So here I am at the AALS mid-year conference on business associations. This morning I moderate the first panel: “Role of Basic Course: What it is and where it is going.” The speakers are Bill Carney (Emory), my colleague Christine Hurt, my co-author Jeff Lipshaw (Suffolk), Bob Thompson (Vanderbilt, visiting Georgetown) and Cheryl Wade (St. John’s). Bob is going to open with the results of a survey he did on who’s doing what in the basic course.
I plan to to pose something like the following question to provoke discussion at this plenary session and in the ensuing small groups:
The basic business associations course is the only exposure some law students (how many?) get to the foundation of business law. Yet some (how many?) of these "intro-only" students end up practicing a significant amount of business law. How well do we prepare these students for their careers?
Here are some specifics that I hope this morning's discussion will address:
1. From the standpoint of adequately preparing the intro-only students, does the basic course unduly stress publicly held over closely held firms? Corporations over unincorporated firms? Litigation over transactional? Basic theory over doctrine or on-the-ground practical considerations?
2. Do intro-only students get enough business background to enable them to fully appreciate the law taught in the course?
3. Do corporate law teachers tend to shape their courses to what they’re most interested in talking about, to what is the most fun to teach or learn, or to what the intro-only students need to know for practice?
4. Should the intro-only students drive the content of the course, or should the course instead be designed as a platform for more advanced business courses? What tradeoffs does this choice entail?
5. How do recent events in the business world affect what ought to be taught in the basic course?
Update: It occurs to me after some coffee that all of these boil down to one multipart question: Are we training the Main Street lawyers of tomorrow to be the Wall Street lawyers of yesterday and, if so, why?
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