CB
Unit: School of Law
Department: School of Law
Office location and address
WB305
580 Massie Rd
Charlottesville,
Virginia
22903
Education
J.D. University of Virginia School of Law 2005
M.A. University of Virginia 2005
A.B. Harvard University 1997
M.A. University of Virginia 2005
A.B. Harvard University 1997
Biography
Charles Barzun joined the faculty in 2008. His areas of interest include constitutional law, torts, evidence and the history of legal thought. Barzun also serves as faculty advisor for the Dual-Degree (J.D./M.A.) Program in Legal History.
After receiving his A.B. in government from Harvard in 1997, Barzun worked in corporate and product development at CNET Networks, an Internet media company in San Francisco. In 2005, he received a J.D./M.A. degree from Virginia. During law school, he served as notes development editor of the Virginia Law Review and won the Best Note Award for his student note, "Common Sense and Legal Science." After graduating, he clerked for for Judge Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to joining the faculty, Charles was a Climenko Fellow and lecturer at Harvard Law School.
Publications
Courses
Credits: 4
This course is an introduction to the structure of the U.S. Constitution and the rights and liberties it defines. Judicial review, federalism, congressional powers and limits, the commerce clause, and the 10th Amendment are covered, as are the equal protection and due process clauses.
Credits: 4
The course examines liability for civil wrongs that do not arise out of contract. It explores three standards of conduct: liability for intentional wrongdoing, negligence, and liability without fault, or strict liability, and other issues associated with civil liability, such as causation, damages, and defenses. Battery, medical malpractice, products liability, and tort reform will also be covered.
Credits: 3–4
The course will cover questions of relevance, hearsay, privilege, and expert testimony, among others, and it will focus largely on problems arising in concrete factual settings, as opposed to traditional case analysis. Major emphasis will be placed on the Federal Rules of Evidence, which now apply in the courts of roughly 40 states as well as the federal system.
Credits: 3
Jurisprudence
Credits: 1
In this J-term course, students will read theoretical work on the nature of legal reasoning and argumentation while also using traditional legal sources (e.g., cases, statutes, and policy) to write their own arguments and to analyze and criticize the written work of their classmates.
Credits: 1
This course is a semester-long independent research project resulting in a substantial research paper supervised and graded by a selected law school faculty member.
Credits: 2
This course is a semester-long independent research project resulting in a substantial research paper supervised and graded by a selected law school faculty member
Credits: 3
This course is a semester-long independent research project resulting in a substantial research paper supervised and graded by a selected law school faculty member.
This course is the first semester of a yearlong independent research project resulting in a substantial research paper supervised and graded by a selected law school faculty member.
Credits: 2
This course is the second semester of a yearlong independent research project resulting in a substantial research paper supervised and graded by a selected law school faculty member.
This course is the first semester of a yearlong independent research project resulting in a substantial research paper supervised and graded by a selected law school faculty member.
Credits: 3
This course is the second semester of a yearlong independent research project resulting in a substantial research paper supervised and graded by a selected law school faculty member.
This is the first semester of a yearlong seminar designed to enhance students' understanding of ethical issues and address the broader ethical and moral responsibilities of the lawyer as citizen and leader.
Credits: 1
This is the second semester of a yearlong seminar designed to enhance students' understanding of ethical issues and address the broader ethical and moral responsibilities of the lawyer as citizen and leader.
Credits: 1
This first half of a year-long seminar requires students to workshop works-in-progress by legal historians.
Credits: 2
This second half of a year-long seminar requires students to workshop works-in-progress by legal historians.
Credits: 2
This course is designed to introduce students to a variety of new work in legal history. Students are required to attend the legal history workshop and the legal history writing group and to write a number of short reaction papers in response to the work presented by legal historians over the course of the year. There is no final exam. Through the class, students will engage with a variety of legal history scholars.
Credits: 3
This course is a survey of 20th Century Anglo-American legal thought. In it we will examine some of the most important works of that century on the nature of law and adjudication. Authors covered include Oliver Wendell Holmes, Benjamin Cardozo, Learned Hand, Jerome Frank, Lon Fuller, Ronald Dworkin, and Richard Posner.
Credits: 3
This seminar will examine the rule of law in theory and practice. What is the rule of law and why (if at all) is it valuable? We will take up such questions by reading the philosophical literature on the rule of law and and by looking at case studies of situations where many have seen the rule of law to be under threat.
Credits: 2–3
This seminar will explore legal issues from a philosophically informed perspective. The course offers the opportunity for students to interact with prominent scholars, to help shape cutting-edge work, to hone their writing skills, to develop their own ideas through independent research, and to gain practice and feedback about the art of asking a good question.