Property, Land Use and Urban Affairs

Most legal fields presuppose the legality of Property. The courses offered in this area group investigate it. How does our legal system define Property? Who and which institutions regulate it? Courses in the field of Property Law explore the common law, statutory, and constitutional definitions and regulation of real and personal property, from land and buildings to animals, oil and gas, and transferable debt. Property overlaps with Tort through trespass and nuisance law; it overlaps with Contract in rules governing the creation and transfer of real property interests such that that those agreements, and their benefits and burdens, run with the land against later transferees, cumulating in the emergence of planned unit developments. Property also intersects with Administrative Law through the study of land-use regulations such as zoning and environmental regulation. Likewise, it intersects with Constitutional Law in topics like antidiscrimination, fair housing, and eminent domain. Property also explores the creation of new intangible rights in various forms of intellectual property governed by federal statutory regimes.

Along with the mandatory course on Property Law, the area group offers specialized courses in real estate transactions and tax; natural resources and environmental law; local government law and urban planning; housing and welfare law; trusts and estates; intellectual property; and commercial transactions secured by property interests, including mortgages. Again, the distinctive aspect of Property Law is that the operation of many other areas of law often depends on a threshold question: What counts as Property and why?

After completing a course of study within the Property Area, students will gain the experience and competence to:

1. Demonstrate Knowledge of Property and Land Use Doctrine: Explain and apply foundational principles of property law, with particular emphasis on land use regulation, including zoning, nonconforming uses, variances, subdivisions, and environmental and growth management regimes, alongside core topics such as estates in land, servitudes, and conveyancing.
2. Analyze Land Use Problems: Identify and analyze legal issues arising from land use disputes, including zoning compliance, permitting, and development restrictions, applying relevant statutes, ordinances, and case law to complex fact patterns.
3. Interpret Regulatory Frameworks: Read and interpret zoning ordinances, comprehensive plans, and administrative decisions, and evaluate how these sources interact with common law property principles.
4. Evaluate Constitutional Constraints: Assess constitutional limits on land use regulation, including takings, due process, and equal protection, and apply these doctrines to government regulation of private property.
5. Communicate Legal Analysis in a Regulatory Context: Communicate legal analysis effectively in writing, including drafting objective analyses or advocacy-oriented arguments related to land use decisions (e.g., variance applications or challenges to zoning actions).
6. Apply Policy and Planning Perspectives: Evaluate how land use law shapes urban development, environmental sustainability, housing access, and community planning, and assess competing policy considerations.
7. Exercise Professional Judgment in the Practice of Property Law: Recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in land use practice, including client counseling, dealings with administrative bodies, and navigating community and stakeholder interests.

Required Course Learning Outcomes

Property (for 1Ls) (LAW-LW.10427)

1. Demonstrate Knowledge of Property Law Fundamentals: Explain and apply foundational principles of property law, including the purposes served by different property regimes, methods of acquisition, estates in land, co-ownership, servitudes, the public trust doctrine, and public land-use regulation such as zoning and eminent domain.
2. Analyze Property and Land Use Problems: Identify and analyze legal issues arising from disputes over acquisition, ownership, use, and transfer of property, applying statutes and case law to complex fact patterns involving both land and other resources.
3. Interpret Regulatory and Private Governance Frameworks: Read and interpret deed restrictions, covenants, planned-community governing documents, and public land-use regulations, and evaluate how these interact with common law property principles.
4. Evaluate Constitutional and Regulatory Constraints: Assess constitutional limits on government regulation of property, including takings and eminent domain doctrine, and apply these doctrines to regulatory disputes.
5. Communicate Legal Analysis: Communicate legal analysis of property and land-use issues clearly and persuasively, in writing and in class discussion.
6. Apply Theoretical and Policy Perspectives: Evaluate the theoretical justifications for property institutions, examine how private arrangements and community-planning devices shape resource allocation and development, and assess competing policy considerations across a range of resource types and use contexts.
7. Exercise Professional Judgment: Recognize professional responsibilities in property practice, including counseling clients on interests in land and wealth and navigating landlord-tenant and community-planning relationships.
8. Build a Foundation for Related Fields: Recognize how property doctrine and analysis underlie related areas of private and public law, including environmental law, intellectual property, trusts and estates, corporate law, real estate contracts, commercial transactions, bankruptcy, administrative law, and constitutional law.

Multiple-Section Course Learning Outcomes

Trusts and Estates (LAW-LW.10474)

1. Demonstrate Knowledge of Wealth Transfer and Fiduciary Doctrine: Explain foundational principles governing intestacy, and the drafting, execution, and revocation of wills and trusts, including the fiduciary duties of trustees.
2. Analyze Estate Planning and Administration Problems: Identify and analyze legal issues arising in estate planning and administration, including disputes over intestate succession, will validity, and trust administration, applying statutes and case law to complex fact patterns.
3. Interpret Governing Instruments and Statutory Frameworks: Read and interpret wills, trust instruments, and intestacy statutes, and evaluate how they interact with limits on testamentary freedom, including the rule against perpetuities.
4. Evaluate Limits on Testamentary Freedom: Assess doctrinal and policy-based limits on a testator's or settlor's freedom of disposition, including protections for surviving family members and rules governing perpetuities.
5. Communicate Legal Analysis and Draft Instruments: Draft wills, trusts, and related estate-planning documents, and communicate legal analysis and advice regarding probate avoidance, incapacity planning, creditor protection, and estate tax reduction.
6. Apply Policy Perspectives to Wealth Transfer: Evaluate the policy considerations underlying intestacy rules, testamentary freedom, and wealth transfer, including intergenerational equity, creditor protection, and family provision.
7. Exercise Professional Judgment as Fiduciary Counsel: Recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in trusts and estates practice, including client counseling on incapacity and estate planning, fiduciary administration, and navigating beneficiary and family interests.