Essentials of Jurisprudence

Fall 2011

JURI 300

Tuesday/Thursday 1:00-2:15 PM

UN 2032

Professor: Jack Baldwin LeClair M.A., Ed.S., J.D.
Office Hours: DI314: by appointment and posted on office door.
Office Phone: 973.655.7953
Email: leclairj@chss.montclair.edu
Text: W= Wacks, Raymond. Understanding Jurisprudence: An Introduction to Legal Theory, (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2005)
Supplemental Required = D = Dyson, Freeman. The Sun, The Genome, and the Internet: Tools of Scientific Revolution, (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2000)
Other Assignments - to be assigned on http://blackboard.montclair.edu

Requirements:

All reading and written assignments must be completed prior to the class in which they are due.
Attendance is mandatory. Students are responsible for keeping current with the assignments. The professor is not responsible for keeping students current.
Class participation is encouraged and will be rewarded academically.
All assignments must be each student's workproduct.
Readings will be from the text, cyberspace, or handouts.
Graduate students will have more rigorous assignments and grading.

Midterm Examination	40%
Final Examination	40%
Classroom Participation	10%
Assignments	10%

DATE	ASSIGNMENT	YOUR TASK	NOTES
09.08.11	Legal Padawan- Introduction to Jurisprudence: concepts, history, and development.	Think about whether it is ever defensible to eat a human being.	Login to Blackboard .
09.13.11
09.15.11	The nature of law, the meaning of law, the meaning of words: "...came whiffling through the tulgey wood and burbled as it came...",	Think about "How words define our world and especially the law". Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Finnis.	Preface and W:Ch1
09.20.11
09.22.11	You make me feel like a natural philsopher; Lifeboat ethics from the natural point of view, and why jurisprudence.	Think about whether there are universal truths.	W: Ch1
09.27.11	Natural Law: Not easy, not always politically correct and not always efficient. Doing it the old fashioned way: Legal Postivism The Morality of Law: Relativism vs. absolutism. "The law is what the judges say it is".	How do you know right from wrong? Is legal always moral? Are laws always right?	W: Ch2
0.29.11	Classical Legal Positivism	How does Bentham compare with Austin?	W: Ch3
10.04.11		Do we have the right to disobey bad laws?
10.06.11	Modern Legal Positivism		W: Ch 4
10.11.11			Ch 4 - Continued
10.13.11	The law as integrity - Dworkin	Modern legal positivism: "But officer, the bartender told me it was non-alcoholic beer".	W: Ch 5
10.18.11			Ch 5 - Continued
10.20.11	Legal Realism		W: Ch 6
			Continued
10.25.11	Review for midterm		List of Key Terms for Midterm
10.27.11	Midterm Examination
11.01.11	Overview to date
11.03.11	Law and Social Theory		W: Ch 7;
11.08.11
11.10.11	The modern approach to legal positivism	Characterizing modernity	Dyson All
11.15.11
11.17.11	Historical and Anthropoligical Jurisprudence	Legal Realism in its original form.	W: Ch 8
11.22.11
11.24.11	Justice a la Rawls		W: Ch 9
11.29.11
12.01.11	Rights - Law as interpretation: Assault on the bastion of positivism; Morality and myth and hard reality and Rawls.		W: Ch 10
12.06.11	Duty to Obey		W: Ch 11
12.08.11	Punishment		W: Ch 12
12.13.11	Critical Legal Theory		W: Ch 13
12.15.11	Feminism and Critical Race Theory		W: Ch 14
12.20.11 3:15 pm - 5:15 pm	FINAL EXAM	Tuesday Examination	List of Terms and Concepts for the Final Exam