Business Law

Overview

The GPLLM in Business Law is intended to provide a multi-disciplinary perspective on the impact of globalization on the law and sophisticated legal institutions to professionals, policymakers and lawyers. Through comparative examples, case studies and real business deals, non-lawyers will gain a solid understanding of the constructs of Canadian business law and add immediate value to their career. The GPLLM will help professionals to identify and engage with legal issues, to make more thoughtful decisions about when and how to engage legal counsel, work more effectively with their lawyers, and more.

Program Length and Structure

The GPLLM is a full-time executive program offered in the evenings and on weekends in order to accommodate the schedules of busy professionals. The program consists of three terms (September to December, January to April, and May to mid-July). The schedule offers a deliberate balance between rigorous academic engagement, and respect for your personal and professional commitments.

The GPLLM consists of a wide variety of courses. Over the course of eleven months, students complete ten courses, including five courses from within their concentration. Students are required to take five courses from within their concentration, including one required course, and can take the remainder of their courses from any of the four concentrations offered.

The program may be completed in one year (three sessions with a F/W/S registration sequence) or through an extended full-time option that allows students to complete the program requirements over two years (six sessions with a F/W/S/F/W/S registration sequence). 

Curriculum

The GPLLM curriculum is carefully curated in order to provide students with exposure to the legal issues and problems that are foundational, and also most timely and relevant.  Students will gain an understanding of key legal concepts and tools, and have the opportunity to apply them to real-world problems, including ones they confront in their own workplaces. Primarily through independent activities, but also in teams, students acquire skills and knowledge that will immediately being to inform how they approach problems and challenges. The skills involved in “thinking like a lawyer” are new, and, we are told, transformative,

The GPLLM program offers students both cohesiveness and flexibility in course selection. The program consists of approximately 40 courses. Each concentration is tied together by its own mandatory course, held on Friday evenings in the fall term.  Students are required to take at least five (5) courses within their concentration. The remainder of their courses can be selected from any of the concentrations, providing students with the ability to curate a program of study that reflects their unique interests.

Students have found that there is considerable synergy between, for example, courses in the Business Concentration and in the Innovation, Law and Technology space, and they have found the ability to take courses in multiple concentrations to be an impactful aspect of the program. Please see the following pages for course descriptions for the Business Law concentration, the Canadian Law concentration, and the Innovation, Law & Technology concentration.

While subject to change, typically the method of evaluation includes written assignments, group work, presentation, and participation. 

Business Law Courses

*Please note that not all courses will necessarily be available every year.

  • Law & Business in a Global Environment (required)
  • Canadian & Cross-Border Issues in Corporate Tax
  • Applied Contract Law
  • Intellectual Property and Strategy
  • Anti-Corruption Law: International, Domestic, and Practical Perspectives
  • Comparative Corporate Governance
  • Securities Regulation and Corporate Finance
  • Mergers and Acquisitions
  • International Insolvency Law
  • Competition Law

Please also see Business Law - Course Descriptions.