My school offers these two focus areas. The school site isn't much help on elaborating the distinction between the two, other than that commercial law is a bit more UCC intensive. But shit, any good business lawyer worthy of the title ought to know the UCC as well so that's not a helpful distinction. And likewise, the business law curriculum has more focus on business organizations, but again, I say any commercial lawyer worth his or her salt better damn well know that shit too. So I tried Googling "A day in the life of a business lawyer" and the same for commercial lawyer, and that only seemed to further my suspicion that there isn't that much of a difference between the two. It gave me the strong impression that "business lawyer" and "commercial lawyer" are interchangeable terms.
Enlighten me, please.
2Ls, 3Ls, and beyond: Explain Business Law v. Commercial Law Forum
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- patrickd139
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Re: 2Ls, 3Ls, and beyond: Explain Business Law v. Commercial Law
Unless I'm wrong (entirely possible), it seems like business v. commercial law IRL seems like semantics. Clearly, your school has made a differentiation between the two. Have you talked to your CSO or Dean of Students or whoever usually fields this type of question?
My guess: they had two programs that were similar in many aspects, yet different in a few key ways, needed two names, and named one Business Law and the other Commercial Law.
My guess: they had two programs that were similar in many aspects, yet different in a few key ways, needed two names, and named one Business Law and the other Commercial Law.
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Re: 2Ls, 3Ls, and beyond: Explain Business Law v. Commercial Law
As you recognized, the usual distinction is that business law is about the structure of the business itself. For example, when can one partner sue another partner, when can a stockholder sue a director, etc. Commercial law is about transactions between businesses (banking transactions, A sells this to B, etc).