When I decided I was interested in business law as a 1L, my first question was “which classes should I take?” There are so many courses offered by the Business Law Track that I found it hard to narrow down which courses I should fit into my schedule. I wanted to ensure I was making the most of my three years in law school by taking classes that would substantially help me as a summer associate and as a practicing attorney.
The most common advice I received from practicing attorneys is that the majority of what they use every day, they learned on the job; however, it is vital in law school to prepare yourself for practice by gaining exposure to the most important aspects of business law. With that advice in mind, I tried to take classes in my 1L and 2L year that would expose me to concepts and topics of business law that I would potentially see in the future. After working for a small business law firm after my 1L year, and then a big corporate law firm after my 2L year, I was able to reevaluate the classes I had previously taken to determine which I felt were most helpful, and use that experience to guide me as I registered for my 3L year.
During the summer after my 1L year, I assisted attorneys with mostly litigation work, including almost exclusively research and writing memos. First and foremost, the most important classes that assisted me with these assignments were Introduction to Legal Research (ILR) and the 1L writing courses. While each attorney preferred different styles of writing, the 1L writing courses allowed me to feel confident in my writing abilities and made it a lot easier for me to adjust my writing to each attorney’s preferences since the base of my writing was already sufficient. Additionally, although it was widely accepted and encouraged to ask questions to ensure I was on the right track with assignments, it was also admired by the attorneys that I was able to jump right into research with few questions, since I had already been exposed to legal research through the ILR course. Although I researched topics or practice areas that I hadn’t seen in ILR, having the basic understanding of Lexis and Westlaw allowed me to spend more time actually researching the substantive topics, and less time trying to figure out how to research in the first place.
During my first summer I also surprisingly referenced outlines from my 1L year for courses such as civil procedure, contracts, and property. The attorneys I worked with routinely engaged in contract or property disputes and would reference me when faced with simple questions such as, “is this contract clause unconscionable?” Referencing my contracts outline allowed me to quickly refresh my memory on the concept of unconscionability, and allowed me to dive deeper into research on the Maryland law of unconscionability, instead of having to waste time researching the entire concept of unconscionability. I certainly wasn’t an expert in contract law after taking the course my 1L year, but having the basic understanding of these subjects allowed me to quickly answer more in-depth questions, while saving time for the attorneys and saving money for the clients.
During my second summer, working at a large corporate law firm, I assisted with much more transactional work. While the business law program provides many substantive law courses relevant to litigation, the program also provides a robust amount of transactional law courses that I used throughout the summer. I first found that the most valuable course I took my 2L year was Advanced Legal Research: Business Law (ALR). This course introduced me to various methods of business research that are extremely helpful in transactional work. Some of the most important research methods I learned in ALR: Business Law included SEC EDGAR searches and the Lexis Practice Advisor searches, which helped me find form contracts for some for some of my assignments.
One of the most important courses I also took during my 2L year was Business Associations. Business Associations provided me with a fundamental knowledge of corporate law and a basic understanding of company formations, which was especially helpful when observing client meetings or speaking with attorneys. For example, having an elementary understanding of the differences between an LLC and a Corporation and being able to recognize the terms associated with each organization (such as Articles of Operation versus Articles of Incorporation), or understanding what was meant by “poison pill,” again allowed me to focus on more in-depth issues and terminology, and focus less on the basic concepts that were essentially second-nature to the practicing attorneys.
Another extremely important course I took was Secured Transactions. The firm had a large Real Estate and Real Estate Finance group, and attorneys would often present Loan Agreements or Descriptions of Collateral for my review. Without taking Secured Transactions, I would have felt completely lost when viewing these documents and would have probably wasted valuable time researching the basics of this topic. Again, taking these elementary courses my 2L year provided me with basic concepts regularly used in corporate law, and allowed me to jump right into assignments.
As I look towards my 3L year, and have narrowed down my interest in business law to focus more on transactional work, I am looking forward to taking more drafting classes and corporate law classes, such as Contract Drafting and Corporate Taxation. While my summer experiences certainly provided me with a great amount of exposure to a breadth of business law topics, I am certain that I would not have succeeded without the basic knowledge of concepts and subjects provided to me by courses offered through the Business Law Track.