Regulatory Compliance Concentration

With the ever-changing laws and regulations governing corporations, economic markets and institutions, professionals across industries need to understand how these changes will impact their organization. Through the Regulatory Compliance concentration, you will gain the legal foundation needed to successfully interpret legal regulations, analyze contractual agreements, implement workplace policies and prevent legal actions against your organization.

As part of the online Master of Legal Studies (MLS) and Master of Laws (LL.M.) in U.S. Law programs, the Regulatory Compliance concentration is ideal for students who work in a highly regulated field and want to gain a deeper understanding of the laws and legal processes involved in ensuring compliance.

If you are interested in learning more about the online programs and the Regulatory Compliance concentration, request information today.

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Who Should Pursue a Regulatory Compliance Concentration?

Professionals who could benefit from the Regulatory Compliance concentration include:

  • Compliance officers who protect their company by ensuring that rules, regulations and company policies are being followed
  • Financial analysts who analyze shifts in financial regulations and give investment recommendations to clients in compliance with those new regulations
  • Health-care administrators who navigate complex health-care legislation such as HIPAA or the Affordable Care Act so that they can comply with the law and provide proper care
  • Legal nurse consultants who provide expert medical advice in legal proceedings and analyze medical portions of legal documents
  • Government accountants who track the spending of government agencies and ensure employee benefits are in compliance with employment laws
  • Small-business owners who need to understand the latest local and federal laws impacting their business in order to keep the organization running smoothly
  • Tax auditors who need to comply with new financial legislation when creating and revising financial reports
  • Health insurance agents who guide clients through the health-care system and stay up to date with changes in insurance laws

Concentration Requirements

To pursue the Regulatory Compliance concentration, you must be enrolled in the online MLS or LL.M. in U.S. Law program and complete 9 credits from the predefined courses below. Contracts and Corporate Compliance are required, but you may select either Business Associations, Health Law or Employment Law as your remaining 3-credit course. These credits count toward the total credits required for each program.

Contracts (Required)

This course is designed to introduce students to U.S. contracts. Contracts are vitally important in understanding U.S. law as they are the foundation of corporate law and cover areas such as employment, loans and credit. In addition to learning principles behind U.S. theories of contractual obligation, the course is intended to provide instruction in “how to succeed” in a U.S. law school class.

3 CREDITS

Corporate Compliance (Required)

What causes companies to break the law? How do we incentivize them not to? Who should we blame when they do? These are the core questions of corporate compliance and the focus of this class. Rather than reading several court decisions, this class will work primarily from case studies of recent compliance failures. Our goal will be to study what went wrong at the company level and whether the relevant laws are effectively designed to prevent the misconduct. We will also cover theories of regulatory enforcement and punishment. This course will be interesting for those considering compliance positions as well as those interested in regulatory agency and corporate defense practice.

3 CREDITS

Business Associations

This course is a survey of the law of business associations, emphasizing corporations and issues and problems relating to corporate governance. The course covers publicly and closely held corporations, the organization of business associations, the distribution of power, and control between management and shareholders, with a focus on the fiduciary duties of directors and officers. In this regard, students explore the developing notions of fiduciary duties to shareholders and other stakeholders. The course explores the rapidly evolving nationalization of corporate governance standards and its implications. The course further focuses on practical application of the material by applying the fundamentals of corporate organization through collaborative class exercises.

3 CREDITS

Health Law

This course will introduce you to the U.S. health-care system and the legal issues associated with it. We will begin with an overview of the U.S. health-care system, including the Affordable Care Act, the legal challenges to it, and attempts to repeal and replace it. We will then examine private, state and federal regulation of the health-care system, including ERISA, HIPAA, EMTALA, Medicare, Medicaid, federal fraud and abuse law, tax and antitrust law. The second part of the class will focus on the provider-patient relationship and the legal issues that arise within that relationship. We will discuss life-and-death issues such as abortion, the right to die and surrogate decision-making. The class concludes by exploring the ethical issues involved with eugenics, assisted reproduction, cloning, genetics, organ transplantation and human subject research. The recorded sessions, including several guest lectures by experts, will provide you with the fundamentals of health law. During the live sessions, we will discuss cases and topics in the news, such as universal health care and tort reform. You also will be asked to apply the principles from the recorded sessions to hypothetical situations. You may be divided into teams to develop or defend a medical malpractice case, prosecute or defend a fraud and abuse case, or serve as a hospital attorney advising clients in a right-to-die situation.

3 CREDITS

Employment Law

This course is designed to introduce students to U.S. employment law, including laws, rules and regulations related to types of employment; hiring and firing practices; prohibited discriminatory practices; employee wages; hours and benefits requirements; and various governmental processes and procedures. This course is an experiential course in which students will have multiple opportunities to apply legal theory to practical, real-life settings.

3 CREDITS