Legal Methods II: Financial Methods for Lawyers

This one-week course provides a brief (yet immersive) overview of the intersection between the fields of financial valuation and law—an intersection that has grown increasingly strong within a variety of contexts including: contracts, torts, property, family law, mergers and acquisitions, securities litigation, corporate governance, shareholder litigation and intellectual property. Emphasis will be on developing an understanding for the techniques that financial economists have developed over the last half century to address "real world" problems concerning valuation. This course is intended as an introduction to financial valuation for students who are otherwise unacquainted with it. It will not be as broad as a more immersive course in corporate finance (which some of you may choose later to take). There are no prerequisites; however, the course assumes students are willing to push themselves to deploy mathematical formulas (including basic algebra), elementary statistics and Excel. If you have already taken a course in financial valuation or corporate finance, this course may be too basic for you.