Training the Transactional Business Lawyer: Using the Business Associations Course as a Platform to Teach Practical Skills

Drawing on her own practice background as a business lawyer and her law school teaching experience, theauthor argues for the importance of introducing transactional lawyering skills into the law school course on business associations. She notes that business law practice is transactional in nature, but that the traditional method of teaching business associations centers on case law analysis. This litigation-focused approach misleads students about the nature of business law practice, which requires lawyers to act as problem solvers and planners and to engage in preventative lawyering. To bolster her argument, the author draws on some of the recent literature on legal education reform that calls for introducing students to an enhanced range of skills needed for law practice while they are still in law school. She suggests ways in which practical skills relevant to a transactional business law practice can be incorporated into the doctrinal course in business associations or to a transactional skills course tethered to the business associations course. The author also includes a bibliography of selected literature on teaching business law and transactional law and selected studies on reform of legal education.