LAW 6005 - Business and Financial Concepts for Lawyers

Fall, spring. 1 credit. Student option grading.

L. Stout.

This 1-credit course is designed to prepare students who have no business background for (1) legal practice in areas involving business transactions, business regulation, and/or business litigation, and (2) taking upper-level business courses such as Business Organizations, Securities Regulation, Financial Regulation, Banking, Corporate Finance, and Bankruptcy. The course is offered on an accelerated basis. The course introduces students to basic business concepts that are fundamental to business practice and to upper-level business courses, but that many students are unlikely to be familiar with if they did not major in business at the undergraduate level. In particular, the course will provide a basic introduction to the following concepts: Debt, Interest, and Present Value; Basic Business Forms (proprietorship, partnership, corporation, LLC); Capital Structure (equity, debt, and variations on the same like preferred and ABS); Basic Accounting (balance sheets, earnings statements, statements of cash flow); Basic Valuation (book value, discounted cash flow, etc.); Securities Markets (a short introduction to the offering process and to the secondary markets for stocks, bonds, asset-back securities and derivatives).