Business Acumen Sampler

An introduction to the four main financial statements, with examples of how the statements are affected by different business transactions.

An introduction to balance sheets, including an explanation of the balance sheet equation and descriptions of assets, liabilities and shareholders’ equity.

Valuation is one of the most fundamental concepts in corporate finance. This course describes the different measures of a company’s value, and the various techniques used to value businesses and their assets.

A summary of how depreciation and amortization work and how they show up on the financial statements.

This course introduces the fundamentals of financial modeling and discusses how it’s relevant to lawyers.

The key financial concepts in M&A practice, including valuations, the main financial provisions in M&A agreements and general tax and accounting issues.

The key financial concepts in capital markets practice, including types of securities, pricing, securities offerings and periodic reporting.

The key financial concepts in lending practice, including the main types of loans and their risk, financial reporting requirements for borrowers, financial covenants, and credit ratings.

The key financial concepts in litigation practice, including how financial statements are used by litigators, which bookkeeping records might be included in a document request, the roles of financial experts and fact witnesses, and the basis of calculations for damages or settlements.

If you’re new to Excel, start here. This course introduces the concepts of cells, rows and columns, shows how to navigate Excel 2016 for Windows, and describes the basics of entering data and doing calculations.

Lawyers often have to deal with large sets of data when working on a litigation or transaction. This course covers the Excel features that make it easier to work with large data sets, including filtering and sorting data, freezing panes and splitting the window.

A PivotTable can be useful for summarizing and analyzing large sets of data. This course describes how to create and work with PivotTables.