Speaker 1 (00:02.794)
It really does help to come into law school with an open mind. Because you never know what subject it is in your first year that you thought you were gonna love that you don't.
or vice versa that you didn't think you were gonna love and you do, and let your path find itself because as you take a class and you find, I really enjoyed that, the professor might say, well then maybe you wanna take this class and that might lead you down a new path. So I think that open-mindedness really does help students find the right place to be so that they can be in the right practice in the long run.
This is Real Cases, a legal podcast presented by the Stetson University College of Law. We'll sit down with Stetson Law faculty and students to examine today's critical cases and debates in environmental, international, elder, and business law, plus the role of social justice in these fields. Join us as we open the case file.
Episode 37, The Business Law Concentration and Stetson's Dual JD-MBA Degree. I'm Daniel O'Keefe, Master of English Literature from Indiana University. Today we're speaking with Professor of Law Theresa Radwan, who teaches in the areas of bankruptcy and commercial law and serves as an advisor to the Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Team. Associate Professor of Law William Bunting, who has a background in business law as it relates to civil rights and economics,
And Gage Bonjorn, a third-year student at Stetson.
Speaker 3 (01:28.344)
Well, thank you all for being here today. Let's start with introductions. Professor Radwan, would you like to go first?
Sure. My name is Theresa Pulley Radwan and I am a professor at Stetson University College of Law. I teach in our business area, which is a pretty broad area, but my specialties are primarily business corporate law as well as bankruptcy law.
Speaker 2 (01:51.662)
My name is Professor Bunting. This is the start of my fourth year here at Stetson. I am very happy and proud to teach in the business law area, the business law curriculum. I tend to teach our sort of introduction class, the corporate business entities course, teach corporate finance. And I also teach in a business law adjacent field, real estate transactions.
have taught that class for the first time last semester. I think the students enjoyed it. think everyone in Florida has some idea that they want to run an Airbnb or be involved in some way in real estate. So those are my sort of areas of specialty.
Why in Florida in particular? Why do feel like that's Florida specific thing?
the Airbnb? Well, I mean, I think compared to Iowa, I don't know how many, you know, there's a lot of people who want to come and spend a couple of weeks. And I know one of our former colleagues had a condo and I think it was occupied almost every week out of the year. And so it's a nice side hustle, I think, for especially young attorneys paying off debt. I just feel like it's a, when people might, I think it's just a, you know, a
different type of investment that you can make, know, and you can be very, and they want to be, you know, the more, as I always tell my students, the more you can do, you know, the better your return on your investment. So, you know, the more you don't have to rely on another attorney or, know, don't, you're going to have to maybe, I always encourage them, you know, to buy a drill, right? You know, and start thinking about getting involved in that investment, the better.
Speaker 2 (03:35.436)
And so I was surprised when I asked people, I mean, it's also bar related, but why are you guys interested in this class? I was surprised by how many of them said, I would like to have an investment property at some point as a way to supplement my income. And this is a transactional, very applied course.
I agree. feel like that is not a uniquely Florida thing, but I feel like I grew up in central Florida and most of my friends now, if we do talk about something to supplement our income, is wanting to have an investment property by the time you're like 35. My name is Gage Bonjorn. I'm a rising 3L at Stetson and I'm also a member or a student in the business law concentration. I'm happy to be here today.
Engage, how about you?
Speaker 3 (04:21.432)
So I'd like to start by asking about the dual JD MBA degree. So could you tell me about that program, what it is and how it works?
So I have the title of liaison to the JD MBA program. One thing I would say about the program is that the MBA, really, it's not as integrated in some ways as you might think, which I think is a good thing in some ways. Like you really are getting an MBA, you know, and it's online and they take, you know, mostly required courses. You can do it.
which is very unusual and it's not very unusual, but somewhat unusual. It's different than like at my law school where you had to do another year. They can actually complete the degree in the three years that they're also pursuing their JD. You have to, you you take some classes over the summer. You might have to take slightly more credits than the average law student, but I think it's like particularly useful for students.
