I did pretty well in law school. I studied all of the time, had no life, and got great marks. By my final year, I may have gotten just a little bit full of myself.
When selecting my courses for my final year of law school, I needed one more credit. So, devoid of any experience in the real world, I somehow decided that any course which was offered outside of the Faculty of Law would be easier than taking another difficult law course.
I decided to enroll in Accounting 101 offered at night by the Faculty of Management. It was a three-credit course, but I figured that it could not be very challenging, not being a law course. And furthermore, I had studied advanced math and accounting is basically just adding and subtracting, isn’t it?
Here is what I did not know at the time:
- Accounting 101 is difficult, especially if you treat it as a bird course.
- If your balance sheet does not balance during the exam, you should not waste too much time trying to find your mistake.
- McGill University made a great deal of money teaching accounting to eager immigrants to Canada who were working day jobs and studying at night to better themselves. They had no problem failing 70% of every class and having them repeat the course and pay them again.
So, I failed the first exam (the only exam that I failed in my entire academic career) and saw my law degree slipping away. Panic set in. I started treating the course seriously. I did well in the final exam and as a result I became the outrageously successful suburban business lawyer that few of you ever heard of, until I retired and started pontificating on LinkedIn.
Accounting 101 proved to be at least as useful as Business Associations and Advanced Corporate Law in my career. Probably more.
I speak to many young business lawyers today. Very few of them have a clue about basic accounting and financial concepts, probably because law schools do not teach them and/or emphasize their importance.
My advice to the young people who want to practice business law: take Accounting 101 or read Accounting for Dummies or Financial Statements for Dummies.
Or, be a dummy and ignore this excellent advice.
This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc.
3 replies on “How I Almost Failed Out of Law School Taking Accounting 101”
I teach a legal accounting course for a paralegal program at a college. It is required by the LSO. Although the focus is on trust accounting, the course also covers accounting concepts and procedures to run a practice. Students will become familiar with financial statements, HST, office expenses, etc. I also point out to students that if they plan on doing litigation work in small claims court, a lot disputes are over money. Therefore it helps how to interpret and read financial statements. I hope you don’t mind if I share this article with them.
I studied accounting in college and obtained a masters degree in accountancy before going to law school. I also worked in a then “big eight” accounting firm as a tax consultant before going to law school. I can tell you from experience that my accountancy background has been invaluable to my practice of law. Indeed, much of the practice of law, when you boil it down, deals with dollars and cents, and the lawyer who is most facile with that aspect of any matter will have a leg up on those who do not.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I knew nothing about accounting (except for having taken Accounting 101) when I started practicing business law. It took awhile for me to gain some fluency with financial statements and valuation principles, which really helped me in my career. I think that courses in accounting and financial statements (not to mention finance) should be mandatory for law students, or at least those contemplating practicing business law.