Academics

Corporate Compliance Concentration

Register for the Concentration (PDF)

Students enrolled in the Corporate Compliance Concentration will receive instruction and training to prepare them for practices that focus on or involve compliance work. Although the Concentration focuses on financial industry compliance, it encompasses other areas of compliance that are commonly encountered by corporate lawyers / lawyers representing corporate clients.

Faculty Concentration Advisors and Advisement

Professor J. Scott Colesanti serves as the faculty concentration advisor for this Concentration.

Guidance from a student’s concentration faculty advisor is an important element of successful completion of the Concentration. A concentration faculty advisor must approve a student’s enrollment in the Concentration. Students should meet with their advisor as soon as they find themselves interested in the Concentration, but in no event later than the course selection deadline for their fourth semester of study (or fifth semester of study for part-time students). An advisor may permit a student to enroll in the Concentration at a later date, but only after determining that the student can realistically meet the requirements of the Concentration prior to graduation.

Once enrolled in the Concentration, students must meet with their faculty advisor at least once per semester, prior to that semester’s course selection deadline, in order to plan their course selection and review their progress in fulfilling the Concentration’s requirements. A student’s concentration faculty advisor must also review and approve the concentration writing requirement.

Concentration Requirements

  • Required Core Courses
    (all must be taken):
    • Business Organizations
    • Administrative Law
  • Required Skills Courses
    (at least one must be taken):
    • Business Drafting Seminar
    • The Business of Lawyering
    • Community and Economic Development Clinic
    • Real Time Lawyering: Negotiating the Complex Deal
    • Transactional Lawyering
  • Electives
    (Students must take at least one elective course from each of the following lists):
    • List A [foundational industry courses]
      • Corporate Finance
      • Securities Regulation*
      • Broker/Dealer Regulation*
    • List B [advanced financial industry courses]
      • The Regulation of Hedge Funds, Private Equity Funds and other Alternative Investment Vehicles*
      • Introduction to Asset Management*
      • Combatting Corruption
    • List C [compliance-related courses outside of the financial industry]
      • Global Compliance in the Digital Age
      • Employment Law
      • Biotechnology: Law, Business, and Regulation
      • Comparative Health Care Regulation
    • List D [other courses]
      • Securities Arbitration
      • Law & Role of In-House Counsel
      • Federal Income Taxation of Individuals
      • Introduction to Statutory and Regulatory Interpretation*

* “Wild Card” courses: the asterisked courses may be used to satisfy any List’s elective requirements, and not simply the List under which they are listed. No one course may be used, however, to satisfy the requirements of two Lists simultaneously.

The student must complete a writing assignment on a subject relevant to the Concentration, as approved by his or her advisor, that would satisfy the requirements of Writing Requirement I or II.

Each student must complete a culminating experience in the area of compliance. Within the discretion of his or her Concentration Advisor, this could include: the Health Law & Policy Clinic; a relevant externship; a substantial relevant writing other than that which is being used to satisfy the writing requirement; relevant coursework beyond that which is being used to satisfy the other requirements of the Concentration; or some other relevant undertaking, whether credit-bearing or not.