1L - First Year Lesson Topics

This lesson will introduce you to the basic sources for finding primary law in Indiana, and how to use them.

This is the third in a series of lessons on injunctions against speech. This lesson focuses on injunctions against invasions of privacy. The lesson is intended for students who have studied this material in class and who seek to refine their knowledge.

This is an exercise requiring the student to apply the concept of intent, as defined in Restatement (Second) of Torts. The student is asked (1) to approve or disapprove asserted propositions applying the concept to a fact situation; (2) to identify the errors in erroneous propositions; (3) to indicate how erroneous propositions can be corrected; and (4) to identify, in the role of associate counsel at trial, appropriate grounds of objection to a proposed charge to the jury.

This lesson explores an intentional tort that is one of the most recent torts to emerge, one of the most commonly pleaded today, and one that is still evolving. The tort is most commonly called intentional infliction of mental distress; sometimes courts call it intentional infliction of emotional distress, or simply outrage.

This is an introduction to researching the law relating to intergovernmental and non-governmental agencies. IGOs and NGOs have significant input into international law and finding their resources can be integral to researching international law.

This lesson demonstrates the ways in which internet searching can provide access to internal administrative agency materials.

This lesson will give students a basic introduction to using the Internet for legal research. Students will consider when it is appropriate to use the Internet as a research tool in legal practice. Students will then be introduced to three practical approaches to doing legal research on the Internet.

As its name implies, this lesson is designed to give the student an introduction to the subject of interpleader. The lesson briefly describes the concept of interpleader and some of the historical limitations on the remedy, but its focus is on interpleader under the federal statute and Rule 22.

Interpretation involves an ascertainment of the meaning of the words and provisions of a contract. Whereas "construction" of a contract relates to the legal effect of the words used by the parties, "interpretation" addresses the meaning of the parties. Whose meaning is to be given effect with respect to certain contract terms? What evidence may be taken into account when courts engage in interpretation? In this lesson, the parol evidence rule will be considered with respect to the admissibility of extrinsic evidence to determine the meaning of the contract as formed.

In property, trusts and estates, or wills students learn a range of technical language for creating estates and interests in land and other property. They have probably prepared themselves to recognize these "magic words" and identify the interests they create. They may even find themselves enjoying this linguistic exercise, feeling as though here, finally, is an area of law in which there are "right" and "wrong" answers.

This lesson deals with the question of when and why an event that intervenes between the defendant's negligence and the plaintiff's injury may have the result that the defendant is relieved of liability for the injury.

This exercise begins with some general background questions to help students place administrative agencies within the greater Constitutional scheme. These questions also address the various powers agencies wield, and the ways they are created. Then the exercise examines sources that offer specific details on individual agencies; it goes on to briefly discuss procedural rules, policy statements, and the process of promulgating regulations.

This lesson enumerates some general principles of contract remedies. You may want to run it before you run any of the individual lessons on contract remedies. It may be run as an introduction before you have studied contract remedies or as a review after you have studied the topic.

This lesson will introduce you to researching foreign law.

This lesson provides a basic overview of the law of homicide. It is an introductory lesson to get you started on distinguishing criminal from noncriminal homicide, identifying the elements of homicide, and analyzing the varying degrees of homicide. The lesson guides you through applying the basic concepts of actus reus, mens rea and causation to homicide offenses and provides an analytical framework for approaching homicide problems. Finally, it provides separate practice questions and an opportunity to try out the problem-solving approach on an exam-type question.

This is an introductory lesson for international human rights law and research.

This lesson is designed for students taking an introductory legal research course who are already somewhat familiar with online research on Westlaw and Lexis. This lesson should be useful for students with basic or intermediate searching knowledge and experience.

This lesson will provide an overview of secondary resources used in legal research. Secondary resources are books and other material ABOUT legal subjects and issues: they discuss and explain primary resources such as cases and statutes and can be useful in assisting our understanding about specific areas of law. The student will learn about the different types of secondary resources and what secondary resources are most useful for specific types of legal research tasks.

This lesson is designed as an overview of specific jurisdiction. While we will review some of the most important precedents and their implications, our primary focus will be to put the doctrine in context and identify some of its major constitutional dimensions. Other lessons will explore more detailed aspects of the doctrine.