Course | Columbia Law School

Public procurement markets—including the $500 billion federal procurement market—present unique and highly challenging legal issues. Practice in procurement spans issues of administrative law, fraud, litigation, corporate compliance, and complex transactions. Procurement law is also growing increasingly international, as procurement markets around the world open under free trade agreements, and efforts advance to harmonize procurement rules, both to facilitate trade and to enhance governance in the developing world. Public procurement law is, therefore, a rapidly expanding field, as governments at all levels take an increasingly sophisticated approach to contracting. This course, taught by Professor Christopher Yukins, a co-director of the Government Procurement Law Program at the George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C., will explore the basic elements of procurement law, both nationally and internationally. The course will focus on federal procurement law, but will draw on U.S. state law, and on international model laws, for comparative purposes. We will review each stage of public contracting, from planning through bidding and performance, and will also discuss issues of corruption and compliance. Senior policymakers in the field from Washington, D.C. will be invited to join the class from time to time, so that students can gain a firsthand sense of how law and policy are shaped in this typical area of federal practice.