August 12, 2003
Commentary: Business professors need to send the message that business law is mandatory, not merely advisory
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Minnesota Public Radio: Marketplace Morning Report
English
KAI RYSSDAL, anchor:
Of course, businesses rely on their lawyers to advise them and
handle legal issues that may arise. But attorney and business
school Professor Robert Prentice says they shouldn't have to
shoulder the entire responsibility of keeping companies out of
trouble.
ROBERT PRENTICE:
It's not much fun being a lawyer these days, even one who
teaches in a business school. A colleague recently asked me if I
knew what 5,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean was. Having
heard this joke only about a million times, I smiled wanly and
came up with the desired punch line: a good start. These days
even B-school professors' opinions of the law seem to come
primarily from lawyer jokes and from urban legends about
plaintiffs' attorneys who, I have it on good authority, don't
really eat their young.
Unfortunately, these professors' hostility to lawyers seems to
translate into a conclusion that their students don't need to
study business law. Oh, but they do. And the courses need to be
taught by lawyers, like me. I mean, come on, Enron, WorldCom and
ImClone didn't happen because some folks were clueless about
subtle ethical distinctions or accounting protocols. They
happened in no small measure because a large number of
businesspeople were short on knowledge of, appreciation for and,
yes, fear of the law.
In recent years many business schools have cut business law
faculties and course offerings so they could expand other core
departments. Worse, the minimal lessons about business law that
many students do learn sometimes come from B-school professors
who preach that the free market is just so darned efficient that
any legal rules, even ones prohibiting insider trading, are
likely to just muck it up.
I'm worried that the lesson many of these students are getting
is that the law exists simply to be evaded or manipulated.
Business ethics is great, but some students will always view
acting ethically as just extra credit, not something that's
really required. Business law professors need to send a message
that the law is mandatory, not merely advisory. Business law can
be the two-by-four that gets the mule's attention in a way that
business ethics never will. In Austin, this is Robert Prentice
for MARKETPLACE.
RYSSDAL: Robert Prentice teaches business law at McCombs School
of Business at the University of Texas.
In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Ryssdal. Thanks for being with us.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
