Oxford

An Introduction to English Public Law (Bell, 2 hours)

The course will offer an introduction to constitutional and administrative law in England. Week 1 will offer an overview of three main actors in English public law – the UK Parliament, the courts and the executive – as well as beginning to highlight some of the debates about the scope of their powers and the relationships between them. Weeks 2 and 3 will build on the first week by considering more specifically how the executive is held to account in English law. The main focus will be on judicial review, including the grounds on which it can be sought and the various barriers to access. However, the course will also consider other methods of legal accountability, including the role of tribunals in the English legal system and the possibility of bringing a private law claim against a public authority. Week 4 will consider and evaluate methods of rights protection in the UK, including the Human Rights Act 1998 and common law rights. 

The course will aim to foster legal expertise, especially in case law analysis. Each class will be focused on a case, which will serve as a springboard for broader discussion of the themes raised. Assessment will be based on both class participation (15%) and a three-hour exam (85%) at the end of the course.

English Legal History (Hackney, 2 hours)

This course looks at the institutional framework of the Common Law and how that framework influenced the structure of the substantive law. It discusses the initial courts; the emergence of the dominant ‘common law’ courts, King's Bench and Common Pleas, and the competing/complementary Equity jurisdiction; and the writ system and development of the pleading forms and the methods of proof used in trials. Considers tenures, the principal Real Actions for the recovery of land at Common Law and selected writs. There will be a 2.5-hour closed-book handwritten exam.

Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) (Wang, 2 hrs.)

This ADR course is premised upon the idea that the essential task of lawyering is to help clients and society solve problems well. To do this, lawyers must not only be able to grasp and promote legal rights and positions but also to identify and articulate the underlying interests and goals that impel people to act. Lawyers must also understand the nature, advantages, and limitations of various dispute resolution methods.

Traditionally, legal practice has emphasized adversarial processes. By contrast, consensual alternatives to trial—negotiation, mediation, and arbitration—require collaboration, understanding, and accommodation. This ADR course helps students meet these challenges by introducing them to the nature of conflict, the fundamental principles of dispute resolution, the law and ethics governing negotiation, mediation, and arbitration, and the considerations that guide lawyers and clients in selecting the most appropriate process. Students will also see how conflict can present opportunities for growth and change, and how the best lawyering strives to achieve those benefits.  Final grades will be based on class participation and three major simulation exercises.  There will be no final written or take-home exam.

Comparative Appellate Advocacy (Brewer, 2 hrs.)

This course will compare appellate practice in the UK versus the US.  We will explore and consider differences in the court hierarchies, briefing, oral arguments, judicial selection, advocates, and histories of the appellate court system.  There will be a take-home exam for this course.

Henry Zhuhao Wang
Tallahassee Alumni Professor
Florida State University College of Law

Prof. Wang’s research focuses on evidence and juridical proof, exploring evidence law outside the jury context, primarily in bench trials, arbitration, and administrative proceedings. He served as a visiting professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law during the 2022-2023 academic year and was a professor at China University of Political Science and Law from 2012 to 2022. Wang has co-authored a book titled “Proof in Modern Litigation: Evidence Law & Forensic Science Perspectives” (Barr Smith Press 2017), and published extensively in U.S., Chinese, and international legal journals. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Texas Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Utah Law Review, UC Irvine Law Review, Denver Law Review, Nevada Law Journal, and the peer-reviewed International Journal of Evidence & Proof. He previously worked as an international associate at Locke Lord LLP in Dallas, Texas, and as a visiting researcher at the University of Adelaide Law School in Adelaide, Australia. He teaches Civil Procedure, Evidence, and Alternative Dispute Resolution. In the fall of 2023, Professor Wang was selected as one of two inaugural New Voices in Dispute Resolution Scholars by the Association of American Law Schools Alternative Dispute Resolution Section. Professor Wang has also been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship at Northumbria University (Newcastle, UK) in the summer of 2024. The award is used by UK institutions “to invite an eminent researcher from overseas for an extended stay in the UK to enhance the knowledge and skills of academic staff or the student body within the host institution.”

Courtney Brewer
Legal Writing Instructor
Florida State University College of Law

Courtney Brewer teaches Legal Writing and Research at the College of Law. Brewer was formerly a shareholder at Bishop & Mills, P.A. and The Mills Firm, P.A. in Tallahassee. She also previously worked as a deputy solicitor general with the Office of the Attorney General of Florida and was a law clerk for Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles Wells. Brewer is a past president of the First District Court of Appeal American Inn of Court, chair-elect of the Appellate Practice Section of The Florida Bar, and past chair of The Florida Bar’s Appellate Court Rules Committee. She previously served as an adjunct professor at the College of Law, teaching Appellate Advocacy, and has served as a coach for the FSU Law Moot Court Team since 2010.

Joanna Bell
Associate Professor, Jeffrey Hackney Fellow and Tutor in Law
St. Edmund Hall, University of Oxford

Prof. Bell teaches Administrative Law, Constitutional Law and Tort for the college, as well as Environmental Law for the Faculty. Previously, she spent a number of years as a College Associate Lecturer at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, and Affiliated Lecturer at the Cambridge Law Faculty. In earlier years, she was a student at the University of Oxford and graduated with a BA in Law from Keble College, sharing the Wronker Prize for best overall performance in FHS examinations. She then read for the BCL (obtaining a distinction) and the DPhil in Administrative Law.

Jeffrey Hackney
Emeritus Fellow and Lecturer
Wadham College, University of Oxford

Jeffrey Hackney holds M.A. and B.C.L. degrees from Oxford, where he was a Vinerian Scholar. He is a member of Middle Temple and a senior Oxford faculty member, having served as fellow and tutor in law at St. Edmund Hall from 1964 to 1976, and as fellow and tutor in law at Wadham College until his retirement in 2009. He is now an emeritus fellow of both colleges and continues to teach in the Faculty. Hackney's special interests are legal history, Roman law, land law and equity.