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.
One reply 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.