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Practicums (2014 - 2015)

  • Analyzing Alternative Laws and Policies for Psychoactive Drugs

    This practicum works closely with the Rand Corporation and California Assemblyman Rob Bonta to investigate the legal and economic issues related to the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado. Students will analyze unresolved legal questions resulting from the clash between state and federal laws and international treaty obligations, and examine design issues about the form of the legal market for psychoactive drugs.  View course information.

  • Catalyzing Nature-Based Coastal Flood Mitigation and Adaptation

    Students work closely with The Nature Conservancy in California and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Region IX, to develop cooperative strategies to promote nature-based flood mitigation. Focusing on the Monterey coastal region as a case study, students will (1) analyze the laws, regulations, and programs related to nature-based flood risk, (2) design a nature-based strategy for risk reduction, (3) identify associated implementation incentives and barriers, and (4) help connect the local community to local, state, and federal mitigation and adaptation resources. View course information.

  • Central Valley Habitat Exchange

    This policy lab assists in developing more flexible and effective wildlife habitat mitigation tools for use in California's Central Valley, a landscape that presents the challenge of taking advantage of the habitat potential provided by working agricultural lands. Students in the practicum analyze cutting-edge issues related to species habitat and protection to help develop new policies and regulatory frameworks rooted in rigorous science and consistent with existing legal frameworks. They help develop recommendations to the Central Valley Habitat Exchange (CVHE) for more flexible and marketable habitat mitigation tools that can be used under a variety of programs to accomplish the dual goals of promoting species recovery and maintaining agricultural production. View course information.

  • China's Solar Industry and its Global Implications

    China dominates and defines a growing global market for solar power. That market faces a stark dichotomy. Solar energy's prospects as a meaningful electricity source are increasingly bright. Yet, amid a global glut of solar panels, the future contours of the industry - the relative roles of leading players such as the United States and China - are increasingly unclear. Students in this seminar will analyze industry and policy data to assess China's competitive strengths in the global solar industry and, based on those conclusions, to suggest finance and policy approaches that the US and China each could adopt so that the two countries operate more strategically in an economically efficient global solar market - and, by extension, a globalizing market for cleaner sources of energy. View course information.

  • Copyright Policy Practicum

    Students work closely with the United States Copyright Office to develop a feasibility study and rough prototype for a Web-based, frictionless, copyright clearance and transaction system for photographs. View course information. 

  • Court Online Mediation Service Practicum

    Students assist the San Mateo Superior Court in developing and implementing an online mediation process for the Family Law division, which has been subjected to drastic funding cuts. Students build on the work of previous practicums, which developed a prototype for an online, click-through, mediation information platform for the Court’s website. The platform helps parties understand whether their issues are right for mediation – the work that had been done by staff personnel. Students will refine the prototype and begin coding it as a pilot, with the goal of developing it well enough that it could obtain grant funding or other investment to complete the project. View course information. 

  • Designing a Children's Coordinating Council

    The Lab would work with the San Francisco Mayor's Office, helping create the structure for a new "Our Children, Our Families Council" that was established by a recent amendment to the City's charter. It is tasked with coordinatig the City's efforts, and aligning with the SF Unified School District, to better support children, youth and families. View course information.

  • Designing a Social Impact Bond for Santa Clara County Mental Health

    In close consultation with Third Sector Capital Partners and Dr. Keith Humphreys, Professor and Section Director for Mental Health Policy in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, students are advising the Santa Clara County Counsel's Office on a social impact bond to reduce the hospitalization of mentally ill patients at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. View course information. 

  • Empirical Study of Patent Troll Litigation

    Students are producing the first patent litigation database to identify the type of patent plaintiffs involved in each lawsuit over a multi-year period. When complete, the data will cover each filed lawsuit from 2000 to the present. The database will be a valuable tool to help litigators and judges understand who is suing in their cases. Its greatest impact, however, should be informing scholars and policy makers considering patent reform of the actual scope of the activity of patent trolls---those in the business of asserting patents rather than making products and who consequently may theoretically harm innovation. View course information. 

  • Endstage Decisions: Health Directives in Law and Practice

    In consultation with Stanford Hospital and Clinics, students are conducting a deep stakeholder analysis, including interviews with doctors, nurses, and other health care specialists about their thinking and the circumstances in which they advise patients and families on the use of Advanced Health Care Directives and Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST). Students are producing policy recommendations to improve the forms themselves, and the laws relating to the forms, as well recommendations on the way that the forms are or can be used; or whether some entirely different approach to the problem might be needed. View course information. 

  • Energy and Environmental Governance

    Students will work with the White House's Office of Management and Budget to scope out the governance challenge and to review and analyze administrative tools (e.g., Executive Orders; Presidential Memoranda; inter-agency Task Forces; budget-led initiatives, etc.) that have been used to address it. Students will develop candid assessments of successes and failures and seek to identify common ingredients that may help predict the efficacy of cross-agency efforts. The policy lab will produce a report to the OMB that should assist future Administrations in deploying more effective administrative governance tools in the energy and environmental arena. View course information. 

