General Course Descriptions for Terms: administrative law
744 - Administrative Law
808 - Adv Legal Writing: Legislative Drafting
This course equips students with the technical precision and strategic judgment required to draft effective legislative and regulatory text. Moving beyond general legal writing, students will master the specialized craft of translating policy goals into clear, enforceable law. The course unfolds across five modules. Module One lays the foundation, covering principles of statutory interpretation, precise sentence construction, legislative process, and the logical organization of statutory text. Module Two puts theory into practice as students draft a local government ordinance, learning to navigate municipal authority and community concerns. Module Three raises the stakes with the drafting of an amendment to an existing state or federal statute, requiring careful attention to how new language interacts with established law. Module Four shifts the focus to administrative law, as students draft a state regulation and grapple with the distinct conventions governing agency rulemaking. The course closes with Module Five, a critical examination of how implicit bias can enter legislative drafting—through ambiguous language, unequal impact, or long-standing government structures that consistently favor those with greater resources to participate in the process—along with a survey of strategies local governments are using to identify and counteract these effects. By course end, students will draft with both technical rigor and social awareness.
940 - Workers Compensation Law
This experiential course is taught by experienced attorneys and is designed to introduce second- and third-year law students to worker’s compensation law and procedure. Hayley Clark of Aplin & Ringsmuth, LLC, and Attorney Heide Mallon (Previous Worker's Compensation Administrative Law Judge and current LIRC Staff Attorney) are co-instructors of the course. Students are assigned to advocate fictitious Wisconsin worker’s compensation claims from the pleading stage to hearing. Roughly half of the class sessions involve a traditional lecture/discussion format, although legal, procedural, and medical topics are discussed with the fictitious claims in mind. In other class sessions, guest experts—including an orthopedic surgeon, a psychologist, and a vocational expert—pose as witnesses in the fictitious claims and are “examined” and “cross-examined” by experienced attorneys as if they were testifying at hearing. One class session involves the direct and cross-examination of a claimant from one of the fictitious claims. Students learn about medical, psychological, and vocational science and acquire litigation skills in these class sessions. Worker's Compensation Practitioners will be guest lecturers on effective advocacy at hearing and on mediations and settlement. At the conclusion of the course, students are required to write a brief advocating their clients’ positions in the fictitious cases for hearing, and then litigate their clients’ claims in a two-hour mock worker’s compensation hearing, conducted during the final exam period before an experienced administrative law judge, with discussion of helpful pointers to follow. Course materials include the Wisconsin Worker’s Compensation Handbook by John D. Neal and Joseph P. Danas, and additional materials provided to students by the instructors electronically.
950 - Lawyering Skills: Immigration & Federal Administrative Law
951 - Administrative Law Module
989 - Environmental Law & Practice
The course will provide an overview of major environmental laws including; • Clean Water Act • Clean Air Act • RCRA – solid and hazardous waste management • Hazardous substance management • CERCLA/Superfund • State and federal navigable waters laws • State and federal laws on groundwater and water use • Land use • NEPA/WEPA – environmental impact Provides an overview of the government affairs nature of environmental law, with special attention given to the structure of government, administrative law and local government law including practical procedures for obtaining legal objectives. Review actual case studies, permits, pleadings to demonstrate the fact specific and technical nature of addressing environmental law issues. Concludes with an application of these laws in permitting, commercial transactions and enforcement.