I think sometimes students come to law school and especially if they come from like, I had a student that I worked with a lot who started the program a little late, but I was able to sort of find a way to get them to complete the program in three years. And he came from a criminal justice background. That was his undergraduate degree, I think at University of Florida. And now he wants to do bond offerings, Like municipal bonds, like very different. I just didn't have that accounting background, that corporate finance background.
So skills that sometimes, I don't want to say we don't focus on, but we're very focused right on, you're here to pass the bar and become a lawyer. Sometimes these finance skills, business skills are not the focus of the JD program. And so this ability to get an MBA, to sort of do these non-bar related skills that I think are super helpful, especially if you go into business law or corporate law fields is really great. And I think those are the students like I've.
Speaker 2 (06:21.87)
met with, I try to meet with all of our JD MBA students. The ones that I think are the most benefited are those that actually have no business background at all. And I think like the MBA, there are different types of MBA programs. Like this program I think is one that you can do with very little business background going in, which is good for people who are in a JD program. And the ability...
to do it online, of course, like I don't know if it would work if you had to travel back and forth to Delant. so that's sort of, you know, they take the sort of you know, they take a corporate finance class, accounting class, marketing, and it's different, you know, different modes of assessment, different type of student that they're around. I, most students, you know, have told me,
that it helped them get a job, you know, or they're working while in law school and it's helped them in that capacity. So I think it's just a really great program that we have here at Stetson that, you know, helps not only in getting a job, but once you have a job, especially if you didn't have those skills, you know, giving you these skills that sometimes that gets lost, right? We were so focused on the bar, but I don't want you to just pass the bar. I want you to succeed, you know, in the job that you get when you leave here. And sometimes that involves more.
than just what you need to pass the bar. And so I think sometimes that gets lost. And I'm glad that here, you know, we have that program for those, you know, who want to take advantage of it.
If I can add to that just briefly, we also have a program called the in-house council externship that allows a lot of students to work with in-house council and receive credit for it. And one of the things that they learned quickly in that externship is that while they may be working in a legal department within a company, they are an integral part of the corporation and they are making business decisions or working with
Speaker 1 (08:25.676)
the C-suite making those business decisions. And as I tell students all the time, it's really hard to communicate with the officers of the company if you don't speak the same language. And taking the MBA program teaches them about business so that they can talk to the business people and share that language with them, right? So it's useful for
for those students as well, just in really understanding how a business runs and being able to be part of the team that oversees and runs the business.
Yeah, to that end, are there particular sorts of careers or is there a particular career path that you feel like the dual degree is especially helpful with?
I think those, you know, if you want to go in-house counsel, right? Like the student, I had a student last semester who, you know, was working at a publicly traded company. You know, he was still a law student, so was sort of a contract. I don't remember exactly what his, you know, title was, but once he passed the bar, he was going to become an attorney. But day in and day out, he's dealing with the business people.
So as Professor Radwan said, being able to speak their language is super helpful. I think if you are in a litigation firm, you're around the lawyers. think it's still helpful to have some basic understanding, especially if you're doing corporate or business law, of those topics. I think especially that those lines seem, my brother works in a publicly trade as an attorney. Once you start getting up high enough, those lines really start to break down.
Speaker 2 (10:03.61)
And, you know, I think that's, if I had to sort of pick one, I would think that would be, you know, one, that's the one that jumps out to me.
So the JD MBA degree, is that also just a three year program? Does that add any amount of time to the length of time it usually takes for students to get their JD?
They are really good about making it work with the JD and making it work so that you finish in three years and are ready then to sit the bar.
So let's shift to talking a little bit about the business law concentration. Professor Radwa, could you introduce us to how the concentration works?
Yes. So the concentration is really designed for students who are particularly interested in business law. And we often get the question, should I do the concentration or the JD MBA? And as Professor Bunting mentioned, the MBA program is often more attuned for people who are going to be more on the business side with some legal knowledge. And I would say the concentration is the flip. The concentration is for the students who want to be lawyers and practice law, but need some
Speaker 1 (11:11.308)
basic business knowledge and understanding. The key to the concentration, the core of it really is a package of 21 credit hours that you have to take, some of which are required. So you must take business entities, you must take tax, you must take a code-based course, and the rest of which are filled out with electives that the student chooses from within the business curriculum. But I always like to say to students, you could take those courses without being in a concentration. They are open to all students.
