Business Law Practicum

Loyola’s Business Law Practicum offers a unique and innovative approach to educating business lawyers that is designed to allow students to “hit the ground running” as first- year transactional associates. It represents the core of Loyola's Corporate Law Concentration.

Supervised by the Patrick J. McDonough Director of the Business Law Practicum Dana M. Warren, with the advice and guidance of Faculty Co-Director Therese H. Maynard, the Business Law Practicum moves students beyond the abstract study of business law to an interdisciplinary analysis of transactional lawyering problems and business objectives that requires reading, comprehending, and managing, as well as drafting and modifying actual transactional documents.

To complete the Business Law Practicum program, students must take Business Associations, Securities Regulation, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Business Planning I. An additional, elective feature of the Business Law Practicum is the Transactional Negotiation Team, which gives students the opportunity to analyze and develop a strategy to address a complex business problem, then compete with each other in a negotiation tournament where they receive mentoring and feedback from practicing transactional lawyers.

The Business Law Practicum’s capstone class, Business Planning I: Financing the Start-Up Business and Venture Capital Financing, allows students to understand the lawyer’s role in business transactions by taking an entrepreneurial “client” through a series of simulated deals that introduce the legal, ethical and business issues that confront the transactional lawyer in representing an early stage growth company. Practicum Director Warren and Faculty Co-Director Maynard have written a casebook based on the Business Planning I course materials. This casebook, Business Planning: Financing the Start-Up Business and Venture Capital Financing, is available from Aspen Publishers.

The Business Law Practicum courses are the required elements of the Corporate Law Concentration.  Separate from the Concentration, the Business Law Practicum is a testament to Loyola's commitment to bridging the gap between law school and practice.  It offers students interested in a corporate transactional practice the foundational knowledge in key subject matter areas and, through Business Planning I, gives them the opportunity to apply their substantive learning in advising an entrepreneurial client. 

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