The course started out with a tabletop exercise during the 2009-10 academic year which quickly evolved into a week-long, intensive immersion. The experience has proven equally vital for students who select not to go into national security: it provides critical insight into how legal authorities and processes work; nontraditional modes of communication; institutional relationships; leadership; group dynamics; and cognitive biases that shape legal decision making.

For more than a decade, NSCL focused on the Domestic Response to national security threats, with emphasis on vertical federalism and the interplay between law enforcement and the national security infrastructure. This year marks the first iteration of a shift to Edge Technologies, emphasizing threats emanating from outside actors employing new vectors of attack as well as federal use of new and emerging technologies in national security.  

The doctrinal portion of the course, which takes place over the first part of the semester, is divided into six areas:

  1. Constitutional grounding:  enumeration, separation of powers, and rights-based considerations;
  2. Intelligence collection: statutory and regulatory provisions related to signals intelligence (SIGINT), measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), human intelligence (HUMINT), geospatial intelligence (GEOINT), biological intelligence (BIOINT), financial intelligence (FININT), and open source intelligence (OSINT);
  3. Domestic and international law: department and agency authorities, Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), Space Law, and Treaty Law;
  4. New and emerging technologies: virtual reality (VR), haptic gaming, cryptocurrencies, satellite and sensor technologies, social media, communications networks, artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced weaponry;
  5. Private sector considerations: financial sector, aerospace industry, high technology, commercially available information, and the Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS); and
  6. Process and Performance: institutional design, the national security council (NSC) and inter-agency processes, classification (national security information under Exec. Order 13526 and nuclear under the Atomic Energy Acts), cognitive biases, professional responsibility, leadership, and decisionmaking.  

Following the doctrinal classes, students will enter into a week-long simulation in which they assume assigned roles within the national security establishment and determine the best way to respond to a series of crises. To facilitate learning, designated technology leads on the student teams will be trained on how to navigate online VR gaming and Metaverse environments wearing haptic gear. Others will focus on space and nuclear technologies, cryptocurrencies, and other technologies. Each team will be provided with electronic devices containing access to the relevant legal authorities for the exercise as well as the communications networks to be employed.

The simulation, which culminates in a two-day, intensive, in-person exercise, will be run by a Control Team made up of national security practitioners and academics. Their role is to respond to students’ requests for information (RFIs) as well as student decisionmaking by assuming non-player character (NPC) roles. Students will receive information (“injects”) via simulation-specific email accounts created for the class (SIM_NIPR and SIM_SIPR), an AP Wire, and a broadcast network entitled the Video News Network (VNN). 

Following the simulation, the class will debrief over a series of meetings, at the conclusion of which students will write a reflection paper on the experience.

Learning outcomes. Over the course of the term, students will:

  • Gain a deeper knowledge of the law as written and applied. Law school often focuses on the existing doctrinal, statutory, and regulatory measures, teaching in the process what the law is (as written). This course also will emphasize the law as it is applied. Students will learn about the relevant legal authorities and processes; the “Washington D.C. context” (personal, institutional, inter-agency, and political); the policy environment (substance, lawyer-to-practitioner, getting law on the table, negotiating plus 1s, and the implications of legal decisions); and adaptation and evolution.
  • Learn how to operate in an information-rich environment. Students will be immersed in a swiftly-evolving, digital, technology-based world. In addition to synthesizing the information available, they will have to ascertain quickly what information they need, and where and how to get it. Part of the challenge will be separating the wheat from the chaff—i.e., important information from interesting, but potentially irrelevant information. And students will learn how to provide legal advice in an uncertain, potentially chaotic context.
  • Engage in critical analysis. Students will learn how to filter raw data and to create distance from a problem to more effectively respond to it. They will consider when—and when not—to provide legal advice. Throughout the course, they will learn how to develop alternative approaches, arguments, and courses of action, which can be put into place and selected depending upon changing conditions on the ground. An important part of the course is also teaching students how to be critical of their own performance, so that they develop a way to create continued opportunities for learning, regardless of whether they find themselves in a classified or open-source environment.
  • Develop a stronger sense of professional judgment. In national security law, appreciating ambiguity may at times be as important as have a clear sense of what the appropriate legal advice and course of action may be. Students will need to think through the precedential impact of their decisions. They will identify stakeholders in the outcomes of their decisions. And they will learn what it is like to operate in a highly classified environment. The class places a particular emphasis on methods of decision-making and ways in which cognitive biases (such as anchoring, availability, commitment, overcompensation, and group think) may cloud judgment. Students also will consider professional responsibility in the midst of crises.
  • Exhibit leadership skills. The course emphasizes functional as well as emergent leadership skills. It draws attention to formal and informal network construction and use. Students will have to perform under heightened pressure, taking account of constricted timeframes and incomplete information. Part of the exercise will focus on non-traditional modes of communication, such as agenda setting, meeting injects, private exchange, oral briefings, and email, as a way to exercise leadership.