Business Fundamentals

This short book is designed to enhance the business training of law students. It focuses on select foundational topics that often fall outside the scope of a traditional business organizations course. The premise of the book is that these topics can enrich such a course by expanding its relevance, broadening the business literacy of students, and complementing the entity and doctrinal concepts covered in the course. Care has been taken to be concise, avoid nonessential complexities, use illustrative examples, and incorporate problems that test student comprehension. The emphasis is on real-world relevance and promoting awareness and a basic understanding in six areas: important business differences, classifications and characterizations; core accounting concepts and financial statement basics; key quantitative concepts often associated with financial literacy; business funding challenges; rudimentary tax concepts of business entities; and 16 important business factors presented in a choice-of-entity planning context. The book includes 18 mini-case-study problems that enable students to analyze and apply the substance of what they are reading to specific fact situations.