COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 275-11

COURSE TITLE: Law for Business Managers

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: William E. Halpin

E-MAIL ADDRESS: whalpin@envirecor.com

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION (HTTP URL): None

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Saturdays, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA Core Curriculum. Not available to those with legal background.

CLASS FORMAT: Lectures and discussion

REQUIRED READINGS: Custom text with business law topics, law cases and selected articles

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Interim class exercises and final exam

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:  PODCAST

The rules of law are essential for business. The law provides organizational structure, a means of assuring contractual and regulatory compliance, pathways to strategic objectives and effective methods to manage relationships with governments, investors, suppliers, employees and customers. The law can foster societal creativity or litigious debilitation. Business managers must develop an appreciation for the ways and byways of the legal system. Legal principles are a pervasive part of our market mechanisms and must be reckoned with.

Effective executives first develop an understanding of the context in which their business operates. To this goal, this course commences with:

• an overview of the historical, philosophical, constitutional and structural underpinnings of the U.S. legal system. 
• We’ll make a brief visit to the English common law to show how judges today make decisions which can affect your business.
• We’ll see how certain philosophies sway judicial and legislative thinking and how key sections of the U.S. Constitution have influenced today’s business practices.
•  We’ll briefly review the structure and procedures of state and federal court systems.

After this introduction to our legal system, we’ll discuss strategies for avoiding or managing litigation.  We’ll tour the typical course of a claim through the litigation process both to understand the consequences to business decision-making and to develop an appreciation for more desirable alternative ways to resolve disputes.

We spend the bulk of our time together analyzing the application of legal principles to issues relevant to both start-up and mature business practices. Topics for discussion will include core issues such as:

• contractual obligations,
• product liability,
• business organization and structures,
• securities regulation surrounding efforts to raise capital,
• relationships with lenders, and
• the acquisition and management of intellectual property.

 As time constraints and class preferences allow, we can broaden our sights to other matters such as:

• human resource issues,
• strategies for acquiring and managing real and personal property,
• dealing with regulatory agencies,
• the facilitation of international business transactions,
• bankruptcy, and
• environmentally responsible operations.

The goal throughout will be to provide you with the knowledge and skills which allow you to work effectively with your firm’s legal team as you grow your business.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Bill Halpin practiced law from his Oakland, Ca. office since 1971 following his discharge from the U.S. Navy where he was assistant legal officer and underway officer of the deck aboard an aircraft carrier and operations officer aboard and oceanographic research vessel. He has been an Adjunct Professor in Business Administration at Saint Mary’s College since 1987, teaching variously Operations Management, Advanced Legal Topics, Finance Law and Business Law.

His law practice primarily involved representation of architects, engineers, contractors and owners in real estate development issues and in construction related disputes. He also represented entrepreneurs from start-up through pre-IPO exit strategies. He was Editor of the Alameda County Bar Assn. legal newspaper and a judge pro-tempore in the Oakland courts. In addition to his teaching, Bill is a principal in a start-up venture currently involving R&D of water conservation valves. He negotiated his company’s acquisition from Australian interests of intellectual property rights including patents, trademarks and international marketing licenses.