MarcFriedenberg.com

Fall 2008

  • Communications, Internet, and Media (B9377)

    Credits: 3

    Instructor: Eli Noam

    Registrar’s Description

    The course involves student teams acting as consultants to companies in the telecommunications, internet and media industries. The consulting projects will address real problems and opportunities facing the companies and will involve hands-on involvement with the management of the companies. Teams will be comprised of 4-6 students.

    Teams interested in entrepreneurialism will focus on the internet, new media, and content projects. Teams oriented to finance and strategy will work with established telecom and media companies that are trying to adapt to new challenges. In the aggregate, the projects will provide understanding and skills for dealing with management challenges in a sector characterized by rapid change and boom-bust cycles, and to integrate the MBA curriculum with management practice in a feedback loop.

    The lectures in the first weeks of the course will provide a framework for thinking about the telecom/internet/media businesses in order to provide teams with a sufficient basis for their consulting assignments. These lectures will therefore cover such topics as the business dynamics, drivers, technologies, and policy framework of the telecom/internet/media industries. During this same period, the class will review and discuss the potential consulting projects and the companies offering the projects. Students will then form teams to undertake the projects.

    Throughout the course, classes will also include analyses of notable success and failure stories, with the participation of guest who are high-level insiders in the telecom/internet/media industries.

  • Trusts, Estates & Estate Planning (L6294)

    Credits: 2

    Instructor: Lawrence Newman

    Registrar’s Description

    This course will consider: 1) the doctrines relating to the creation, modification and termination of trusts; 2) the administration of estates and trusts (including investment powers, duty of loyalty, allocation between income and principal and remedies for breach of fiduciary duty); and 3) lifetime and postmortem estate planning for moderate and substantial estates (including exemption trusts, the marital deduction, gifts to minors, life insurance trusts, charitable remainder trusts and grantor retained trusts).

  • Columbia Science and Technology Law Review Editorial Board (L6645)

    Credits: 1

    Registrar’s Description

    I serve as Managing Editor.

    This a World Wide Web-based, solely online journal. It features articles from scholars and practitioners and provides a forum for scholarship regarding the changing technological landscape and its influence on law and social policy. Topic areas include, but are not limited to, the Internet, telecommunications, biotechnology, computer law, and technological property. Editorial Staff selection will be accomplished through Columbia’s 1L writing competition. Potential staff members must express their interest in the journal by submitting a resume, a statement of interest, and a copy of their writing competition paper. Members of the staff will be selected based on their expressed interest as well as past experience and/or education. A scientific or technical background is helpful but by no means required for membership.

  • Externship: Federal Court Clerk (L6661)

    Credits: 4

    Instructor: Paul Radvany

    Registrar’s Description

    Students clerk with a judge or magistrate of a U.S. District Court, attend classroom discussions of issues relevant to the clerkship, read selected articles about the judicial and clerkship experience, and record their reflections in writing.

    Students work 15 hours in the fieldwork component of the course. They must spend at least one full day or two half days in chambers. Students help draft opinions and also observe various court proceedings including trials, hearings and conferences. They also observe settlement conferences.