Business Law at Western

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Western Law’s focus on business law in the global environment is unique among all Canadian law schools. As Canada’s premier business law school, Western Law’s business law curriculum offers a wide range of courses examining the fundamentals of business organizations, finance, securities, mergers and acquisitions, trade and taxation, as well as leading-edge topics in mining and energy law, corporate social responsibility, and corporate restructuring.

Western’s Business Law Advantage

  • A Canadian First: Corporate Law Available as a First-Year Elective
    Western Law offers first-year students the option of taking Corporate Law in the Winter Term. This option, unique among Canadian law schools, allows interested students to begin taking more advanced courses immediately in the fall of second year.
  • JD/MBA and HBA/JD Degree Programs with the Ivey Business School
    The Ivey Business School of Business at Western University is one of the world’s leading business schools, and Western Law regularly collaborates with our colleagues at Ivey.  Western Law and the Ivey Business School offer two joint programs:  the Concurrent HBA/JD program and the JD/MBA program which, we are proud to say, was the first three-year JD/MBA program offered in Canada.
  • Western Business Law Clinic
    The law school is home to the Western Business Law Clinic, which provides small start-up and early stage businesses with affordable legal counsel, while at the same time creating an environment for students to learn invaluable practical skills.
  • Torys LLP Corporate and Securities Law Forum
    Thanks to a generous gift from the Torys LLP law firm and Western Law alumni at that firm, Torys LLP has established or contributed to a unique series of ongoing corporate law initiatives at Western Law. Read more
  • Canada’s Finest Visiting Distinguished Business Law Visitors Program
    Western Law’s pre-eminence in Canadian business law studies is reflected in its visiting business and law speakers programs. These programs are, without question, the finest in the country and are second to none anywhere in the world. Top international scholars and business leaders visit Western Law each year to speak to our students or teach intensive specialized courses, under the auspices of our signature business law visitors programs: the Torys LLP Business and Law Pre-Eminent Scholars series, the annual Western Business and Law Lecture in Business Law and the Richard H. McLaren Visiting Professorship in Business Law.

    Business law visitors to Western Law since 2007 have included three Nobel prize winners, a former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, the Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court and senior business law professors from the world's leading law schools, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Chicago, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Oxford, Cambridge, Melbourne, Tokyo and the Max Planck Institute.

    Among the dozens of internationally-renowned business law scholars who have visited Western Law to lecture or, in some cases, to offer intensive courses for Western Law students as part of our JD program since 2007 are the following:

    Myron S. Scholes (Co-recipient 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics)

    Robert Shiller (Co-recipient 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics)

    George Akerlof (Co-recipient 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics)

    Lawrence Summers (Former US Secretary of the Treasury; President Emeritus, Harvard University)

    Roberta Romano (Yale Law School)

    Hideki Kanda (University of Tokyo)

    Leo E. Strine, Jr. (Chief Justice, Delaware Supreme Court)

    Gary Gorton (Yale University)

    Reinier Kraakman (Harvard Law School)

    Klaus Hopt (Max Planck Institute)

    Brian Cheffins (University of Cambridge)

    Ronald Gilson (Stanford Law School)

    Douglas Baird (University of Chicago)

    John Armour (Oxford)

    Ian Ramsay (University of Melbourne)

    Henry Hu (University of Texas)

    Henry Hansmann (Yale Law School)

    Lynn Stout (Cornell University)

    Hal Scott (Harvard Law School)

    William Bratton (University of Pennsylvania)

    Alan Schwartz (Yale Law School)

    Robert Daines (Stanford Law School)

    Donald Langevoort (Georgetown Law)

    Ian Ayres (Yale Law School)

    Merritt Fox (Columbia)

    Margaret Blair (Vanderbilt)

    Bernard Black (Northwestern University)

    David Skeel (University of Pennsylvania)

Business Law Centres
Western Law is host, or co-host, to a number of exciting business law initiatives, including:

Centre for Financial Innovation and Risk Management: Western Law, together with experts from the departments of Economics, Applied Mathematics, Statistical & Actuarial Sciences and the Ivey Business School, have formed an interdisciplinary Centre for Financial Innovation and Risk Management to engage in research, outreach and other initiatives aimed at addressing the challenges that led to, and emerged from, the 2008 global financial crisis.

Master of Financial Economics (MFE) program: The Western MFE program is a collaborative program of the Department of Economics, the Ivey Business School, the Department of Statistical and Actuarial Sciences and Western Law. These units have joined forces to provide MFE students with a broad understanding of Financial Theory and the Economics framework upon which that theory is based, as well as the understanding of Quantitative Finance and Securities Regulation, required for today's complex financial world.