Law 699: Independent Study

Law 699 is an individual research offering designed to lend flexibility to the law school program. It is intended for students who have a strong research interest in a topic not covered by the curriculum. A student wishing to write a research paper for Law 699 credit should identify a faculty member willing to supervise the project. The student and faculty supervisor will work out the details of the project (including the scope of the paper, the number of hours of credit, and any other requirements).

After working out these details, the student should fill out a petition for Law 699 credit (available outside the Registrar’s Office in Room 101), and turn it in to the Assistant Dean for Academic and Student Administration. The faculty supervisor must approve and sign the petition before it is submitted to the Assistant Dean.  The faculty has adopted these guidelines concerning Law 699: (1) Two hours of credit in Law 699 cumulatively is the total allowable maximum. (2) Law 699 is not available to students in on academic probation. (3) Although precise quantitative requirements for Law 699 are not practicable, approximately 60 hours of research and writing, at a minimum, are necessary for the earning of one credit-hour in Law 699. It is expected that 60 hours of work usually produce 20 pages of text plus footnotes for that text. Thus, a paper with 20 pages of text (excluding footnotes) usually earns 1 hour of credit, and a paper with 40 pages of text (excluding footnotes) usually earns 2 hours of credit. (4) Supervisor must be a University of Illinois law faculty member. Students may use Law 699 to satisfy the upper-level writing requirement. In that case, the project must also satisfy the guidelines of that writing requirement.

Sequence and Prerequisites: None.