This course covers basic legal principles and their applicability to insurance generally. Construction of contracts, government supervision, insurance practice and litigation, and industry organization are reviewed.

“In-house counsel” refers to lawyers employed by corporations and similar entities. The course explores the roles of in-house attorneys, entity governance and decision-making, risk assessment, regulatory compliance and lobbying, corporate self-policing and internal investigations, and working with outside counsel. It also considers professional responsibility issues such as confidentiality, privileges, conflicts of interest, and balancing business and legal advice. 

The purpose of this seminar is to study the U.S. health insurance market. We will begin by evaluating historical developments that have shaped the current market for health insurance and assess the evolving roles of consumers, health care providers, employers, insurance companies, and regulators. Efforts to reform the health insurance system, including the Affordable Care Act, have faced significant challenges and have met with varying degrees of success. We will evaluate factors contributing to rising health care costs, health care utilization, and decisions to purchase insurance.

Managers, shareholders, creditors, and regulators make decisions strategically: they try to predict how others may act, and they adjust their behavior in light of those predictions. Therefore, both transactional lawyers and business litigators can benefit from learning about “game theory,” the discipline that studies this sort of strategic behavior. In this seminar, we will learn about bargaining and litigation strategy, the importance of reputation when parties transact with each other repeatedly, and the extent to which informational asymmetries can distort market transactions.

Every lawyer should know how to read financial statements. Whether your practice concentrates in the areas of corporate, business, real estate, estate planning or family law, a lawyer will be required to read and analyze financial statements. In this skills course, students will learn basic accounting principles necessary to understand, interpret and analyze financial statements, formulate effective inquires, and communicate intelligently with business and financial professionals (as well as with their future clients).

More information coming soon!

Prerequisites: Gratuitous Transfers and Taxation

This course is a drafting seminar in which students evaluate a series of case studies and draft estate planning documents as indicated by the facts of the particular case study. Documents drafted may include an engagement letter, durable power of attorney, designation of health care surrogate, living will, revocable living trust with pour over will for married couple with minor children, standalone will with A-B trust form marital deduction planning, irrevocable insurance trust and complex will with aggressive GST tax planning.

In this skills training course, we will examine the principal legal and business issues that arise in Mergers & Acquisitions transactions.

This skills training course offers upper level students opportunities to learn due diligence techniques that practicing attorneys use; to practice recognizing the breadth and depth of a client’s due diligence needs; and to develop the skills for the effective and efficient due diligent review of people, entities, places, and property. You will learn why these issues matter to various parties involved in a transaction, and how your findings could impact the final terms on which the transaction closes.

The purpose of this seminar is to study the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Issues covered include: the causes of financial crises; the role of governments in regulating financial institutions, and of markets in meeting regulatory shortfalls; coordination between international financial regulators; the “too-big-to-fail” problem; risk management; financial derivatives, including mortgage-backed securities and other asset-backed securities; the role of rating agencies; the regulation of hedge funds; and consumer protection.