CURRICULUM

LL.M. in International Business Law

Legal English

Through reading, briefing, and discussing judicial opinions, students will learn the meaning and application of legal terminology utilized by attorneys on a daily basis. Students will benefit from the Socratic Method of teaching and the application of stare decisis. Legal English Writing Workshops are also part of the course program. Legal English subject areas include:
-- Contracts
-- Torts
-- Civil Procedure
-- Wills and Trusts
-- Property Law
-- Evidence
-- Business Law
-- Bankruptcy Law
-- Financial Transactions

Contracts

Contracts in International Transactions will explore common issues in international contracts, study actual disputes arising from international contracts, and learn principles from the main body of law regulating international B2B agreements. Each student is expected to know well the fundamentals of contract law, as presented in the Legal English course on Contract Law.

Business Associations

In this course, we will explore issues and transborder differences in business entity formations, entity management, entity ownership, entity control, duties of officers and directors, operational problems, internal conflicts, questions about securities, entity liability, and litigation questions.

Remedies

Remedies are arguably the most important aspect of any lawsuit, yet often the most neglected aspect. Understanding the available remedies from the inception of litigation until after a judgment is entered is as important as understanding the legal theories pursuant to which the lawsuit is brought. This course considers the questions of what a plaintiff is entitled to when it/he/she prevails in a case and why. It will cover damages, punitive damages, restitution, unjust enrichment, and injunctive relief.

Corporate Responsibility

Financial misconduct is often perpetrated in the context of operating businesses. It leads to tremendous financial losses, loss of reputations, lawsuits, government penalties, bankruptcy, criminal proceedings and many collateral consequences. For example, when Enron’s fraud (the largest ever at that time) was uncovered in October 2001, shareholders lost approximately $74 billion. Hundreds of lawsuits were spun off. Multiple large bankruptcies were filed. Dozens of high-profile criminal proceedings were initiated. Enron’s employees lost most of their retirement funds. Arthur Andersen LLP, one of the Big Five business accounting firms in the world, was criminally indicted just before it also collapsed and its 85,000 employees lost their jobs.

Understanding various remedies and checks and balances available in corporate operations is critical for the investigation, uncovering, prevention, and prosecution of financial misconduct. This is true for large and small business operations alike. By delving deeper into intra-corporate structures, conduct, and management obligations, this course will address remedies, checks, and balances available in corporate operations for the investigation, uncovering, prevention, and prosecution of financial improprieties and crimes. It will expound on legal and equitable remedies available to victims of financial misconduct.

Financial and Property Contracts

While contract law gives us the basics for setting up commercial relationships among two or more parties, the relationship between a debtor and its creditor is a unique relationship because their rights and obligations implicate other bodies of law, including and especially principles of property law.

It is necessary to explore relationships between debtors and creditors separately in order to better understand how the rights and obligations in such relationships impact the parties’ property rights.

This course focuses on one aspect of debtor-creditor relationships—namely, the protection of the parties’ respective property rights in those relationships vis-à-vis the incurring of debt. The course focuses on how contract law is used to create and protect property rights in conjunction with the incurring of debt.

Creditor Rights, Insolvency, and Bankruptcy

Over the last few decades, the homogenization of business and commercial practices has become the norm in cross-border business operations. It is natural for businesses to seek trans-border operational predictability because this helps them to manage risks more effectively. Such trends have been apparent for many years now.

However, no uniform global insolvency laws exist yet. While there is a need for such laws to tackle transborder financial defaults, there has been no internationalization of redress of private financial defaults. Nevertheless, some patterns in practice have emerged and some issues in cross-border insolvency have stood out over others.

While most legal systems provide little uniformity and depth for dealing with insolvency issues in cross-border operations, the U.S. bankruptcy system is well-developed to address all or most such issues. As a result, the U.S. bankruptcy system has emerged as the model to which most world systems look.

The United States Bankruptcy Code provides both plenary (comprehensive) and ancillary (supplemental) proceeding remedies for cross-border financial defaults. Title 11 of the United States Code (where all U.S. bankruptcy laws are codified) provides substantial uniformity of treatment across state, federal, and foreign laws and proceedings.

