Signature Programs
Delaware Law's signature programs reflect a distinct combination of intellectual adventure, practical application, and joy in learning. Students collaborate with faculty in research and advocacy, help shape policies, provide service to others, acquire valuable experience, and begin to build a professional network.
The Institute of Delaware Corporate and Business Law has forged strong relationships with the state bench and bar at the highest levels, providing opportunities for student fellowships. Students learn from stellar full-time faculty, as well as present and former Delaware Supreme Court justices and Chancery Court judges. The Institute supports the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law—one of the most frequently cited specialty journals in the nation—and hosts the Ruby R. Vale Moot Court competition, one of the nation's premier corporate competitions. With the addition of the Helen S. Balick Visiting Professor of Law, we are expanding our offerings in the area of bankruptcy.
The Taishoff Advocacy, Technology, and Public Service Institute emphasizes trial and appellate advocacy. Practicing lawyers on our full-time and adjunct faculty share their experiences and provide a professional framework for the ethical and practical dimensions of practice, including e-discovery, pretrial litigation, forensics, and other important areas. In the Intensive Trial Advocacy Program and the Moe Levine Trial Advocacy Society, students build advocacy skills from initial client interview to summation. The Taishoff Institute also supports our Veterans’ Clinic, the first of its kind in the nation.
Students and faculty work together through the Global Environmental Rights Institute to promote environmental interests locally and globally. The Institute sponsors a distinguished speakers series and opportunities for collaborative research on issues ranging from climate change to constitutionalism. The clinic works in state and federal administrative and judicial forums. Faculty scholarship in this area has broken ground in sustainability, climate change, environmental citizen suits, energy, international law, toxic torts, and constitutional law. Our focus is global, experiential, and interdisciplinary.
The Family Health Law & Policy Institute engages and serves the community by promoting knowledge, providing specialized legal training, and influencing law and policy development that support the health of all families. We produce innovative scholarship and promote rigorous discussion of the issues in conferences, workshops, and other forums. Our strong, collaborative relationships with leaders and policymakers in family and health law empower students with the legal knowledge, skills, and experience to improve families’ health outcomes. Through a robust field component, students acquire valuable experience in a variety of settings, including hospitals, schools, and government agencies.
The Dignity Rights Institute is the only program at any American law school focusing on the theme of human dignity in law. It aims to set human dignity in action through public and professional experiential learning and high-impact lawyering and advocacy. We team with legal, academic, non-profit, community-based organizations throughout the world to advance the human right to dignity. Recent activities include virtual workshops, amicus briefs, reports, and professional education for lawyers and judges. The Dignity Rights Clinic, which is one component of the project, is a semester-long course in which students work with partners on diverse non-representational advocacy projects. In 2021-2022, the Clinic is developing a Handbook for jailhouse lawyers and other advocates and reformers to bring Dignity to the Criminal Justice System. Past projects (of the Clinic's predecessor, the Dignity Rights Practicum) include helping war refugees in Europe, helping Haitian children, examining the impacts of climate change on children, advocating for environmental justice in our local communities, and helping to develop a dignity-based legal system in Bhutan. Delaware Law Students have written extensively on dignity law for the American Bar Association's Dignity Rights Initiative, in its Dignity in Practice project, and have developed Dignity Handbooks for civil society organizations and judges throughout the world.