Business Associations / Corporations

This course aims to explain the basic structures of doing business. These range from the simplest form, which is a single-person business (a “sole proprietorship") to a large corporation with millions of shares traded on a stock exchange (a “publicly held” and "listed” company). This course starts with the simplest structures and works up to the most recent and most complicated ones. Each structure has unique characteristics, but no single structure is best for all businesses. The common law of agency (meaning it is uncodified as a law but merely summarized by legal experts) runs through all business structures. Therefore students begin the course with agency law. 

Students' goal is to understand how each business structure is different in how it is formed, who owns it, who governs it, who has liability for it, how it is taxed, which laws control it, how it gets dissolved, and other factors. You will get a matrix to fill out these factors for each business structure. 

Lecturer - Douglas Litowitz