Secured Transactions

Catalog description

This course examines the law of consensual liens on personal property under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. (I know; it sounds boring, but it's actually pretty cool.) The course deals with the use of personal property (both tangible and intangible) as collateral to secure payment or performance obligations. Course materials cover creation of the security interest, effectiveness of the security interest as against the claims of third parties, priorities of claims between competing secured parties and other lien holders and rights upon foreclosure. Having spent my career as a partner-level transactional lawyer (corporate matters, secured debt work, securitization, bankruptcy) at two large firms (Mayer Brown and Kirkland & Ellis) as well as several years as general counsel at a NASDAQ-listed company, I want students to get a deep sense of the practical considerations that should inform their work with the UCC. Article 9 is also tested for the bar exam, so this course will have some immediate pay-offs for law students, irrespective of their intended career path. I will use anonymous polling software to facilitate class discussions. Class time will be split between lectures that give the essential principles of each topic we study and interactive question periods as we work through hypothetical problems contained in the text book.