Having just finished another semester of teaching a course required of all University of Oklahoma undergraduate business majors, the Legal Environment of Business (an introduction to business law), I wanted to share a few thoughts about why I have really enjoyed teaching business law in a business school.
When I taught Banking and Financial Institutions Law and Regulation in a law school, I loved when a student commented that my excitement for the topic had sparked their interest in the subject matter too. Of course, such students were already generally attracted to the study of law! I now occasionally have the joy of hearing that my enthusiasm for business law has sparked an undergraduate student’s interest in going to law school (they’d better take Banking!), and the excitement of knowing that I’ve potentially helped the student decide upon a professional direction.
Like my students, I’ve found the Legal Environment of Business course to be challenging. Teaching this course has definitely furthered my growth as a teacher. In thinking of how best to engage students in the subject matter, I’m always searching for creative pedagogical approaches. I’ve constructed in-class games such as “Procedural Trivia,” in which student teams compete against each other to display their mastery of the civil procedure material, be named the “Most Triumphant” team, and awarded a bag of chocolates. The winning team is then under pressure to retain its grandiose title when we play a second trivia game with contract material later in the semester.
Into our study of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), Administrative Law, Torts, and Contracts, I’ve managed to weave negotiation role play exercises from the Harvard Program on Negotiation. Ever since I serendipitously became a teaching assistant for Professor Ken Shropshire’s Negotiation course during my doctoral studies in the Ethics and Legal Studies Program at Wharton, Negotiation has been a favorite course to teach. Imagine students delighting in bargaining over the language for an administrative agency’s upcoming rule proposal with Negotiated Rulemaking for Electric Utilities or experiencing first-hand the differential emotional impact of using mediation versus arbitration to resolve typical tort claims such as those at issue in Broken Benches.
Now, those familiar with my research might be thinking that the utility negotiation exercise is just a sneaky ploy to introduce financial market utilities to a captive audience. Not true! Nevertheless, teaching Legal Environment of Business has definitely improved how I present my research. It challenges me to explain complex topics to an audience with whom I can’t make any assumptions about a basic level of background legal knowledge (similar to some audiences in my research presentations). For many undergraduates, taking this course is somewhat like taking a foreign language course. The daunting, initial task for many students is to learn a whole new vocabulary. For the teacher, this means constantly defining and explaining terms and concepts with crystal clarity that from a self-referential perspective might appear to be commonplace.
In closing, I’d love to hear from other business school professors about teaching the introductory business law course in your university. I’d also like to encourage readers interested in teaching business law to consider the possibility of teaching in a business school, and to feel free to reach out to me with any questions.