Civil Procedure I & II: This foundational first-year course introduces students to the structure, function, and practical operation of the federal civil litigation system. The course examines how disputes move from filing to resolution through close study of pleading, jurisdiction, venue, joinder, discovery, motion practice, adjudication, and preclusion under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and related statutes. Emphasis is placed on understanding procedure not as neutral mechanics, but as a set of choices that allocate power, shape access to justice, and influence substantive outcomes. Prof. Dodds’s approach integrates doctrine with litigation strategy, case analysis, and procedural storytelling. The course emphasizes careful rule-based reasoning, clarity in written advocacy, and an appreciation for how civil procedure structures the lived experience of law.
Law & Literature: Prof. Dodds's conception of this course examines how law shapes and is shaped by rural and agrarian life through close reading of literature alongside legal texts. Centering novels, memoirs, poetry, and essays rooted in place, the course explores themes of land, labor, family, race, poverty, extraction, environmental harm, and state power. Students will consider how legal regimes governing property, family, labor, and welfare are experienced in everyday rural life, and how literary narratives illuminate forms of harm, resistance, and belonging often obscured by doctrine alone. Prof. Dodds’s approach emphasizes place-conscious analysis, historical context, and reflective, accessible writing that bridges legal reasoning and lived experience. Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead is the shared text in this inaugural offering.
Children and the Law: This course covers legal issues related to childhood and divided into three phases. The course first focuses on children's rights frameworks and the relationship between the child, parent, and state. The course turns to discussions of civil child neglect and abuse, termination of parental rights, adoption, kinship care, and foster care. The final segment of the course addresses juvenile delinquency, including the basis for the juvenile delinquency system, the constitutional rights of juvenile offenders, and the juvenile delinquency process. Prof. Dodds's course concept includes trauma-informed writing and lawyering skills.
Poverty Law Seminar (offering tbd): This seminar will explore legal issues faced by people living in poverty using public benefits/welfare law. The course will begin by studying the historical origins of the welfare state in disaster relief programs and the New Deal. Second, the seminar will look to significant doctrinal and theoretical developments during the Welfare Rights Movement of the 1960s and '70s. The course will conclude with discussions of fraud, welfare versus work, and other modern issues arising from 1990s welfare reform.
Rural Justice Seminar (in development): Rural America has been shaped by legal systems that enabled histories of extraction, abandonment, and resistance. This seminar studies law, justice, and lawyering in rural and agricultural places, especially those experiencing persistent poverty. We will consider rurality as one aspect of identity and survey key legal subfields, such as rural access to justice, farm workers’ rights, rural technology, schools, land and water use, criminal justice, and developing a rural legal practice. Students will think critically about how legal systems operate in rural areas and influence rural-urban differences.
Citizen & Self: Citizen and Self is a core course requirement for MHC students that emphasizes the role of citizen as problem solver and co-creator of public goods and develops skills that prepare students to work effectively in their communities, social groups, and professional societies to strengthen democracy and broader society through community partnerships and collaborative problem-solving.