Summer Intersession or Fall 2013 Initial Class Assignment for:
Law & Economics Seminar § 777
Instructor: Stevenson
First class date: Aug 21, 2013
Posting date: Jul 27, 2013 @ 13:28:08
Instructions: PRECLASS ASSIGNMENT – LAW & ECONOMICS SEMINAR – PROFESSOR STEVENSON
Before the first day of class, please read carefully the article
entitled The Problem of Social Cost by Ronald Coase. It is included
in the required book for the course, and is on the course website as
the "Coase Theorem Article." The course centers on the ideas in this
article, which is the most-cited law review article of all time.
Warning about this assignment: even though the article is less than 50
pages, it might take you more than one hour to read it carefully
enough to follow the argument. This is very important for the course,
and the time spent making sure you fully understand the article will
be worth it.
There is no complicated math or calculus in the article or required
for the course. The course will focus on applying transaction cost
economics (a subcategory of microeconomics) to various fields of law.
The course is academically rigorous and intensely theoretical, but
does not really require mathematics or calculus.
WARNING ABOUT THE COURSE - unlike some other seminars at STCL, this
seminar will meet for every scheduled class session, barring
unforeseen circumstances. Students will have some reading or other
class preparation for each week. The professor will not accept
seminar papers for course credit unless they comply with the
requirements in the student handbook, which the professor deems to be
the bare minimum. This course includes peer-review of rough drafts
halfway through the semester – the professor will post your rough
draft on the course website so all the students in the class can see
it, and will assign one student to write a critique of your draft.
The professor will assign you, in turn, to write a critique of another
student’s draft. The professor may also post final papers on the
course website so others can review them. Students will give a brief
class presentation about their topics.
PLAGIARISM always triggers the fullest possible sanctions against the
student – a failing grade for the course, and reporting the academic
misconduct to the administration, which in turn often includes
notifying the state bar about the incident. In each of the last two
years, the professor has FAILED students for copying part or all of
their papers from other sources. If you know ahead of time that you
cannot research and write your own seminar paper for Law & Economics,
you should not take this course.
A main ADVANTAGE of this course is that students wanting to publish
their work will have a unique opportunity to do so. The professor has
helped previous students publish their papers in law reviews, and has
even offered to join as a co-author to help with publication for
particularly deserving papers. Please note that “publishable” means a
length of approximately 24,000 words, or about 70 pages of double-
spaced, 12-point Times Roman font, including footnotes (usually 200-
300 footnotes with citations to many academic articles and academic
books). “Publishable” also means offering deep, novel insights into
an issue, and writing an even-handed treatment of the topic. This is
more work than many students are willing to do, of course, so
publishing in a law review is a significant accomplishment and a
noticeable distinction on one’s resume. Publishable papers receive
the highest grades in the course. There are usually some publishable
papers in each class.
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