Careers in Law > Corporate Law > Overview
Getting into Corporate Law
Average Experience at Start
% who start in Corporate Law
% people who stay in Corporate Law in their next job
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What is Corporate Law?
Corporate law (also "company" or "corporations" law) is the law of the most dominant kind of business enterprise in the modern world. Corporate law is the study of how shareholders, directors, employees, creditors, and other stakeholders such as consumers, the community and the environment interact with one another under the internal rules of the firm. Corporate law is a part of a broader companies law (or law of business associations). Other types business associations can include partnerships (like most law firms), or trusts (like a pension fund) or companies limited by guarantee (like some universities or charities). Corporate law is about big business, which has separate legal personality, with limited liability for its shareholders, who buy and sell their stocks depending on the performance of the board of directors. It deals with the firms that finish their titles with "plc" (UK), "Inc" (US) or "AG and GmbH" (Germany). According to the American Professors Hansmann and Kraakman of Harvard University, the five defining characteristics of the modern corporation are...
*separate legal personality of the corporation (the right to sue and be sued in its own name)
*limited liability of the shareholders (so that when the company is insolvent, they only owe the money that they subscribed for in shares)
Where are Corporate Law careers found?
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Corporate Law Personality Traits
