Paul M. Barrett

Courses

• Law, Economics and Journalism Seminar

  The course, which will be cross listed with the Journalism department, is a study of how journalists, lawyers, and economists write about social issues at the intersection of their fields. Past case studies have covered topics such as political disinformation, gun regulation, affirmative action, environmental protection, financial fraud, predatory lending, and product liability. We typically conduct three studies in a semester; current events often drive the selection of topics. For each topic selected, we will read and discuss press coverage of the events as they unfolded or as they have been analyzed by journalists in longer form; we will then read and discuss academic literature on the same topic in the fields of law and economics. Following the discussion of each topic, and once at the end of the seminar, each student will write her or his own short journalistic account of an aspect of the topics covered. Each student's grade will be based primarily on these short papers but may be adjusted to reflect class participation. The course will be co-taught by Barry Adler, of the NYU Law Faculty, and adjunct professor Paul Barrett, a former writer and editor at Bloomberg Businessweek and at The Wall Street Journal who now is deputy director and senior research scholar at the Center for Business and Human Rights at the NYU Stern School of Business.