There was a time when criminal law was a field shunned by many law school graduates as a dead end field except for the few persons lucky (or unlucky) enough to attract financially successful clients or those with a zeal for low paid but important public work.
This notion has changed radically in recent years as many major law firms have developed an expertise in white collar crime. It has also changed as firms have been called on to aid corporate clients involved in commercial frauds to recover funds lost or defend against charges stemming from commercial fraud. Measurable losses to businesses, banks, insurance companies, and traders have annually reached tens of billions of dollars.
This field is new and largely uncharted, and, so, provides new attorneys with considerable advantages especially since it is growing dramatically. It combines issues traditionally addressed in contracts, torts, equity, and criminal and regulatory law. The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) has begun significant work in this area as has the UN Centre for International Crime Prevention.
The Fall 2002 course was developed in part to assist in the formulation of work that lead to a meeting of a Group of Experts convened by the UNCITRAL Secretariat which Professor Byrne was asked to chair and to an Informal Report and Note by the Secretariat. Several students assisted in this work and one attended the meetings of UNCITRAL and the Group of Experts. The Secretariat has convened an international Colloquium in April 2004 to draw together those involved in combating commercial fraud. Once again, this course will have a direct impact on these international proceedings and students will be welcome to be active in them.
This course will examine that relationship using a variety of types of commercial fraud, including financial fraud (including securities fraud), commodity fraud, and frauds involving the sale and purchase of goods on a commercial and consumer level. Using materials compiled by the professors as well as presentations by professionals from the DC area, the course will provide an introduction into these several types of commercial fraud. Students will have the unique opportunity to learn about variations of commercial fraud from the practitioners who see them every day and examine the frauds from the points of view of lawyers, bankers, regulators, and law enforcement professionals.
Several alums of the 2002 class have actively used the course and related contacts in their career strategies. It will be of considerable value to any student interested in a career in commercial law, as a regulator, criminal law, or in law enforcement.