Minimum Total Hours Required

The program will require a minimum of 15 hours of approved courses. Group A contains the courses that are "Required." Group B is a list of courses that students may choose among, designated as the "Grouped Required" courses. Students must take at least three of the courses from the Group B list.

Any course in Group A or B may be counted toward the required total hours even if it is also used to satisfy the student's Research and Writing Requirement.

Writing Requirement

Students must complete an academic research paper of high professional quality, sufficient to meet the Research and Writing Requirement standards of publishable quality, concerning a business or entrepreneurial law topic. The research paper must be certified as acceptable by one of the Emphasis Area Faculty Advisors. Students may fulfill this requirement in conjunction with any of the Group A or B courses, or independently as part of the general Research and Writing Requirement, as part of an Independent Study option, through one of the Law Schools' journal offerings, or through a research project pursued at the Center for the City at UMKC. There is no separate requirement that the research paper be graded.

Practical Skills Component

Students must complete at least one course containing a substantial practical skills component. The following courses satisfy this requirement:

• LAW 8757 Business Planning
• LAW 8837 Negotiating Mergers & Acquisitions
• LAW 8875 Real Estate Transactions Planning Workshop
• LAW 8757R Entrepreneurial Law Clinic
• Advanced Legal Drafting (Business)

The requirement may be met by other internships, externships, simulation courses, drafting courses, or other courses designed to provide exposure to the type of work commonly performed by lawyers in the business and entrepreneurial law field, as the Emphasis Area Faculty Advisors may find acceptable. It is intended that courses fulfilling this requirement will include at least one business drafting exercise.

Ethics Component

Each academic year, the Emphasis Area Faculty Advisors will provide four contact hours of lectures, seminars or workshops dealing with ethical issues that frequently arise in the business and entrepreneurial law field. Each student must complete this ethics requirement.

Research Component

All Emphasis Area Students must complete an advanced research offering which will provide advanced skills in research in the business and entrepreneurial law field. This may entail a separate one hour course of study, a one hour component of an existing course, or separate lecture, seminar or workshop offerings as designated by the Concentration Faculty Advisors.

Prerequisites or Co-requisites

• Business Organizations
• Federal Taxation

Required Courses(Group A)

• Securities Regulation
• Legal Accounting (or other approved accounting education)
• Either Taxation of Business Organizations or Corporate Tax I and Partnership Tax
• Either Secured Transactions or Real Estate Finance

Grouped Required courses (Group B) (Must take three courses)

• Business Planning
• Real Estate Finance
• Real Estate Transactions (May not count both Real Estate Finance and Real Estate Transactions.)
• Negotiating Mergers and Acquisitions
• Secured Transactions (If not taken to satisfy the UCC requirement or as a Group A course)
• Commercial Transactions (If not taken to satisfy the UCC requirement)
• Sales and Leasing (If not taken to satisfy the UCC requirement)
• Debtor/Creditor
• Problems in Bankruptcy (May not count both Debtor/Creditor and Bankruptcy.)
• Entrepreneurial Law/Practice Clinic
• Alternative Dispute Resolution
• International Business Transactions
• Labor Law
• Employment Discrimination Law
• Employment Law (No more than one course of the group including Labor Law, Employment Discrimination Law and Employment Law may be counted.)
• Administrative Law
• Intellectual Property Copyright Law (May not count both Intellectual Property and Copyright Law.)
• Antitrust and Competition Law
• Tax-Exempt Organizations

The above requirements are in addition to any hours received in connection with the Writing Component (unless done in connection with a listed course), any hours received for the Advanced Research Component, or for the Ethics Component. In addition, a course shall not be required for any student who has not had a reasonable opportunity to take the course due to limited enrollment, or due to the fact that the School has not offered the course at least once after the student has been admitted to the program.