LAW 5131 - Business and Financial Concepts for Lawyers

Spring. 1 credit. S/U grades only.

C. Whitehead.

The course will be taught over a two-day period, Jan 23-24. All students will be required to take a short multiple-choice examination at the end of the second day. This course is designed to introduce students who might not have much familiarity with the business or financial worlds to certain basic accounting-, business-, and finance-related concepts that they are likely to encounter in a wide variety of areas of legal practice, not only if representing business clients but also if working in fields like family law, consumer protection, white collar criminal law, and many areas of regulation. The course will also help prepare students for taking upper-level business and financial law courses in bankruptcy, business organizations, corporate finance, financial institutions, securities regulation, and tax. The course will offer a basic introduction to the choice of legal form for organizing a business (sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, etc.), the differences and similarities between the most familiar types of financial instruments (equity, debt, and various hybrids) used by business entities to finance their activities, the fundamental concepts in accounting and valuation of financial instruments, the basics of corporate governance, and an overview of the structure and role of the capital markets and federal securities regulation.