PROBLEM-SOLVING AND THE LAW OF THE WORKPLACE (2) (LEL105)

Professor Seth Harris

Solving law-related problems often requires looking beyond legal interests. Students learn problem-solving lawyering: looking at all aspects of a legal problem, and the interests of all of the parties affected by the problem, before the lawyer tries to design solutions. To understand the non-legal interests they should consider when addressing workplace problems, students are introduced to basic principles of labor economics, transaction costs economics, therapeutic jurisprudence, and organizational behavior. Students learn and apply a problem-solving model to a series of case-study simulations in written memoranda to the professor and a take-home final examination. While this course uses labor and employment law materials to illustrate problem-solving lawyering, the problem-solving skills it teaches apply far beyond the law of the workplace to many, if not most, areas of law.