The public law program at Rutgers focuses on the role of law, constitutions, legal institutions, and judicial politics in governance. In a methodologically diverse array of scholarship, members of the field examine the functioning, the effect, and the legitimacy of a wide variety of law and legal institutions. Public law research focuses on the law itself; criminal justice institutions; state and federal trial and appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court; U.S. and comparative constitutional development; the processes and products of constitutional doctrinal development; citizen mobilization and participation in legal forums; social reform movements’ use of legal language and institutions; policy development and implementation by and through the courts; and the jurisprudence of rights. These investigations are tied together by a self-conscious effort to understand law and its relation to politics, and constitutionalism and its relation to democracy.
Strong links exist between the intellectual interests of the public law faculty and members of other fields within the Department. Faculty encourage graduate students to explore a wide variety of approaches and methods and invites them to integrate normative and empirical research in the study of public law. Likewise, faculty encourage graduate students to build on the strength of the different fields within the Rutgers Political Science Department by exploring our shared interests in federalism, democracy, citizen participation, inequality, identity construction, conflict resolution, institutional structures and efficacy, and regime legitimacy.
Looking beyond the department, Rutgers’ Public Law Program has links to the School of Law in Camden (by way of the Eagleton Institute) and to the School of Law in Newark (by way of joint research projects). Additional joint programs are not only possible but desirable in a graduate program committed to pedagogic breadth rather than narrow parochial attachments. The Public Law field also encourages students to take full advantage of the Inter-University Exchange which allows PhD students to take graduate courses at numerous area universities. Members of the field also have established ties to the School of Criminal Justice in Newark and to the Administrative Office of the Courts of New Jersey. The New Jersey Bar Association and the Institute for Continuing Legal Education are located adjacent to the Rutgers Campus on Ryders Lane, providing additional opportunities for collaborative work
Faculty
Milton Heumann
Lisa L. Miller (American Politics, REP)
Affiliated Faculty
Nikol Alexander-Floyd (Political Science, Women and Politics)
Linda Bosniak (Rutgers School of Law)
Jeff Decker (American Studies and Political Science
Curriculum
Formal Requirements
Students majoring in public law are required to complete l5 credits in the area, including the proseminar. Students who enter without having taken course work in basic case analysis will be encouraged to enroll in 790:40l and/or 790:406.
Students minoring in public law are required to complete the proseminar and two additional courses within the subfield, for a total of nine credits.
Public Law Courses
Proseminars:
16:790:605 Pro-seminar in Public Law
An introduction to the major literature of the field; critical examination of recent theories and methods in the study of the judicial process.
Electives:
.16:790:650 Seminar in Law and Politics
Intensive study of selected problem areas that may include issues in criminal justice, law and society, and judicial decision-making.
16:790:651 Seminar in Constitutional Law
An advanced seminar with emphasis on individual research projects assessing judicial craftsmanship and doctrinal lines of inquiry.
16:790:652 Philosophy of Law and Jurisprudence
The nature of law and its relation to other normative systems; major legal philosophies. Other topics include legal reasoning, the enforcement of morality, and the justification of punishment.
16:790:653 Seminar in Doctrinal Analysis
A critical survey of contemporary issues before the Supreme Court, the federal district courts, and the state supreme courts; modes of conflict resolution with a dual emphasis on substantive law findings and judicial craftsmanship; the interplay of forces at different stages in the adjudicatory process.
46 16:790:654 Contemporary Constitutional Issues
Current public policy questions explored in the judicial forum, both national and state. A variety of research methods employed.
16:790:655 Constitutionalism and Judicial Politics
An assessment of the role of the federal courts in the American system of democracy. Normative and empirical assessments of the foundations of judicial review and the alleged counter-majoritarian problem; interactions between courts and the other electorally accountable branches; the role of litigants and mobilization processes in the judicial development of doctrine and policy.
16:790:688 Advanced Topics in Public Law
An advanced research seminar for upper-level Ph.D. candidates in public law intended to provide an opportunity for the design of doctoral research projects and the investigation of their feasibility.
16:790 694 INDEP STUDY PUBLIC LAW
