Teaching law to business students: An inquiry into curriculum and methodology*

Abstract

This article presents the findings of the survey conducted among business and accountancy students of the Nanyang Business School, Singapore, on the teaching of business law. The article is organised in three main sections. Section 1 formulates the framework for the research by outlining the three basic approaches adopted across many jurisdictions for the legal education of business students—the traditionalist ("black‐letter law"), the environmentalist and mixed approaches. Section 2 briefly describes the survey questions drawn up in the light of four principal objectives that, according to legal educators, the teaching of business law should achieve. Section 3 presents and examines the findings. The article concludes that law teaching at the Nanyang Business School conforms to the traditional approach. The author accordingly makes recommendations for the transformation of current teaching and assessment medthods: an injection of a great deal of “environmental” content and context‐based education; more use of actual and current cases, practical examples and a link to the business environment.