I use West's Business Law, supplemented with recent court decisions.
The students are already assigned to teams as part of our (Rice
University, Jones School) executive MBA program, and the teams are
assigned the plaintiff, defendant and court roles for each supplemental
case.  They then have to advocate and make the case factually and
legally for their party's position, including discussing the practical
ramifications of their party's legal position.  A slight variation on
the approach you are considering.  The West Business Law text is very
easy to read and not overly slanted against lawyers.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Donna Cunningham
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 2:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Textbooks and Publishers

I'm searching for a new textbook for my Legal Environment of Business
course, and can think of no better panel of experts than the members of
this list. 

Ideally, I'm looking for a text which will work with my approach of
using a kind of business simulation.  After practicing business law for
20 years, I had an idea of how I wanted to approach the course. At the
beginning of the semester, students are divided into teams, the teams
form businesses, and as they study each topic throughout the semester,
they apply the study topics to the business.  Among other assignments,
they decide on a type of business, they choose a form of organization
for the business, they draft a Business Ethics Policy for that business,
they negotiate and draft a contract with another business in the class,
and they research and present their findings at the end of the class
about whether to take their business international to a country selected
at random.  As you can see, we attempt to focus on practical business
application, applying the concepts studied in a concrete way. 

Some have told me that there are different approaches to an LEOB text,
such as a management approach, or a business and society approach, or an
ethics approach, and others, but I'm unclear on exactly how these are
different. 

The text I'm looking for should promote ethical business conduct, should
have a positive (or at least, not a negative) view of attorneys, and
should address U.S. Constitutional principles, the force and effects of
globalization, and all of the usual topics found in an LEOB text. 

A publisher's representative just left, but while here, told me about
alternatives to hard cover textbooks, including custom publishing
(somewhat
cheaper) and online textbooks (much cheaper). So I'm also interested in
what anyone knows about using these different formats.  

Finally, I've been writing my own supporting materials for the business
simulation approach for the past 3 1/2 years.  If it turns out that
there is no text which fits well with what I'm doing, I might just write
one myself - in which case, I'd need a publisher.  Many of you have
worked with publishers.  What advice would you have?  I'd appreciate any
and all advice.


Regards,
 
 
 
Donna J. Cunningham, J.D.
Assistant Professor of Management
Valdosta State University
[log in to unmask]
(229) 249-2606