Courses, Events, & Activities

Deals Courses and Workshops

Columbia Law School’s signature Deals courses allow students to not only learn about the ways in which contracts and agreements govern different types of transactions, but also to engage in crafting and analyzing simulated deals. Students learn about the lawyer's role in structuring and implementing business deals to create value, manage risks, and promote client interests in a complex business, legal, and regulatory environment. The courses and workshops also introduce students to basic deal-making techniques.

Students are first introduced to the economic tools necessary to evaluate alternative contractual regimes, including transaction costs, information economics, risk sharing and incentives, property rights, and finance. Students also will work through some of the existing empirical work on contracting regimes. Once that foundation is established, students consider different real world transactions, with the particular transactions selected to give the students a range of subject matter so as to highlight a common set of problems that arises in all settings. Students also complete a series of client memoranda and simulated negotiation and drafting problems related to various agreements and other documentation. Columbia Business School students are admitted to the workshops, and their presence adds a quantitative expertise to group discussions.

Specialized Deals Workshops are offered on a range of subjects. Current offerings include: 

The workshops are taught principally by expert practitioners who bring an interest in teaching transactions and unmatched experience in deal structuring and negotiation.

Other Events and Activities

Tax Policy Conference

Summer 2023

Agenda

An important aspect of the Program has been facilitating the formal and informal exchange of ideas among Columbia's many law, business, and other faculty, as well as prominent practitioners, judges, government officials, business leaders, economists, and other experts. Recent programs have included conferences and symposia on topics such as tax policy, payday lending, private equity, regulation in emerging markets, and the evolution of capital markets.