Course | Columbia Law School

This seminar is designed both for those who want to be successful practitioners and for those who simply want to know where the law is going and why: in other words, the seminar's focus is both practical and jurisprudential. The subject of the seminar is the breakdown, if not abandonment, of the historic legal distinction between tort and crime. Civil juries, for example, are routinely requested to award "punitive" damages, while sentencing judges are required to impose "civil" restitution. The Supreme Court, asked to determine when "civil" fines constitute "criminal" punishment for double jeopardy purposes, has struggled to define a satisfactory doctrinal borderline between civil and criminal proceedings, twice reversing itself in less than a decade. Everyday business lawyers increasingly find it difficult to advise their clients of whether in, say, building a new plant, doing business overseas, or marketing on the Internet, they face risks of civil or criminal exposure, or both. Litigators increasingly find themselves simultaneously defending criminal prosecutions, regulatory proceedings, and private class actions all premised on the same underlying conduct. These and other such problems that characterize the ever-increasing interplay of civil and criminal law will be examined in the seminar from practical, theoretical, and policy perspectives in detailed case studies drawn from such diverse areas as tax, antitrust, securities, and racketeering. There are, however, no prerequisites for the seminar other than an open mind.