This course will cover the basic principles governing insolvency and bankruptcy practices. It will then address the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law's model law on insolvency proceedings, European Union's Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings, the plenary Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Proceedings under the United States Bankruptcy Code, and the ancillary Chapter 15 Bankruptcy Proceedings under the United States Bankruptcy Code.

LL.M. in American Law

Legal English

Contracts

This course delves into the elements of contract law in the United States. It also covers defenses and common issues that are tackled in contract litigation disputes. The course also accents practical implications of contract litigation disputes and contract drafting.

Torts

This course teaches the principles of tort law, both for intentional and non-intentional tortious misconduct. The course covers issues such as duties of care, standards of care, tortfeasor liability, evidentiary burdens of persuasion, bodily harm, property damage, variations of intentional misconduct, and general and special damages.

Business Associations

This course examines business entity formations, management, ownership, control, operational problems, internal conflicts, questions about securities, liabilities, and litigation questions.

Corporate Responsibility

The course covers the duties of officers, directors, and shareholders and their interplay with financial misconduct perpetrated in the context of business operations. Such misconduct causes the most serious challenges in the practice of business law. It leads to financial and reputation losses, lawsuits, government penalties, bankruptcy, and criminal proceedings. When Enron’s fraud (the largest ever at that time) was uncovered in October 2001, shareholders lost approximately $74 billion. Hundreds of lawsuits were spun off. Multiple large bankruptcies were filed. Dozens of high-profile criminal proceedings were initiated. Enron’s employees lost most of their retirement funds. Arthur Andersen LLP, one of the Big Five business accounting firms in the world, was criminally indicted just before it also collapsed and its 85,000 employees lost their jobs.

Understanding the remedies and checks and balances available in corporate operations is critical for the investigation, uncovering, prevention, and prosecution of financial misconduct. This is true for large and small operations alike. The course delves deeper into the corporate structure, principal conduct, and management obligations.

Evidence

While sound evidence may exist in a case, its admissibility is what determines whether that evidence will be considered by the fact-finder, whether that is the judge or a jury. This course covers the fundamental rules and considerations for the admissibility of various types of evidence within judicial proceedings.

Remedies

Remedies are arguably the most important aspect of any lawsuit, yet often the most neglected aspect. Understanding the available remedies from the inception of litigation until after a judgment is entered is as important as understanding the legal theories pursuant to which the lawsuit is brought. This course considers the questions of what a plaintiff is entitled to when it/he/she prevails in a case and why. It covers compensatory damages, punitive damages, restitution, unjust enrichment, and injunctive relief.

Inheritance Trust Law

This course examines how trusts are created and used to transform and transfer property rights. The course focuses on how property rights are segregated among different persons in order to separate out property ownership, property control, and beneficial property rights.

Property Rights in Financial Contracts

This course focuses on debtor-creditor relationships—namely, the protection of the parties’ respective property rights in those relationships vis-à-vis the incurring of debt. The course covers how contract law is used to create and protect property rights in conjunction with the incurring of debt.

Creditor Rights, Insolvency, and Bankruptcy

This course examines fundamental creditor rights and insolvency principles. The course delves into the breadth and depth of liquidation and reorganization bankruptcy proceedings, including how bankruptcy estates are administered and how creditors are paid within such proceedings. The course also accents how the division of property rights interplays with the administration of bankruptcy estates.

Civil Procedure

While most legal professionals focus primarily on substantive law, procedural rules are often interwoven with substantive rights and are often more consequential to the outcome of cases than substantive rights. The course delves into the twists and turns of civil procedure, both in codified rules and case law.

Constitutional Law

This course examines constitutional rights and liberties, with an accent on those protected under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution. The course considers two sets of structural government divisions: the separation between the federal (national) and state governments (Federalism) and the separation of powers among the three branches of federal government (legislative, executive, and judicial). A principal focus throughout the course is also the proper role of the judiciary in limiting the actions of the other branches of government.