control measures and private real estate development, are introduced. Pre: Real Property Law I (LAW 518).