Public Policy

The certificate program requires students to take courses from six (6) different groupings for a total of fifteen (15) to twenty (20) hours in public law courses. These groups are as follows:

I. Core Courses (6 hours): one course from each group

A. The Administrative/Regulatory Setting

The following courses enable students to become familiar with the administrative process or regulatory justifications and methods.

  1. Administrative Law
  2. Regulated Industries*
  3. Environmental Law**

B. Other Core Sources of Public Law

These courses enable students to become familiar with international or domestic organic sources of public law and the techniques for interpreting them.

  1. International Law
  2. Legislation
  3. Federal Indian Law
  4. Tribal Government

II. Economic and Resource Access Regulation (2 to 3 hours)

These courses enable students to understand a variety of regulatory concepts, including Market Failure Theory, Resources Economics, Cost/Benefit Analysis, or Service Quality Regulation.

  1. Antitrust law
  2. Banking Law
  3. Business Transactions
  4. International Energy and Natural Resources Law
  5. Land Use Controls
  6. Regulated Industries*
  7. Natural Resources & Environmental Law on Federal Lands
  8. Trademark Law and Unfair Trade Practices
  9. Water Law
  10. Social Security Disability Law
  11. Native American Natural Resources Law
  12. State Administrative Law
  13. Seminars in the above fields, upon approval of the Director. ***

III. Social Justice (3 hours)

These courses enable students to consider one or more tradeoffs affluent democracies must make to remain reasonable just and prosperous societies: Group Rights/Individual Rights; Individual Freedom/Public Safety; Equal Opportunity/Maximum Wealth Creation.

  1. Criminal Procedure: Police Practices
  2. Employment Discrimination
  3. Gender and the Law
  4. Labor Law
  5. Mental Health Disability Law
  6. Employment Law
  7. Sex Crimes ****
  8. Seminar: Law, Medicine and Ethics: Comparative, Gendered & Transcultural Perspectives *****
  9. Seminar: Race, Racism and American Law

IV. Protecting the Public’s Health and Safety (2 to 4 hours)

These courses enable students to encounter one or more of the issues encountered by societies with limited resources that attempt to protect its citizens as much as possible from exposure to unreasonable risks of harm: Competitive Risk Analysis; Deterrence/Rehabilitation Theories; Ethical Dilemmas caused by Tragic Choices

  1. Bioethics and the Law
  2. Criminal Procedure: Adjudication
  3. Environmental Law **
  4. Sex Crimes ****
  5. International Environmental Law
  6. Juvenile Law
  7. Workers Compensation
  8. Seminar Law, Medicine and Ethics: Comparative, Gendered & Transcultural Perspectives *****
  9. Elder Law
  10. Comparative Bioethics & Law

V. Writing Credit (2 or 3 hours)

This requirement is designed to help students gain the internalized knowledge that comes only from struggling with a subject matter in the preparation of scholarly written work.

Writing Requirement (2 to 3 hours): The student will write a paper on a public policy topic, approved by the Director of the Certificate Program that

  1. qualifies him or her to receive a certificate from the Tulsa Law Journal, the Energy Law Journal, or the Tulsa Journal of Comparative and International Law;
  2. is published in the Tulsa Law Journal, the Energy Law Journal, or the Tulsa Journal of Comparative and International Law;
  3. fulfills his or her seminar requirement; or
  4. fulfills an independent study of 2 hours.

VI. Pro Bono Service Requirement

Applies only to students who first enter the College of Law during or after the summer or fall of 2007.

This requirement is designed to instill in students the obligation of lawyers to contribute professional services without compensation to persons in need or nonprofit organizations that provide community services. To complete this requirement, the student must provide 20 hours of volunteer work for a nonprofit organization prior to graduation.

Avoiding Undue Overlap with the Other Certificate Programs

Students who are attempting to secure a REEL Certificate may take only one energy, environmental law, or natural resources law course among the courses listed in Groups II and IV. Students who are attempting to secure an International and Comparative Law Certificate may take only one Health Law course among the courses listed in Groups II and IV. Students who are attempting to secure a NALC Certificate may take only one Native American law course among the courses listed in Groups I, II, and III. These requirements will insure that students will have to take at least three (3) additional courses to secure both the Public Policy Certificate and another Certificate.

* Regulated Industries is not offered on a regular rotation. When and if it is offered, it may satisfy the requirements of either I.A or II. At the election of the student, but not both.

** Environmental Law may satisfy the requirements of either I. A or IV., at the election of the student, but not both.

*** A seminar approved for Block II may satisfy the requirements of either II. or V., at the election of the student, but not both.

**** Sex Crimes may satisfy the requirements of either III. or IV., at the election of the student, but not both.

***** This seminar may satisfy the requirements of either III. or IV., at the election of the student, but not both.

In individual cases, the Director of this Certificate Program and the Associate Dean are authorized to modify the requirements of the Program if, in their collective judgment, such a modification is warranted.

CERTIFICATE DIRECTOR:
Gary D. Allison
 Vice Dean, Director of the Public Policy and Regulation Certificate Program and Professor of Law
 gary-allison@utulsa.edu
918-631-3052

Professor Allison earned his J.D. in 1972 from The University of Tulsa and his LL.M. in 1976 in the area of economic regulation from Columbia University. He teaches constitutional law, water law, and regulated industries. A fellow of the National Energy/Environmental Law and Policy Institute of the College. His scholarship includes a casebook on regulated industries. Professor Allison has been lead counsel on five State Supreme Court challenges to initiative petitions concerning state government reorganization, abortion rights, education reform, and congressional term limits. He has been a Democratic nominee for Congress and is an ardent political activist, frequent public speaker, amateur historian, and an avid country/folkrock music fan.