Corporate Law, Securities Regulation & Tax

Corporate Law and Business Associations
Penn State Dickinson offers a rich corporate and business law curriculum. The basic curriculum covers the principal forms of organization in which business is transacted, including sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies and corporations. Comparative Corporate Law, taught by the author of one of the leading texts in the area, provides students the opportunity to compare the role and practices of corporate law and governance in the United States with the laws and practices of other leading trading nations.

Securities Regulation, Mergers and Acquisitions, and White-Collar Crime
Our business law curriculum also prepares students for the many new and developing opportunities in the areas of securities regulation, corporate acquisitions and reorganizations, and white-collar
crime. In Federal Securities Regulation and related classes, students are introduced to the broad spectrum of regulatory requirements essential to every business practice, including public offerings of securities and insider trading. Mergers and Acquisitions explores such transactions in rich detail. The seminar Ethics for Business Lawyers helps our students grapple with the numerous ethical entanglements with which business lawyers must contend as legal advisors to major transactions. Our class in white-collar crime prepares students to either conduct or defend white-collar criminal investigations.

The Law School’s Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions examines corporate, securities, tax, antitrust, and other legal and economic issues that arise in mergers and acquisitions and hosts continuing legal education programs addressing these issues. The center is directed by Professor Samuel C. Thompson Jr., a prominent scholar of corporate and international tax, corporate governance, and antitrust.

Tax and Business Planning
Our carefully constructed tax curriculum provides students with a working awareness of the complex and sophisticated issues involved in both personal finance and business transactions. Our Basic Federal Income Taxation course, a required second-year course, provides the foundation for upper level elective classes in partnership tax law, corporate taxation, business planning, taxation of multinational transactions and comparative tax system seminars.

Commercial Law and Bankruptcy
The law school offers a curriculum deep in commercial law and bankruptcy topics. Classes include Sales, Payment Systems, Banking Regulation, Consumer Protection, Debtor and Creditor Law and advanced bankruptcy workshops. These courses prepare students for high-level commercial and financial practice whether global or local, whether with a law firm or business entity.