MBA Students

Swimming With Sharks: Unique New Course Teaches Legal Financial Arbitrage

Law and business students learn to combine legal expertise and financial trading skills—and face a Shark Tank-style final project.

The teams of student-entrepreneurs stood before a panel of celebrity judges, pitching their plans to make killer investments in airlines, mattress stores, satellite TV companies, and even Walmart. Dollars, percentages, contract terms, and other specifics flew back and forth between experts and tyros.

Any resemblance to Shark Tank, the reality TV show, was strictly intentional—minus, of course, the dramatic music, studio lighting, snappy editing, and real money.

But unlike the vast stream of seemingly similar reality shows, the new Columbia Law School course “Legal Financial Arbitrage: Merger Arbitrage and Beyond” had a unique pedagogical twist.