The John W. Glynn, Jr. Law & Business Program
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Curriculum

Basic Skills Law & Business Courses

Each semester Virginia offers a combined Accounting and Corporate Finance course taught by professors from Virginia’s business schools. The course provides a foundation in the language and skills of business finance and strategy.

Accounting: Understanding & Analyzing Financial Statements
Accounting is the primary language that businesses use to communicate their operations and results to investors, regulators, and other interested parties. Business lawyers routinely use accounting concepts in negotiations, contract drafting, and regulatory filings. This course provides essential training in basic accounting concepts.

Corporate Finance
Businesses constantly confront the question of value — what is this factory, patent, or potential merger partner worth? Lawyers who understand the language and analytical techniques of finance can communicate much more effectively with their clients than those who don’t. This course, which is similar to the core finance courses taught in MBA programs, teaches students to understand and quantify the sources of value.

Enhanced Core Business Law Courses

After taking Accounting and Corporate Finance, students move on to the second step: the core business law courses, including Corporations, Bankruptcy and Secured Transactions, all taught in an innovative format that focuses on both the business and legal problems that businesses and their lawyers must solve. The most enduring way to learn a new skill is to put it immediately to use. These courses enable students to practice the skills they have learned while providing a business context for the study of business law.

Corporations
This is the core business law course, covering the basics of corporate organization and governance. The course explores the legal rules regulating the multiple relationships among corporate managers and directors, investors, employees, and other parties who interact with a business. Throughout, we consider the business context in which the legal issues arise.

Bankruptcy
This course focuses on the reorganization of financially distressed firms under the Bankruptcy Code. Compared to traditional bankruptcy courses, the emphasis is less on bankruptcy case law and more on the economic fundamentals of financial deal-making and restructuring.

Secured Transactions
When a bank lends an individual money to buy a house or car, the bank typically takes a security interest, allowing the bank to take possession of the house or car if the borrower doesn’t pay. The same is true for business loans, and the law of secured financing is of critical importance to lawyers representing businesses. This course examines the legal and financial aspects of secured lending.

Inside the Classroom: "The Law of Agency" with Professor and Vice Dean George Geis


Sample Course Schedule

First Year

FALL
Civil Procedure* (4 credits)
Contracts* (4)
Criminal Law* (3)
Legal Writing* (1)
Torts* (4)

SPRING
Constitutional Law* (4)
Legal Writing* (1)
Property* (4)
Corporate Finance** (2)
Accounting** (2)
Other Elective

* REQUIRED first-year curriculum
** REQUIRED (unless studied elsewhere) for core classes

Second Year

Corporations (4)
Bankruptcy (3)
Federal Income Tax (4)
Negotiation Institute (1)
Other Elective
Securities Regulations (3)
Secured Transactions (3)
Corporate Tax (3)
European Union Business Law (1)
Other Elective

Third Year

Agency and Partnership (3)
Antitrust (3)
Law and Economics (3)
Mergers and Acquisitions (3)
Other Elective
Franchise Law (2)
Copyright Law (3)
International Banking Transactions (1)
Internet Law (3)
Law and Technology Policy (1)
Other Elective

NOTE: students interested in a general overview of these classes but not planning to practice transactional law (and not interested in taking finance or accounting) can take introductory-level Corporations, Bankruptcy and Secured Transactions.

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