WTF is Business Law?

Before we can go deep on any specific topics, first we need a high-level overview of the course. And all that starts with the question: what even is business law?

You might hear "business law" and think that means all the laws you've gotta follow as a business. But nah, that's not really it. Business law isn't a list of rules you're handed. It's the whole legal system that shapes how business actually gets done, whether you're paying attention to it or not.

I researched the course and everything it includes, and here's exactly what's covered and what I'll be distilling into more entries for ya right here. Five core buckets, and together they form the foundation for an understanding of the legal side of business.

1 | Foundations

First, the class gives a foundational understanding of the critical parts of the American legal system. So we're going to look at the essentials of how our government operates that you need to understand in order to apply that to a business setting: where laws actually come from, how courts use precedent to decide new cases, and the basic structure everything else in this list sits on top of.

2 | Contracts

The next big thing a course like this looks at is contracts. Contracts are fundamental to pretty much every business in existence, and if you don't know what you're looking at, it's easy to make a mistake that could cost you a lot of money. What makes an agreement actually binding, who's even allowed to sign one, and what happens when someone breaks it. But we're not gonna make that mistake, cuz we're gonna learn us some things.

3 | Disputes and Liability

The next bucket is disputes and liabilities. It covers things like negotiation, mediation, and arbitration, liability, and settling disagreements. Basically all the stuff you don't wanna do, but you gotta do it, and if you don't understand it, it'll probably be bad. Most business conflicts get settled through one of those three (negotiation, mediation, arbitration) long before anyone sees a courtroom.

4 | Regulation

Next bucket is regulation. This will cover things like limitations to what you're allowed to say in marketing, antitrust laws, and how to avoid other violations. This is the government acting as referee for the whole market, not just two people in a deal: the rules about staying big without getting broken up, and the rules around raising money from investors.

5 | Ownership

And the final bucket is ownership. This looks at the actual things you'll be dealing with on a day-to-day basis as a business owner. How to protect your IP, filing business paperwork, incorporating, ownership itself, and other core concepts that aren't always covered by textbooks, but that are mission critical as a business owner: things like what happens if a business can't pay its debts, handing a business off when an owner leaves, signing your first commercial lease, hiring people the right way, and even newer territory like what you're liable for posting on social media.

And together, these are the 5 core buckets of what we'll learn in business law.

This is just a high-level look at what's covered going forward. If you want to see me turn an entire business degree into distilled, engaging content like this, every entry and source can be found here on the Archive, and there's more coming.