The real meat of the concentration is the everything else that comes with the concentration. So to me, the mentoring with the faculty, if you are in the concentration, and I'm sure Gage could talk to this more, you really get to know the business law faculty because you're taking their classes, you're working with them. You do your advanced writing in the business area. You do your pro bono work that is required of all students, but you do yours in the business area. You have to take...
an Excel proficiency course and you have to take accounting, right, which are not things that most law students do. But when we talk to practitioners, especially the Excel requirement, they get very excited to hear that our students are proficient in Excel because that's a real skill you use out there in the workplace and you wouldn't necessarily learn it in law school. So the courses are maybe the core of it, but it's really the everything else that makes the concentration program what it is.
Yeah, Gage, you talk a little bit about your experience in the concentration so far?
Yeah, of course. So I guess I didn't add earlier to my background is I earned my finance degree from UF. And so just tangentially, I knew the courses in the concentration were the ones that I was interested in already. And I already felt like, okay, well, I want to take these courses anyway. And this seems like just another added concentration to do something else that's going to help me get more involved in the school. And then I honestly thought it was about the courses. But then in the end, it became about
Speaker 4 (13:10.978)
the writing and doing the pro bono and the other things that come with the concentration that ended up, have been the most rewarding things I've done in law school. Like for example, the pro bono requirement was part of what led me to now want to do an LLM in tax. And the site coordinator for, it's the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program. It's what made me want to apply to an accounting firm this past summer. It's what
And I still have a close relationship with her, who is the site coordinator. And I feel like the concentration definitely helps you just get exposure to talking to the professors that have the same interests as you as well.
Could you talk a little bit more about your experience there with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program?
Yeah, so essentially it's handled through Tax Law Society and the Business Law Concentration kind of concurrently and it's through United Way Suncoast, which is like a nonprofit in Pinellas County. They'll recruit law students to come out and do and prepare income tax, like federal income tax returns for qualifying individuals and families throughout sites across Pinellas County. And they do it across the nation too, but ours is through Pinellas County.
And you did this as part of your pro bono
Speaker 4 (14:29.518)
Yes, completed all of my, like through the law school, you do 30 hours minimum of legal pro bono and 30 hours of which, 60 hours of pro bono, I'm sorry, and 30 of which must be legal. And so you can do as much as you'd like legal. And I think I fulfilled almost all of my hours just doing that clinic because I enjoyed it so much.
Okay.
And I would say the concentration requires that you do 20 hours of legal pro bono. And that is not in addition to the 60 hours, but what it does is has our concentration students, when they are thinking about their pro bono hours that are required, making sure that some portion of those hours are done.
in the business law area. So VITA that Gage was talking about is without a doubt the most popular one among our business law students, but there are other opportunities as well and students sometimes find their own opportunities that can qualify as well. But it's really designed to help them focus when they're thinking about the pro bono requirement on business related pro bono.
And that's exactly what it did for me. It made me think, okay, how can I do this all at the same time and also do something that I'm going to enjoy more in the area of business that I enjoy.
Speaker 3 (15:39.884)
That's interesting that it led you to decide that you want to go get your LLM as well.
Yeah, I would say it helped me realize that but that was a totality of the circumstances thing. It was lot of talking to a lot of people and realizing the kind of work that I love and but it definitely helped me zero in on it. I guess for some added context to my fiance is a CPA and she works at one of the big four and so I always like, I've known a lot about it. And I always loved the idea of doing tax because she ironically does not know anything about tax because she does audit.
And whenever someone asks like a tax question, she's like, what do you think? And I'm like, why are you asking me? Like, but I think that it definitely helped steer me towards tax and it helped me find a passion for it. Cause even though it was compliance work and arguably not legal, it's still, it requires you to think like a lawyer, like when someone has like, it's an interesting situation, you know, like they come in and it's an individual who has like five or six 10 99s. It's like, well, how do you.
How do we figure out how to file that in the way that's most advantageous for them and go about it almost in an Iraq paradigm? I hope that makes sense.
No, what does that mean actually?
Speaker 4 (16:54.505)
It's basically the way that law school curriculum is taught. I feel like you two would be a better people to ask this, but I guess I can say my perspective on it. It's issue, rule, application, and conclusion. It's the whole purpose of law school teaches you to rewire your brain to think like that, I would say.
