Corporate In-House Counsel Practice - 2224

This practical business law concentration, three credit experiential course, will explore the unique legal and real-world challenges that face counsel working in a typical corporate law department.  Students will continually engage as a member of legal affairs for a fictional corporation addressing various topics.  Themes include:  serving stakeholders and the client, furthering business objectives, adding value and weighing the independent duties owed by a corporate attorney to the corporation, as well as, managing the tensions that arise in the role.  Themes will be explored through selecting and managing outside counsel and budgeting, advocating for and integrating legal technology, applying effective practices as part of legal operations, administering merger and acquisition transactions and managing litigation, each as distinct from the responsibilities of outside counsel.  Students will examine matters of fulfilling corporate compliance and governance requirements, awareness of legal knowledge versus application of legal intelligence, and the operation of the attorney-client privilege specific to the in-house context.  Students will learn that the demands of business operations will encourage innovation, often substantiating use of technology, and they will recognize that expectations to be innovative are largely directed by the increasing need to be a predictive, forward-looking and problem-solving lawyer.  Students will build practical skills for writing business-oriented communications, training and counseling the non-lawyer business client in order to realize legal and business objectives.  Students will repeatedly interact with in-house practitioners and other guest speakers, as well as, participate in a shadow program for a day in the life inside a law department.