Teaching Unincorporated Business Associations Through a Simulated Start-Up

Abstract

This paper describes the Unincorporated Business Associations course taught by the author. The course is organized around a simulated start-up LLC. Students are assigned roles as counsel for one of the founders of the simulated LLC. Over a series of four exercises, students negotiate and draft the provisions of an operating agreement. The course both helps develop important practice skills such as negotiating and drafting, but more fundamentally helps students understand the law of business associations through understanding how that law provides background legal rules for drafting the terms of individual agreements.

Keywords: limited liability companies, teaching simulations, business associations

JEL Classification: D21, G30, K22, M13