Subject Areas of Interest * * * Business Law *
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Subject areas of interest The business lawyer is a general advisor, counselor, and project manager. The foundation course for all of this is, of course, hat should I take if I am considering a W particular specialty or type of law a good grounding in Contracts and Sales. This practice? This question was put to our faculty course should have made particular sense to you and other experts in each area and here, in as a first-year student. The gateway to upper alphabetical order of the type of practice, is level courses is Business Associations, with guidance in: Corporation Finance Law being a necessary follow-on which covers advanced corporation • Business Law law as well as the law governing a business’ • Commercial Law / Bankruptcy financial structure. It is very important for a • Criminal Law business lawyer to have a grounding in the financial basics of business, and therefore • Environmental Law consider Legal Accounting if you did not have • Estate Planning such a background before coming to law school. • Family Law Securities Regulation will be important to • Health Care Law most business lawyers, and should be on your • Intellectual Property short list. It is not a “boutique” or “specialty” • International Law course, but a core skill. You should take • Litigation Secured Transactions early in your studies, • Real Estate Law as well as Bankruptcy if you find an aptitude • Solo Practice and interest in creditor’s remedies. Taxation I • Tax Law is an absolute requirement, if only for the ability to recognize tax issues to be referred to a * * * specialist. Corporate or Partnership Tax would be very useful even if you do not plan a “tax practice.” Similarly, Intellectual Business Law Property and Employment Law are necessary for the competent business lawyer. -- Douglas Michael Round out your expertise as a business lawyer -- Rutheford Campbell with some of the specialty courses such as Antitrust, Banking Law, Labor Law, or business or “corporate” lawyer is involved Nonprofit Organizations. If the international in helping her client’s business succeed, A aspects interest you, consider International plain and simple. Trade Law, which is the public law of trade, This will involve the organization of the business and International Business Transactions, as a start-up, including advising on the form of which is the law of private businesses crossing business, employment contracts, how funds will international borders. be put in, relationships among owners and Important skills courses for a business lawyer creditors, and other basics. There will be would be Legal Drafting which should be advising about regulatory compliance, contracts, taken early on, and the capstone Business taxes, and the like. Planning or International Business As counselor to a mature business, the lawyer Transactions courses. will be involved in financing deals, changes in form or organization, refinancing of debt or * * * other obligations, acquisitions, regulatory compliance with stock exchanges and securities regulators, occasionally also bankruptcy and workouts with creditors. 1 Commercial Law / Partnership and Corporate Tax Business Planning Bankruptcy Advanced Civil Litigation Courses in both trial and appellate advocacy -- Christopher Frost Federal Courts Employment Law he general field of commercial law is Employee Benefits T broad. It can encompass a wide variety of Environmental Law activities: negotiating sales contracts; litigating Immigration Law contractual disputes; assisting banks in making Antitrust loans; debt collection; advising on leases of real or personal property; and a host of other general You will likely be representing businesses, and business problems. Bankruptcy practice is very commercial law disputes rarely fit into narrowly similar. Although it seems like a narrow defined categories. This is especially true of specialty, bankruptcy is simply an amalgam of bankruptcy practice. Although you may not be general legal issues. The subject matter is made able to fit all of these classes in, the broader your more challenging by the fact that the business or understanding of these types of subjects, the individual is in extreme financial distress. The more effective you will be. upshot is that bankruptcy and commercial lawyers are expected to understand the full * * * range of business law and civil litigation practice. Criminal Law The best place to start is with a firm grasp of the basics. The basic courses necessary for -- Cortney Lollar commercial and bankruptcy practice are: Business Associations f you are interested in pursuing a career in Secured Transactions I criminal law, there are three essential Bankruptcy classes you should take: Criminal Procedure, Taxation I Criminal Trial Process, and Evidence. Evidence These three classes form the basis for much of Trusts and Estates what takes places daily in criminal practice, for Administrative Law both the prosecution and defense, and most employers will want to see that you have taken These courses can be taken in either the second them prior to hiring. or third year, but because of prerequisites, you Two other highly recommended classes are should strongly consider taking at least Business Immigration Law and some type of hands-on Associations, Taxation I and Evidence during experience-based class, such as the Legal your second year. Doing so will assure that you Clinic, an Externship, Litigation Skills or will have an opportunity to take advanced Civil Pretrial Practice. Criminal law and corporations, tax and litigation oriented courses immigration law are increasingly overlapping. should you choose. As of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Padilla v. Kentucky a few years back, criminal lawyers In addition, there are a number of courses that need to know the immigration consequences of may be helpful to you in commercial practice. various criminal convictions and sentences. As a They include: result, learning immigration law is important for Payment Systems lawyers in criminal practice. Real Estate Transactions Corporation Finance Going into criminal practice with hands-on Securities Regulation experience of some type is also tremendously Banking Law 2 helpful. Several experience-based options are Environmental Law available, all of which would give you the invaluable experience of working with clients, a -- Michael Healy skill that is beneficial in any type of criminal practice you may decide to pursue. University of he law school curriculum offers significant Kentucky’s experiential options include the T opportunities to develop a strong Legal Clinic, the Department of Public Advocacy background in the law of environmental policy, externship, an externship with the Fayette protection, and regulation. County Attorney’s Office, the Prosecutorial Externship in the Commonwealth Attorney’s A student interested in pursuing an Office or County Attorney office, the Prison environmental law practice needs to take the Externship, the Innocence Project Externship, Environmental Law survey course as well as and the Children’s Law Center Externship. Other Administrative Law. It does not matter the hands-on options allow for the development of order in which these courses are taken, or skills essential to every day practice involving whether they are taken in the same semester. litigation. Although Litigation Skills and Pretrial Each course will have some value in helping your Practice do not involve actual clients and are not understanding of the other course. A third necessarily grounded in criminal practice, they important course to consider is the Externship provide the opportunity to learn how to navigate with the Cabinet for Energy and the a case from start to finish, which is Environment in Frankfort. A student who is indispensable. enrolled in or who has completed the Environmental Law course may work as an Depending on what type of work you are extern with attorneys in Frankfort practicing in interested in pursuing – e.g., capital/habeas the areas of environmental, energy and natural corpus, juvenile, appellate, federal prosecution resources law. The externship is limited to four or defense – numerous other courses students each semester and is intended to complement the core criminal courses nicely. provide a valuable introduction to For those who want to litigate at the federal environmental practice. level, Federal Criminal Law is a great class to take. For those interested in juvenile or capital Other courses offered at the law school should work, Capital Punishment, Education Law, also be seriously considered by students who and Race, Racism and the Criminal Law have an interest in environmental law. These are important core classes. Federal Appellate courses include Int’l Environmental Law, a Advocacy will benefit those who want to litigate course in which you will develop a basic at the trial or appellate level, while Negotiating understanding of public international law and Process provides significant insights for future the customary and treaty law that addresses lawyers who may be involved in negotiating plea global and regional problems of environmental agreements (in other words, anyone involved in degradation; Land Use Planning, a course in trial-level criminal litigation). The criminal law which you will study fifth amendment takings seminars are also a great place for in-depth law in depth; Legislation, a course in which study of various aspects of criminal law and you will study the legislative process and the litigation. various approaches to interpreting