Everyone is talking about the HBO hit Succession, but how many people can say they took a law school course on it? A handful of lucky students at the University of Virginia School of Law, that’s who.
The class was a short one-credit class offered before the spring semester started, focusing on scenarios portrayed on the show dealing with corporate law. Students were required to watch the show and read up on topics shown on the series such as mergers, takeovers, and corporate bylaws.
The driving force of Succession is the struggle of four siblings in their endeavors to take over the business of their ailing father’s media empire. His serious health issues have not been disclosed to shareholders, but should they be?
The idea for the course came from a lunch that Virginia professor Cathy Hwang had with Peter Lyon, a corporate and M&A lawyer who also teaches a class at the school. Lyon told her that he was consulting on the show as a legal consultant, and the rest is history.
“It was like this light bulb moment when we said, ‘We should teach a short course on “Succession!’” Hwang said. “We want students to see how these issues shake out in real life.”
She also said that normally she has her students follow an actual corporate merger in real time, but the show was more fun.
“Succession is unusual as a corporate law show, because it’s actually pretty accurate,” she said.
Do you like legal thrillers but hate how they never feature tax attorneys? Quinnipiac School of Law professor Jeff Cooper has you covered. Cooper’s debut novel “After the Fact” was released in November 2021 and tells the tale of Jack Collins, who joins a famous law firm in New York City, leaving behind a small Connecticut practice. He thinks he’s hit the big time, but not all is what it seems. From the official description:
“Jack thinks he’s on the path to glory, but he’s really a victim of deceit, a pawn in a game he doesn’t even know he’s playing. His new boss harbors deep secrets, his seductive coworker is not the person he thinks she is, and his new law firm is at the very center of a blackmail plot involving the widow [of a senator].”
Cooper is also the associate dean for research at Quinnipiac and used his experience in law firms and trust banks to bring some realism to the novel’s setting. While this is his first novel, Cooper has also written and published short fiction and more than 50 academic works.
“On one level, this book is just fun, right?” Cooper says. “A novel. But it actually connects to my teaching insofar as it centers on a group of lawyers who find themselves drawn into a morally complicated situation and explores how they respond.”
Source: https://nationaljurist.com/tv-inspired-law-course-a-legal-thriller-and-best-law-school-rankings/