One of the really great things about law school generally, but particularly about this program is when you're doing the pro bono or when you're doing the externships, which many of the students will do their externships as part of their concentration requirements, every time you have these experiences, it helps you take the learning from your first and second year. So for example, IROC, which is something you learn in research and writing, how to formulate an argument, you then get to apply it.
Paige got to apply it in the VITA program. The externship students apply it when they're doing work for their supervisor in the externships. And so it's taking that learning, that book learning, and actually putting it into practice, which I think, is more fun, right? The students really enjoy that after years and years of classes, you're actually out there doing it. And B, it really cements and makes it real, right? And you understand why what we learned in business entities.
matters, or what you learned in tax class matters. So it's a really nice way to bring the learning into the real world for the students.
Yeah, given what a strong emphasis Stetson law puts on externships and on experiential education, could you talk a little bit about some of the other externship and clinical clinic opportunities that you mentioned?
Speaker 1 (18:35.412)
So there are two really that are the primary focus for our business students. Without a doubt, the in-house council externship, it's actually one of our largest externship programs at Stetson. We have about 40 students a year that participate in the program and we have a variety of businesses, some of which have been with us since almost day one of the externship and it's been running for about 20 years now.
some of which come in, you know, for a semester at a time, but it ranges. We've got financial, we've got sports related, we've got nonprofits, right? So it's a variety of different businesses. And the students are assigned to a business and they work with that in-house council over the course of the semester, doing things that you would be doing as a junior associate or maybe a senior paralegal, right? So it might be research, it might be drafting, contract review.
A lot of it too is participating in meetings. It's one of the things that always surprises students that they actually will be in a meeting with the chief executive officer and the chief financial officer and the council will turn to them and say, what do you think? And it's terrifying, right? As a law student to be asked in front of all these people, what you think. And yet it's empowering as well, right? You suddenly realize, wait, I know what I'm talking about and I can do this, right? And it's a...
It's a wonderful opportunity to do that in relatively low stakes environment because you have counsel right next to you who's going to be able to correct if there's an issue or to help you come to a better conclusion. So that's one of our big ones. And students take that externship essentially in place of one class. So they'll spend about eight to 10 hours a week at the externship instead of spending that time on a particular class. The other one that
that meets the concentration requirements is our bankruptcy judicial externship, which is a very different externship because the in-house counsel is transactional in nature. You're not in court. You're not litigating. Obviously with the judicial externship, you are in court. And so students are assigned to one of our local bankruptcy judges and they are in chambers for the semester.
Speaker 1 (20:50.476)
They have the opportunity to do research and drafting, but a lot of what they do is also observational. So they are in the courthouse, watching hearings, getting to know the local bar, because especially the bankruptcy bar is a very small tight-knit group, and you will see the same people over and over in court. They get an opportunity to see what is effective advocacy, right? What is it that good lawyers do that convince the judge of their point of view? What is it that...
lawyers do that are, that is unconvincing, right? So they learn what makes for a good argument and they get to be behind the scenes and see what it is that the judge considers in making a decision. So that one is very much focused on how do you litigate in the business arena in one very specific context. Like I said, that's the bankruptcy context.
That's gotta be a great experience to get to see behind the scenes there, how judges are actually making their decisions.
Yes, as I tell students all the time, I did not do such an externship when I was in law school. And the first time I ever set foot in a judge's office or chambers was while I was in practice. And boy, do I wish I had that experience as a student. Instead, it would have made me so much more confident and such a stronger litigator when I was actually on the other side in the courthouse arguing.
Yeah, yeah. Since you were talking about the externship in bankruptcy law, Professor Radwan, I know that that bankruptcy law is an area that you focus on. So I guess I'd like to ask first for you, how did you get into that field? How did you come to focus on that? And then I'd like to open that up and ask, like, what was it that drew each of you to want to focus on the business law and the particular areas of business law that you do?
