Thanks to everyone who has contributed ideas for our response. This really
helps. Brent and I are putting together the final version now and I will
see if Dan can post it in a more "user friendly" manner.  Very briefly
though, the kinds of suggestions that were made (and thanks very much to
the members of ALSB Western who provided lots of input last weekend):
 
contracts - don't delete. I think everyone understood and agreed with the
motivation, but this was not the way to express these views and also not
the time and place.
 
change "auditor fraud" to "auditor duties to detect fraud"
 
refer to the new detection duty under the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act, 1995
 
Include Article 2B of the UCC given the likely increase in audit duties
relating to software contracts etc.
 
Include environmental regulation under property
 
Rather than have intellectual property as a separate topic, include it
under property and make the division between personal and private.
 
In response to the more general comments re less concentration on
memorization and more breadth etc. I would propose deleting the sentence
beginning "Given the vast number of topics..." p. 2 and replacing it with
something like:
 
"Indeed, you will see that we suggest few changes to topic coverage. Our
primary recommendation is that the delivery of materials, rather than the
topics themselves, meet the AICPA objectives. Most of our members today
are acutely aware that their task is to ensure their students understand
the interaction betweem the legal/regulatory and the business (including
accounting) environments. They use creative and innovative methods in the
classroom to achieve this goal. Both the curriculum and the examination
process should reflect this breadth of expectation. The objective should
be a longterm understanding of key issues."
 
John Baxby has suggested adding to the end of the second para, pg. 1:
"As CPA firms further diversify their practices, it becomes all the more
important that all CPA candidates are equipped with the basic
understanding of substantive law and the procedures of legal and public
policy making processes that will permit them to effectively remain current
as law and regulation predictably evolve. CPA's scholarly exposire to basic
business law and legal/regulatory environment issues will permit them to
retool easily as the law must respond to changing technology"
 
The more I write of this, the more I think bus law is the solution to all
the world's problems and should be mandatory from kindergarten on!
 
Unless I hear strong objections I shall incorporate the above (not the
immediately above para though!). I still have to "find" 5 percent if
contracts stays in. Intell prop doesn't take 5 and I guess the UCC goes
back to 20.
 
Finally (finally): someone sent me a copy of an article from the J of Acc
Education that you may already be familiar with: "Inconsistencies in the
Business Law Education of Accounting Students: A survey of accounting
educators". Kocakulah, Austill and Schibik (two out of three from Southern
Indiana), Vol13, no. 1, 1995, pp 75 - 85. The abstract is as follows:
 
"A general requirement for an accountant to take the CPA examination is
the completion of a course in business law. It appears that what
constitutes the business law course requirements is rather loosely defined
and leaves excessive room for interpretation. What is a business law
course? A survey of accounting educators regarding the business law
requirements and the law courses taught at their respective school
reveals, inter alia, a divergence of opinion regarding the business law
requirement, the perceived objective of teaching business law to
accounting students, the importance of the legal topics included on the CPA
exam, and the coverage of those topics at their respective institutions.
In general, accounting educators are encouraged to both review their
current business law requirements and to take a more active role in
monitoring the business law curriculum."
 
That's all.
 
Sally