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2 J. Legal Stud. Educ. 1 (1984)

handle is hein.journals/jlse2 and id is 1 raw text is: REDESIGNING THE REQUIRED UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS LAW COURSE John D. Donnell, Professor of Business Law,* Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana Although I have had the same wife for 41 years, the same car for 12, much of my clothing is more than 20 years old, the same tendency does not seem to apply to my teaching. I redo my notes every semester, and I have preferred to shift to teaching an entirely different course or courses every few years. Last year I taught the required undergraduate course for the first time in five years. Although I did not then have the time to experiment with major changes in it, or even to give the matter much thought, the experience did stimulate me to devote part of my sabbatical leave in the Spring of 1983 to an attempt to sort out my ideas about this course. This time was used to examine the thinking of others as recorded in the literature relating to the teaching of law in business schools and in the prefaces to a large number of business law textbooks. I also discussed curriculum and methodology with law teachers and others at several schools. This paper is the product of that research and my own ruminations on the subject. One of the conclusions I came to was that, since few business students will take more than one law-related course, that course should be broader than either a contracts-focused course or a government regulation course and should have as its primary purpose helping the student to understand the legal system and its processes rather than specific rules of law. A second conclusion reached was that, although there is no immediate crisis, now is a propitious time for business law teachers to review their courses and to consider revamping them, especially the required undergraduate course. There are several reasons why I think now is the time to review and redesign this course. First, as can be inferred from statements above, I tend to believe in change for change's sake when it comes to courses of instruction. Freshness on the part of the teacher is a precondition for effective teaching; freshness without change is unlikely. Also the process of redesigging a course is valuable because it forces the designer to consider objectives anew. Most of us tend to slip back into comfortable grooves in both subject matter and teaching methodology and need, periodically, to make new tracks. *The author is indebted to many people for help in preparation of the paper. He particularly wishes to acknowledge comments on an earlier draft by Thomas W. Dunfee, Charles M. Hewitt, Dugald W. Hudson, Jane P. Mallor, Michael B. Metzger, and Frances E. Zollers. Remaining gaffes, goofs, and glitches are the responsibility of the author. 1

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