Business Law and the Legal Environment, Standard Edition 8th Edition

Book Preface

Eenhanced digital Content—MindTap™ Our goal—and yours—is for the students to learn the material. With that singular goal in mind, Cengage has created an extremely useful tool for both instructors and students. MindTap™ is a fully online, highly personalized learning experience combining readings, multimedia, activities, and assessments into a singular Learning Path.

It integrates seamlessly with Learning Management Systems. MindTap guides students through their course with ease and engagement. Instructors can personalize the Learning Path by customizing Cengage resources and adding their own content via apps that integrate with MindTap.

Our students who use MindTap are better prepared for, and earn better grades on, our exams. We recognize that the online experience is as important to the students—and you—as the book itself. Thus, unlike other texts, we (the authors) have reviewed every question in the MindTap product to ensure that it meets the high standards of our book.

We have heard that business law instructors want to help students Prepare for class, Engage with the course concepts to reinforce learning, Apply these concepts in real-world scenarios, use legal reasoning and critical thinking to Analyze business law content, and Evaluate real business scenarios and their legal implications.

Accordingly, our MindTap product provides a five-step Learning Path designed to meet these critical needs while also allowing instructors to measure skills and outcomes with ease.

• Prepare—Interactive worksheets are designed to prepare students for classroom discussion by ensuring that they have read and understood the reading.

• Engage—Real-world videos with related questions help engage students by displaying the relevance of business law in everyday life.

• Apply—Brief hypothetical case scenarios help students practice spotting issues and applying the law in the context of short factual scenarios.

• Analyze—Case-problem analysis promotes deeper critical thinking and legal reasoning by building on acquired knowledge. These exercises guide students step by step through a case problem and then add in a critical thinking section based on “What If the Facts Were Different?” In a new third section, a writing component requires students to demonstrate their ability to forecast the legal implications of real-world business scenarios.

• Evaluate—New business case activities develop students’ skills to apply critical thinking and legal reasoning through relevant real-world business scenarios. These exercises give students the opportunity to advocate, evaluate, and make a decision through a variety of flexible assessment options including Discussion Questions, Multiple-Choice Questions, Short-Answer Essays, Group Work, and Ethical Dilemmas. Whether you have a large class, small class, teach online or in a traditional classroom setting, promote group work, or individual assignments, the MindTap Business Cases offer a variety of activity types to complement and enhance how YOU teach. Each and every item in the Learning Path is assignable and gradable.

Thus instructors have up-to-the-minute information on the class’ general understanding of concepts as well as data on the performance of each individual student. Students also know where they stand— both individually and compared to the highest performers in the class. Thus, both faculty and students are less likely to face unpleasant surprises on exams. MindTap also includes:

• Case Collection where instructors can find over 1,600 additional cases that were included in several previous editions of all of the Cengage Business Law or Legal Environment texts. These cases are searchable by name, year, state, and subject matter.

• Adaptive Test Prep for students, where they can generate their own practice quizzes with questions similar to those found on most exams. To view a demo video and learn more about MindTap, please visit www.cengage.com/ mindtap. The Beatty/samuelson/abril difference Our goal in writing this book was to capture the passion and excitement, the sheer enjoyment, of the law. Business law is notoriously complex, and, as authors, we are obsessed with accuracy. Yet this intriguing subject also abounds with human conflict and hard-earned wisdom, forces that we wanted to use to make this book sparkle. Look, for example, at Chapter 33 on corporations. A robust discussion of the nitty gritty of corporate governance is enlivened by court cases featuring intense personal conflict. Once we have the students’ attention, our goal is to provide the information they will need as business people and as informed citizens. Of course, we present the theory of how laws work, but we also explain when reality is different. To take some examples, traditionally business law textbooks have simply taught students that shareholders elect the directors of public companies. Even Executive MBA students rarely understand the reality of corporate elections. But our book explains the complexity of corporate power. The practical contracts chapter focuses not on the theory of contract law but on the real-life issues involved in making an agreement: Do I need a lawyer? Should the contract be in writing? What happens if the contract has an unclear provision or an important typo? What does all that boilerplate mean anyway? Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson famously said, “Let those who will write the nation’s laws, if I can write its textbooks.” As authors, we never forget the privilege—and responsibility—of educating a generation of business law students. Our goal is to write a business law text like no other—a book that is authoritative, realistic, and yet a pleasure to read. Strong narrative. The law is full of great stories, and we use them. It is easier to teach students when they come to class curious and excited. Every chapter begins with a story that is based in fact, to illustrate important issues. We also include stories in the body of the chapters. Look at Chapter 3 on dispute resolution. No tedious list of next steps in litigation, this chapter teaches the subject by tracking a double-indemnity lawsuit. An executive is dead. Did he drown accidentally, obligating the insurance company to pay? Or did the businessman commit suicide, voiding the policy? Students follow the action from the discovery of the body, through each step of the lawsuit, to the final appeal. Context. Most of our students were not yet born when Bill Clinton was elected president. They come to college with varying levels of preparation; many arrive from other countries. We have found that to teach business law most effectively we must provide its context. In the chapter on employment discrimination, we provide a historical perspective to help students understand how the laws developed. In the chapter on securities laws, we discuss the impact of the depression on the major statutes. Only with this background do students grasp the importance and impact of our laws.