Bankruptcy B
Spring term, Block C
M,T,W 10:20 AM - 11:40 AM
Professor Elizabeth Warren
4 classroom credits LAW-31400A Spring
2, 3, or 4 optional clinical credits LAW-31400C Spring
This course covers the federal Bankruptcy Code and explores the critical role it plays in a credit economy. The social and economic implication of a law of forgiveness will be the central feature of this course.
This is the survey course covering the broadest range of issues in cases that range from personal bankruptcies to the failure of multinational corporations.
The course is taught exclusively from problems. The problems are designed to examine the elements of the statutes, the transactional implications of the formal laws, and the policy issues that inhere in the bankruptcy system. Ethical problems are woven throughout the course. The problem approach is based on situations that attorneys, clients, legislators, and judges encounter and on the broader social implications of these issues. The course will provide some commercial background for the problems it explores, and it will explore the available empirical evidence about the bankruptcy system.
Students who would like to participate in the clinical component must enroll through clinical registration. Please refer to the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs website at http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/clinical for clinical course registration dates, drop/add deadlines, and other clinical registration information. Clinical placements will be at the WilmerHale Legal Services Center - Predatory Lending/Consumer Protection Clinic. Clinical students will also automatically be enrolled in an additional 2 class credit spring clinical workshop.
Warren and Westbrook, The Law of Debtors and Creditors, (Little, Brown, 5th ed. 2005); Warren, Statutory Supplement (Aspen, 2007).