Speaker 1 (22:40.47)
I'll start by saying much like Gage was talking about, I sort of always knew business law was probably my area, but I thought I was going to be a more traditional corporate transactional lawyer. And I did do that. My practice, I was fortunate enough to have sort of a split where it was partial litigation, partial transactional. But it turned out when I was in the firm that I was in, I spent the first year rotating among the different departments. And when I got into the bankruptcy department, something just clicked.
I loved it. I was doing primarily big business bankruptcies. And so it's a lot of negotiation. While it's a litigation based practice, you actually don't go to court and have big trials in that sort of traditional sense. It's a lot more negotiation because ultimately there's a limited amount of funds and you're trying to figure out the best way to distribute it.
and there's not gonna be more funds created, it's gonna be distributing a single pie and how do we make sure that everybody gets their piece of the pie? And I just loved that give and take that is natural in that and the negotiation and the working together. So it's an unusual practice because while it's litigation heavy, it's also negotiation and working together.
heavy. And so that's not always the case in litigation. It's not the same sort of fight that you think of when you think of lawyers against each other in litigation context. So I've really enjoyed that. The other thing I always say is it's also a great example of how you did in law school is not indicative of your practice. Bankruptcy was actually my worst grade in law school. And so I did not expect that that would end up being my practice. And yet that's where I ended up and loved every minute of it.
did well in it. it was just a fluke that I happened into that department and learned that I loved it. And then I equally loved the transactional part, but that was what I had expected to do. So I did a lot of work in secure transactions and financing, a little bit of mergers and acquisitions as Gage knows. And so he took mergers and acquisitions with me. So there's a number of different areas involved in that.
Speaker 3 (24:53.954)
That's fascinating. just goes to show you never know what's going to be the weird hook that gets you into a particular field or into a particular job. Yeah, that's fascinating.
So how did I get interested in business law? So I actually started off like as an economist, right? So I have a PhD in econ and I knew very early on that I was interested in law and economics, which is a little different than business law. And so when I finished my PhD, I worked as an economist actually, like for the ACLU.
doing criminal justice, which was very, you know, I this sort of two year period where I was like fascinated with prisons and marijuana, but I was working, I was doing the data for the attorneys. And then my boss, Vanita Gupta became the head of the civil rights division. And she said, you should come down to DC and do housing, you know, civil rights and start building some cases. And I won't get into it, but halfway through I found myself kind of not having a lot.
to do and I wrote a paper and it was about real estate and I was hired in the business school where I taught the intro to legal environment that probably Gage took when you were at FU for maybe Robert Emerson, he's one of those guys there I'm friends with who's a character who I love. Yes, I was doing real estate but I always wanted to be in a law school. It took me like 20 years to finally make it a reality and I feel like I kind of snuck in.
a little bit because I was in the business school. So people assume, he knows business law. But I had always wanted to do like antitrust. Like that was my I don't even really teach it here. but it was a bad time to try to get a job around 2012. This is one lot of appetite for that. But I so I you know, it was tough the first year, like there was like accounting, some of this corporate finance. I didn't you know, I have like the technical background in it.
Speaker 2 (27:04.226)
But it wasn't really exactly, I would have been more comfortable in some ways doing antitrust or real estate. I just, it's funny how life, you sort of end up maybe where you should have been. I just love it. And so I really totally consider myself first and foremost on the CV, it's business law. But again, I always tell my students, I think I got a B in...
in business law and I had an opportunity to work with a Delaware Chancery court judge who was at NYU. I always referred to him as Bill, but know, Chancellor William Allen. I just did not take advantage of that at the time. So he's passed away. And I think he would, I always joke though that if he, I think he thought I was a turkey, you know, like I just, I remember him talking about Caremark, you know, with a bunch of other professors. Like this would have been
Amazing now, like, and I wasn't really even remembering the case. just didn't. I always tell students like, you you're going to have, sometimes you'll have opportunity. always understand the opportunity that's in front of you at the moment. And that's just a very stark example. So I always hope that he's looking down on me now. And it's like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, don't think he would have thought I'd be in this position. but I am, and I'm so, I'm so grateful. And I, so it was not a linear path.
to sort of become a business law person. But I really felt like I've sort of found my home, found my place, found a subject I'm really passionate about.
