Legal Environment of Business (LEB)

MBA LEB Electives for Fall 2007 (word doc.)
In addition to its contribution to Management and Development Programs. In addition to the introductory undergraduate legal environment class, offered both to business majors and to non-business majors through the Business Foundations Program, the LEB faculty offer several graduate electives, including the following:

Social and Ethical Responsibility of Business
This course explores the ethical aspects of the managerial decision-making process and application of fundamental ethical principles to business, legal, and social problems. Topics include the ethical implications of financial market operations, race and gender discrimination, employee privacy, health, safety, environmental and consumer issues, and multinational business operations.

Intellectual Property Law
This course teaches students how to protect and manage intellectual property rights, including patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and copyrights. The focus of the course is on the application of these laws to commercialize and manage technology. Certain contract and tort issues affecting technology management are also covered.

Environmental Regulation of Business
This course introduces students to the wide range of federal and state rules and regulations regarding environmental quality that affect managerial decision-making and create legal liability of businesses.

Securities Regulation
This course helps students master the basic principles of federal, state and international regulation of the securities markets and introduces them to the dynamics of legal regulation in such areas as initial public offerings, insider trading, hostile takeovers, and proxy fights.

Commercial Real Estate Development
This course describes the legal framework for commercial real estate finance and development, including such topics as legal aspects of financing techniques and instruments, subdivision land-use controls, and environmental regulation of real estate development.

Corporation Law
This course includes the study of the legal framework for the formation and operations of all manner of business entities including the traditional forms such as sole proprietorships, general partnerships, limited partnerships, and corporations and newer forms such as limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships.

Law for Entrepreneurs
This course surveys for the aspiring entrepreneur a broad range of legal topics that may prove critical to the success of a new business. Subjects include the choice of an appropriate legal form for the business, legal constraints on financing small business, methods of protecting intellectual property assets, employment law liabilities, and others.

Liability and Regulation of Accountants
Offered to PPA and MPA students, this course teaches accounting students about the ethical, legal and regulatory world in which they will practice. It fulfills the Texas requirement for a course in accounting ethics that is a prerequisite for sitting for the CPA exam.