This business law textbook made available by Court.rchp.com was originally published in 2012 and provides context and essential concepts across the entire range of legal issues. Keep in mind that certain concepts about the law are timeless, however, the law changes daily. One of the purposes of legal research is to discover whether certain laws or court rulings are still valid law.
For those not familiar with the law, we encourage you to read chapters 1 and 3 to gain a basic understanding about our legal system. otherwise read any chapters of interest to you. Although, 53 chapters are included in this book, you don't need to read each and every chapter. Pace yourself, some might read a chapter per day, while others may read one chapter per week. Every chapter contains overviews that include a list of key terms, chapter summaries, and self-test questions in multiple-choice format (along with answers).
It's obvious to most that our law enforcement and legal system is broken. Our broken justice system disproportanately impacts poor and minority populations. The coronavirus (aka covid 19) crisis will cause many people to lose jobs, their cars, housing and create many additional hardships. Don't wait until you have a legal crisis, use some of your extra free time to become more familiar with the law.
The law affects each of our daily lives. Studying law is not just for legal professionals. Basic knowledge of the law provides understanding of fundamental rights, consumer protection and empowers us with reason instead of fear in adverse situations. For instance, if you were detained by a police officer without having committed any crime and were threatened with arrest, you're likely to plead with them not to arrest you as you have done nothing wrong. But when you're empowered with knowledge and know that you cannot be arrested without a reasonable cause, then you behave differently instead of pleading.
Unfortunately, the law is neither fair nor just, but it's the only system we have. The more familiar you are with our legal system, the better your chances for a favorable outcome. You might be able to negotiate a lower payment or balance on credit cards, you might be able to stall a foreclosure providing you more time to find new housing, sell items and move or you could win your case outright with the proper preparation.
The book is presented under a license which typically requires attributing the source of the work (author, title, and URI). However, the publisher has expressed a desire to remain anonymous which is being honored.
Licensing Information
This Business Law text book was adapted by Court.rchp.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License without attribution as requested by the work's original creator or licensor.
Court.rchp.com would like to thank Andy Schmitz for his work in maintaining and improving the HTML versions of these textbooks. This textbook is adapted from his HTML version, and his project can be found here.