I think that's fascinating. Yeah, think that I think that's a common experience for a lot of people is just the weird way that you go from one field to another thinking, it's gonna I'm gonna do this. And then you realize 10 years later that you were deep, that something that you didn't care at all about back then is actually deeply fascinating you now. And yeah, it's very strange.
Speaker 4 (29:02.168)
Yeah. And for me, definitely started, like even before I knew I wanted to go to law school, I knew I wanted to do something in business. My family owns a small business and so I was introduced to it at a really young age. I was told and taught in high school if I wasn't playing a sport, I had to go to work. And so I kind of had gotten the idea instilled into me of like, you know, what is business? How does it run and how does it work?
And I kind of just had to got to watch my dad do that my whole life. And once I finished my degree, I felt like, okay, I really loved this, but I like the idea of being able to apply this to the law and being able to use that background to help make important decisions. And then I think in law school that naturally led me to the classes that were like business law related courses. And I feel like that's where I'm at now. It's.
Those classes are the ones that interest me and the ones that not that I know I'll do best in, but the ones that I'm going to be excited to wake up every day and read about because I'm going to see it as an opportunity to read and not something that I have to get done, but something that I'm like, I'm excited. We're the syllabus that we're doing this in class on Thursday. I'm so excited to read that today now.
Professor Bunting, I'm curious to ask, so one thing that I was thinking about when I was preparing for this episode and I was thinking about the dual JD MBA degree was that, you know, especially in the academy, there can be a tendency, even when people are committed to the idea of being interdisciplinary, I feel like there can be a tendency for these things to get siloed, right? Where someone will say, I'd
I don't know what that is. I'm an economist. I'm not a historian or I'm a historian. I'm not a sociologist or you know, and it always it can break down more and more. So I guess I'm sort of curious about where like where you see the divisions here between focusing in business law versus, you know, getting an MBA as well as a JD. Like what are the
Speaker 3 (31:17.006)
not even so much from a career standpoint, but just from the standpoint of thinking about these things as areas of academic study, how that sort of breaks down.
I still, I remember thinking about this, it's like as someone who has like a, two different degrees, you know, I do think you need to pick one, right? So I had, I always remember I had a good friend saying, you know, you should lean into the JD. I don't know why you're leaning into the P, you know, being an economist. So I, I don't want to disagree with Professor Radwan, but I sort of, even for people who are, this is just my opinion. Even like when I talk to people doing the JD MBA,
I have to admit, in my mind, I envision them still being a lawyer. I tell them to lean into their JD. I think that's where they have the competitive advantage. There's a lot of like gauges out there who have that great undergraduate degree from UF. There's just a lot of people that you're competing against. I think it's the JD that really makes you special.
I see it as, I've always seen it as, like even myself, people assume, you took accounting, right? You have a PhD in econ. No, I never took accounting. I was in a liberal arts school. I never took corporate finance. Like I didn't have marketing. I didn't have a BBA. I went to a liberal arts school and then I went to grad school. I was in the school of liberal arts.
Arts and liberal, you know, and sciences. Like I didn't have that background and it hurt me tremendously. It was something I wanted to say earlier when we were talking about classes. Like it's not just about classes, but law school is kind of interesting in the sense that when you go into your second and third year, there's, can do whatever you want. and that kind of hurt me when I was in law school because, know, there was no, no one sort of said, here's what you should do. So I think having these classes that we, sort of give you a blueprint.
Speaker 2 (33:20.972)
And then we mentor you. Like I have a lot of conversations with students where they're like, well, I want to go into real estate. What classes did I take, you know, with a focus on transactions and I'll walk through like here are five or six. I never had that conversation when I was in law school. And it kind of hurt me. there, I was going to go work at a big Manhattan law firm. I never took securities regulation. Like this is crazy. Like someone should have told me you should take that class probably, cause you're going to be doing a lot of securities litigation.
Your firm you're going to is renowned for that. So I show up the first day and they're like, go look up something on Edgar. And I'm like, what's that? And they're like, who did we hire? I didn't have accounting for lawyers. I blew off. Because I'm like, I'm a math major. I don't need to have someone teach me how to add up numbers. Wrong. That was a huge mistake. 20 years later, I'm now auditing the class because I don't like that all these undergrads at Temple know more than I do about it.
