Employment Law

In this course, you will learn about wrongful termination law (the basic private law rules, grounded in contract and tort, on when an employer can fire someone), employee free speech and privacy, regulation of workplace intellectual property, unfair competition, workplace discrimination, regulation of wages and hours, unemployment compensation matters, and how employment laws are enforced, for example through arbitration as well as courts. If time permits, we may also touch on worker health and safety laws. In addition to these substantive topics, I will ask you to engage throughout the course with the compelling normative and policy issues associated with the legal governance of work, such as the balance between free market ordering and legal intervention, the efficacy of existing laws, and questions of institutional design. Completion of this course will be useful to future lawyers in private law firm practice, whether representing workers or employers, in-house practice within organizations, including nonprofits and start-ups, and public-sector settings.