Tech law seminar on reconceptualizing enforcement

Key links

1. Tech law syllabus

Class 01

1. Create a list of 100 potential future technologies. (If you use any sources, cite them.) Bring a printed copy to class.

Class 02

1. Reflect on how you solve problems. Create a flow chart showing your problem-solving process.
2. Read the syllabus.
3. Read Peace Corps Theory of Change and Logic Model.
4. Read John Gilmore et al., Four Reasons Lawyers Fail to be Viewed as Strategic Advisors.
5. Read Ben W. Heineman, Jr., William F. Lee, and David B. Wilkins, Lawyers as Professionals and as Citizens: Key Roles and Responsibilities in the 21st Century (pages 9 to 16 only).
6. Read Questions for the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy.
7. Create a vignette for class: Prepare a talk that, in no more than 60 seconds, presents an issue to your colleagues. The issue can be a topic, a challenge, or an opportunity. For example, "Covid-19" is a topic, "South Carolina's vaccine rate is too low" is a challenge, and "Can we use what we've learned during the pandemic to reduce the impact of other diseases such as the flu?" is an opportunity. The issue does not need to be legal in nature (although it can be). It does need to be understandable and otherwise accessible to your colleagues -- and your talk should provide the information necessary for your colleagues to meaningfully analyze it. You should also be prepared to answer any questions your colleagues pose about the issue.
8. Read Sidewalk Manual (created by the 2021 Technology Law class).
9. Read Rules of the Sidewalk (the instructions I gave to the 2021 class).
10. Did your predecessors succeed?
11. What questions would you ask them?

Class 03

1. This semester we will use a structured problem-solving model to explore the implications of increasing automation and privatization for enforcement, with transport as our primary case study. This model will involve brainstorming challenges, framing an underlying problem, brainstorming solutions, and selecting and developing a best solution, and creating outputs with a view toward outcomes and impacts. ​Your charge is not to solve or even describe this entire topic but rather to make a credible and meaningful contribution to an important dimension. Each step will require substantial research and reflection to combine knowledge, insights, and skills from inside and outside the law. In particular, many but not all of the frameworks, tools, impediments, risks, opportunities, issues, arguments, and strategies that you ultimate identify will involve law.
2. Read this substantive introduction to our course topic. This introductory draft is merely a cursory overview intended to ground your research and spark your thinking. (You should cite your sources in your more formal deliverables for this course.)
3. Read How Governments Can Promote Automated Driving, New Mex. L. Rev. (2016) (part III only).
4. Read How Reporters Can Evaluate Automated Driving Announcements, 2020 Journal of Law and Mobility 1 (2020).
5. Prepare questions to ask me and Dr. Jeffrey P. Michael to help you understand the fundamental aspects of, research directions in, and potential next steps for this topic. Adequate preparation will require enough independent research to ensure you can meaningfully and professionally engage with us on this topic, on the substantive introduction that you have read (some of which might be new or unclear to you), and on our relevant work.
6. Prepare an initial research memo that sketches both a classwide research strategy and an individual research strategy. What are the key procedural questions? What are the key substantive questions? What subtopics seem especially important or interesting? What information, both in and outside law, would help to better identify problems and eventually solutions? What kinds of resources might help to produce that information? You may prepare this memo individually or in an group of your choice. Although I am far more interested in quality than quantity, I suggest approximately five single-spaced pages in either prose or outline form.