So I just think, you know, even like with a econ degree, there's a lot you don't know about business. And so I've always, I always think of the JD MBA as, I don't think of it as, I think of it as that those students are going to be lawyers and they might be more transactional. They might be more in a business, but I always sort of think of them as lawyers and the MBA is really teaching them like they're like, you've just never taken an accounting class.
And so this is your opportunity to take an accounting class or to take a corporate finance class and just to learn what a yield curve is. Just so you don't, like when you're around business people, you don't look like a complete idiot not knowing these sort core things that they learned as undergrads that you might not have learned just because you came from a history background or an English background. I, you know, my...
I think of like the JD MBA as actually being for people who have even less of a background in business sometimes. I worry about, sorry to keep referring to you, Cage, but like I almost worry, like I don't know, like if you have a business, do you have a BBA from Florida? Like that degree, you got everything, you know?
Speaker 4 (35:35.798)
It's a BSBA.
Speaker 2 (35:41.088)
And so I would encourage like that type of student, you know, I think the concentration is good and the JD, you know, just really, it's more valuable, I think, in my personal opinion, for people who really just don't have a business background at all, because I have to be a little careful how I describe this. Like, I think the MBA, like you have some MBA programs, like at Wharton, like these are executives, these are people with really
serious business backgrounds who are going to be, you know, quants at investment banks. And so they, you know, you're not going to spend a lot of time on an intro accounting class. What I think is actually nice about this MBA program is that, you know, it doesn't assume a tremendous background in business. So you can kind of walk into it and the students, even the, the crim law student I was referring to earlier, you know, great did, did wonderful in the program.
Right. And so you can, get that a lot, like from students, like I don't really have a business background. Am I going to fail out of that program? No, if you do the work, you're going to do great. And that's what I've seen over the last few years.
So I know students often find that their interests shift over the course of law school. They may enter planning to go into one field and subsequently find themselves drawn to something else entirely different. So that said, I'm curious what interests or aspirations you think are common to the students who decide to go into business law.
I will start by saying that there is.
Speaker 1 (37:13.262)
There is no one thing that makes someone want to be a business lawyer, right? Our students are a very diverse group and they have a lot of different interests. And that's one thing about business law. Business law is broad, right? Some of our students will take the business law concentration and become litigators. Some are going to be transactional. Some are going to go on for more education. Some are stopping at the end of law school. I mean, there's just, there's so many paths you can take with it. And it's actually what made it hard for us when we were creating the business law concentration.
to say what does that mean? Because just defining business law is tough, right? And so with that many different paths and perspectives, you're going to have a variety of students. What I will say is that I think a lot of our students who are in the business law concentration are focused on transactional. They are often very rule oriented. A lot of the courses you have to take in the business law area, what we would call code courses.
So they involve a statute that tells you the answers or at least gives you some broad parameters for the answers. And so every single course I teach, for example, has some sort of code that goes with it. And that means that we're not just talking about cases, we're actually diving into the code. And when you're doing that kind of work, it's very particular.
we're looking at every single word of the code and why is that word in here, right? And so it takes a very analytical process to do code-based work. And so while I think we have a variety of perspectives and some students are more theoretical and some are more hands-on, I do think that many have an analytical bent and they wanna be doing the transactional work where they are actually sitting down and looking through.
or rules and regulations or something of that sort as their future career path.
Speaker 4 (39:08.962)
I agree with that completely in that I'm drawn to the code courses because I find that I like when there's an answer. I'm okay with there being a case and there not being an answer, but I find that the code courses are, they help me learn better whenever I know that if I just read the code, I can just look to the cases that apply it if there are any, and it just helps me learn a lot better. And I feel like people who are drawn to that kind of learning are going to be drawn toward the concentration to begin with.
And Dan, if I can add, based on your question earlier, you mentioned some students come in with a predisposed notion of what it is they want to do in law school. And one of my favorite stories from the concentration is a student who came in, sure she wanted to do criminal law. And she took criminal law her first year and realized very quickly that was not what she wanted to do. Ended up in my business entities class because it was a bar tested class. That's the only reason she took it.
