Details

This course examines the interrelation of business and law in the business setting through a series of case studies. It is designed to expose students to the types of problems that their law firm clients face and to the way that their future clients address such problems in the business world. In most sessions, the faculty members are assisted by a general or associate general counsel and sometimes their business colleagues usually from a Chicago-area corporation. Many of the participants work at businesses that are members of the Law School's Corporate Counsel Center. In the past, the case studies have included: rolling out and pricing new products, international joint ventures, crisis situation management including product defects, acquisitions, divestitures, sexual harassment, internal investigations, bet-the-company litigation management, insider trading and other regulatory compliance programs, intellectual property protection, and environmental issues. The course begins with introductory classes on multidisciplinary practice, the economics of out-sourced versus in-house provision of legal services, and attorney liability issues. The last class examines simulated ethical issues faced by lawyers working in businesses. Schedule: winter quarter schedule. Due to make-up classes, the class may extend into the spring quarter. Texts: readings will be assigned in advance of each session and provided on the course's web-site. Evaluation: Classroom attendance is mandatory. Evaluation will be based on two short take home tests, one at mid-term and the other after the last session before spring break and on a 20 minute group presentation to be made during the exam period. The group presentation will be an extension of one of the ten presentations and will involve the group engaging in research (including meeting with the presenter for that session) to extend our knowledge of the topic. Teaching method: presentations of case studies and discussion. This class will be co-taught by Peter Wentz and David Van Zandt Associated course: a limited number of students enrolled in the seminar will have the opportunity to earn two additional credit hours by externing in a corporate law department. Please see the course "Practicum: Corporate Counsel." The practicum is not a lottery course. Enrollment Limitations: open to only third year JD students, third year JD/MBA students, LLM students, LLM/Kellogg students, and second year MBA students. Preference given to students enrolled in the Business Associations concentration. Prerequisites: Business Associations, Corporations or Corporations (KSM) Corequisites: none