Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Regan

J.D. Course 365 (cross-listed) | 3 credit hours

The goal of this course is to provide students with a more sophisticated understanding of the opportunities, risks, and trade-offs that are involved in working in large law firms. In order to do accomplish this, we will analyze modern law firms as businesses, as institutions designed to provide professional services, and as organizations with their own distinctive cultures. This framework will inform our discussion of a wide range of subjects, such as how law firm career paths are changing; different approaches to compensating and evaluating associates and partners; how firms are responding to concerns about the balance between work and personal life; the potential threats and opportunities posed by advances in information and communications technology; the non-legal skills that are essential for success in firms; potential ethics and liability pitfalls for law firm lawyers; law firm strategy; and which law firm business models may be threatened and which may be adaptive in an age of intensifying pressures from both clients and global competition By the end of the course, students will be better equipped to analyze the multiple dimensions of law firms as both powerful and fragile organizations.

Material for the course will consist not only of scholarship on law firms, but articles from the legal press, case studies of particular firms, problem-solving exercises, and occasional presentations from law firm practitioners and experts. The grade for the course will be based on an exam and on class attendance and participation.

Laptop use is not allowed during class. Law Firms with Prof. Regan will not meet on Saturday, April 27. It will meet instead on Wednesday, April 24, from 3:30 to 5:30pm in McDonough Room 200.