Law Schedule of Classes

NOTE: Course offerings change. Classes offered this semester may not be offered in future semesters.


282.1 sec. 001 - Domestic Violence Law Seminar (Fall 2022)

Instructor: Mallika Kaur  (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only | profile)
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Units: 3
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person

Meeting:

Tu 6:25 PM - 9:05 PM
Location: 🔒 Log-in to view location

From August 23, 2022
To November 22, 2022

Course Start: August 23, 2022
Course End: November 22, 2022
Class Number: 31470

Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 19
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 24
As of: 02/17 06:39 AM


This course will examine the legal system's response to domestic violence (also known as family violence or intimate partner violence). Using an interdisciplinary approach, we will cover historical, psychological, empirical materials as well as topics in criminal, family, tort, immigration, welfare, housing, employment, human rights, privacy, and constitutional law. We will explore how domestic violence laws disparately affect different groups, including people of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, people of faith communities, and peoples who fall outside of the current normative family structures in the U.S.. Ethical and policy issues will be explored throughout, as will discussions of the trajectory of the anti-domestic violence movement in light of racial justice movements (new and sustained).

Through a trauma-centered and intersectional approach, students will be positioned to assess and analyze the responses by the legal system (and lateral/alternative systems) to the persistent and prevalent social issue of domestic violence.

We will use a group discussion format, with each student leading part of one class. Several guest speakers and videos will be included. This course will provide students an opportunity to develop their skills of listening (to each other; guest speakers; interviews; videos), writing (reflections and comments on bCourses; final exam), and facilitation/presentation. The course has a take-home, open-book final exam.

Each Spring semester, Nancy K. D. Lemon, a leading authority on domestic violence law for over three decades, teaches the Domestic Violence Field Placement (formerly the DV Practicum) at Berkeley Law. While students are allowed to take the field placement without taking this DV Law seminar first, they are encouraged to enroll in both courses. Students may take the field placement twice. In it, students work in non-profit, prosecutorial or public defender offices, or with judges around the Bay Area. Topics students work on include prosecution, criminal defense, immigration and asylum law, family law, employment issues, housing, and public benefits. For more information, go to https://www.law.berkeley.edu/experiential/domestic-violence-law-practicum/.


Attendance at the first class is mandatory for all currently enrolled and waitlisted students; any currently enrolled or waitlisted students who are not present on the first day of class (without prior permission of the instructor) will be dropped. The instructor will continue to take attendance throughout the add/drop period and anyone who moves off the waitlist into the class must continue to attend or have prior permission of the instructor in order not to be dropped.


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Exam Notes: (TH) Take-home examination
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Exam Length: 4 hours
Course Category: Family Law
This course is listed in the following sub-categories:
Social Justice and Public Interest

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