  • Expanding Access to Justice in California Courts for Limited-English Court Users

    This policy practicum will offer recommendations to the California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Associate Justice Maria Rivera (First District Court of Appeal), Hon. Manuel Cavarrubius (California Superior Court, County of Ventura) and members of the California Judicial Council to increase access to justice for limited English proficient (LEP) court users. The project interacts with the process of the Joint Working Group for California's Language Access Plan and assists development of a response to a U.S. Department of Justice notice that certain Court policies and procedures may be inconsistent with Title VI of the Civil Right Act of 1964 and its implementing regulations. View course information. 

  • Law and Economics of the Death Penalty

    Students researched the issue of deterrence as it applies specifically to the California death penalty, a system that has had about 900 death sentences but only 13 executions in 30 years. They will file an Amicus Brief in the appeal of Jones v. Chappell, where the trial court judge ruled the California death penalty unconstitutional. View course information. 

  • Legal and Policy Tools for Preventing Atrocities

    The GCJ is headed by an Ambassador-at-Large (Assistant Secretary equivalent) and advises the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights on U.S. policy addressed to the prevention of, responses to, and accountability for mass atrocities. Students will pursue projects devoted to (a) strengthening existing tools (such as hybrid accountability mechanisms and commissions of inquiry), (b) developing new capabilities (such as a global atrocities prevention sanctions regime), (c) evaluating the efficacy of past efforts in order to glean lessons learned, and (d) gathering best practices from other states and entities engaged in similar endeavors, all with an eye toward developing concrete recommendations for future action. View course information. 

  • Mediation Confidentiality and Attorney Malpractice in California

    Practicum students collaborate with California Law Revision Commission staff to identify, research, and analyze issues related to mediation confidentiality and attorney malpractice. View course information. 

  • Policing and Data Innovation

    This course will place students in projects with a local Police Department. Each student will work as part of a team that will communicate and work directly with Department officials. The projects will focus on one of three areas where the Department seeks to improve its operations. One project will examine ways the Department might better elicit and receive feedback from community members. Another project will examine how the Department might better use the information from the stop data forms that its officers complete. A third project will consider the use of body worn cameras. Each student team will produce a written report and present its findings to Department officials. View course information.

  • Preparing for Transition in Syria

    Syria is in the midst of a devastating civil war, during which almost 200,000 persons have been killed, many more have been injured, and millions have been displaced. One major coalition of Syrian opposition groups, known as the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, or the Syrian National Coalition, seeks to replace the current Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad. As the Coalition plans for a post-Assad transition, it has encountered a number of legal and policy challenges that implicate international law, international relations, and administrative problems. Students will support the Public International Law and Policy Group, which is working closely with the Coalition, to provide legal advice on legal issues identified by the opposition as likely to arise in the event negotiations to resolve the Syrian conflict resume. View course information. 

  • Procedural Reform at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)

    The Office of Governmental Affairs for the CPUC has asked this practicum to develop procedural reforms to promote transparency and efficiency in CPUC decision making, focusing on three areas of interest: 1) Ex parte communication rules; 2) Open Meetings law; and 3) Evidence rules. Students will work closely with the CPUC in deciding which of these areas to study, with future practicums continuing research in the remaining areas. View course information. 

  • Race and Gender Diversity in California Prosecutors’ Offices

    Although police departments have collected and reported data on racial and gender diversity for decades, no similar information is publicly available for prosecutors’ offices, despite the longstanding belief that diversity is important for criminal justice decision makers. Recent controversies around the country about the investigation and prosecution of killings by police officers have only underscored the continued importance of attention to the role that race plays in the administration of justice in our country.

  • Rethinking Penal Code Enhancements in California

    This practicum works with the Stanford Criminal Justice Center to analyze sentencing enhancements to the California Penal Code. Students will provide the Chief Justice of California with an analysis of the overall statutory scheme of enhancements, empirical assessment of the connections between certain enhancements and prison inputs, and insight on the degree to which the disproportionate severity and complexity of certain enhancements may be drivers of the size of the prison population. In the Spring term, students will build on these analyses to suggest possible legislation to reform the Code in ways that would help reduce prison overcrowding. View course information. 

  • Stanford Veterans Policy Lab

    The Stanford Veterans Policy Practicum will explore the possibilities for veterans policy research programs at Stanford. The course is open to Stanford students from all departments, and will focus on researching the current disposition of veterans research at academic and research institutions nationwide, with a particular emphasis on entities and individuals engaged in conducting policy research.

  • Strategic Litigation in Global Context

    Students are working with litigators at the Open Society Justice Initiative, a law center housed inside a global foundation, on a comparative research project exploring the impacts of strategic litigation in the public interest. The resulting publication aims to assist strategic litigators, social change actors and rights activists in understanding the promise, risks and complexity of the burgeoning global practice of strategic litigation and offer recommendations on how to wield this specialized justice tool more skillfully. View course information here. 


Law and Policy Lab