This course provides a survey of business law topics typically encountered when advising small, new, and entrepreneurial businesses. Topics range from selection of an appropriate business entity type and completing the legal formalities to establish the entity to exits from business ownership. In between students will be exposed to legal issues of importance to entrepreneurs including basic tax considerations, debt and equity finance, employee and independent contractor issues, securing intellectual property rights, typical contract matters, insurance, creditors rights and the UCC.

Economics plays an important role in all areas of the law. This course introduces students to the economic concepts that they will need to know to be effective litigators and transactional lawyers. Among other things, we will address the following questions. How do markets work? What happens when one party to a transaction has an informational or bargaining advantage? How can we tell whether a party is acting rationally or irrationally? How can lawyers use economics to advice clients, draft contracts and make persuasive legal arguments?

This seminar covers legal and ethical issues concerning the visual arts. The seminar brings together many disparate areas of U.S. and international law.

International Law: We will discuss global issues related to plunder, reparations and destructions of works of art; as well as questions of cultural heritage, such as collective ownership of artifacts by nation-states, indigenous groups and others. We will also address the international trade in art.

Intellectual Property: We will study copyright issues, as well as the artist’s “moral rights” over his or her work.

The course consists of lectures from industry specialists in the Florida insurance market and professors from the Risk Management division of FSU's College of Business. These lectures provide students with a wealth of valuable information on risk management policy in addition to tips for success in the practice of law and business. During the course students have the opportunity to meet with Florida's insurance regulatory officers and leaders in Florida's administration and public finance sectors.

This course addresses legal and regulatory issues that arise during the process of developing land. It focuses on Florida but also addresses issues from other states. Students learn about the processes that landowners and developers follow to obtain local or state government approval for a project, such as applying for revisions to comprehensive plans, re-zonings, development orders, special use permits, variances, subdivision approvals, and development agreements.

A study of basic transactions in real property. Among the topics covered are the respective roles of lawyers and brokers in the conveying process, sales contracts, recording acts, title insurance, remedies for contract breach, and basic mortgage law. 

Prerequisite/Co-requisite: Evidence

Recommended Prerequisites: Evidence and Criminal Procedure

A survey of the philosophy of law. Includes natural law, legal positivism, legal realism and modern developments in the philosophy of law, including Critical Legal Studies. 

This course begins by providing a basic introduction to international law and research. When the Jessup Problem is released in late September, the class divides into teams to prepare memorials for their team. The class culminates in November with the intramural oral competition to choose the Florida State College of Law Jessup Team. The four-person team is chosen based both on the written memorial and the oral argument, and the winning team continues during the Spring semester to represent Florida State Law in the regional and international competitions.