Loved it right and then join the concentration and went forward. So what I will say to any student is I presume students listening to this podcast or at least thinking that business law might be their area, but it really does help to come into law school with an open mind because you never know what subject it is in your first year that you thought you were going to love that you don't or vice versa that you didn't think you were going to love and you do and let your path find itself because as you take a class and you find wow, I really enjoyed that.
the professor might say, then maybe you want to take this class and that might lead you down a new path. So I think that open-mindedness really does help students find the right place to be so that they can be in the right practice in the long run.
Could you talk a little bit about what do you think are some of the, are there like new career paths or new kinds of directions that you find students are going in professionally who graduate either with a JD in the business law concentration or from the dual program? Like what are some of the new paths that you see them going in?
Speaker 2 (41:10.158)
One thing I see that's different when I was coming out of law school is it does seem like students go in-house sooner. When I was an attorney working in a firm, it felt like you had to put in a fair amount of time in the firm before you could then transition into in-house. It seems like that's happening sooner. Be careful, I guess, how I say this. In some ways, those can be
you know, better jobs, just more, you know, in terms of the work-life balance, in terms of the culture, in terms of, you know, as an attorney in a firm, sometimes you're bouncing around all over the place here, you can really focus. And so just when I look at friends of mine, I have found that often, you know, that's a lot of what people were trying to get to, and were happier once they achieved it. And so the fact that you can do that sooner is, I think, a good thing.
the profession. Also less doc review than when I was an attorney I think. So even maybe what I just said, those firm jobs, I spent, I'll admit it, the first 18 months when I was coming out of law school, I was doing a lot of doc review and every case was a new electronic case management system that you had to relearn and I remember looking at the same
email over and over again and thinking like there's got to be a way technology can, you know, reduce some of this tedium. And I think you are actually starting to just talking to people at firms. You are now starting to see with AI and a lot of this technology, that sort of tedious kind of work going down. So I'm very like, I know sometimes people get very worried about AI. I'm all in, like I've, I've gone all in over the last year.
And so I'm very optimistic. Like I remember talking to attorneys, you know, some, always gravitated to these old partners who are like, yeah, we used to have like 300 documents. Now you're doing like a Citibank case with 30,000 documents. It's a nightmare. Like email destroyed this profession. Um, well, maybe now it's swinging back, right? And technology is going to actually, you know, eliminate some of the aspects of being an attorney that, especially early on that were slightly unpleasant.
Speaker 1 (43:34.808)
That's fascinating. The other change I think I have seen, I think, Dave, this might be a great opportunity to talk a little bit about your paper as well, but is a shift to what we call JD preferred jobs. So when I went to law school, everyone went to a law firm after graduation. That's what you did. You were a lawyer. And I think that's changed. And a lot of people are getting a JD degree with an intent to either stay in a job they're currently in, but change their role.
or to go into positions typically within companies, right? So maybe as an HR director or something like that where knowing the law and knowing how to apply law and regulations is an advantage for your job, but not necessarily actually practicing law. So that JD preferred is definitely a big category now.
Yeah, and I can kind of touch on what Professor Revin was referring to there. I worked at an accounting firm this summer and also I happened to write a paper that I'm still writing about kind of the regulatory requirements and the frameworks of attorneys or other professionals having ownership stake in law firms. Sorry, other professionals having ownership stake in law firms. And part of what the argument that I make in my paper is that
We kind of have this example in accounting firms where they operate on really the precipice of what is practicing law and it's kind of a gray area. And it's, they cannot provide legal advice because that would be practicing law and they cannot practice law because it cannot be legal advice. And you kind of get circular and, but yet it is applying rules. It's applying.
a client's facts to rules and giving tax advice based on that analysis. And so it's kind of a gray area. And I think that in my team specifically, I did sales tax. did all of indirect tax. So it's reading all of the different state statutes and figuring out whether a company has nexus there and whether they should collect and remit and what that obligation looks like. And my team, even though it was an accounting firm, was mostly lawyers, mostly barred and licensed lawyers, but yet it was not practicing law.
Speaker 3 (45:45.006)
All right, well thank you so much everybody. Thank you. Take care everyone. This has been Real Cases. Thank you for listening. Check back for more episodes about an array of legal topics presented by the Stetson University College of Law. Learn more at stetson.edu.