| CODE | LAW5038 | ||||||||
| TITLE | Accountancy Skills for the Legal Profession | ||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 05 - Postgraduate Modular Diploma or Degree Course | ||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 7 | ||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 5 | ||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Faculty of Laws | ||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit will expose law students to accounting and its value not only in their professional lives as lawyers but also in order to make law students aware of their roles and responsibilities when compiling personal financial returns to fiscal authorities. It will explore the importance of accounting within the legal framework of both court work as well as its importance in relation to advice given to clients involved in commercial decisions. This knowledge will prove essential for students who intend to take up a career in Corporate Business, structures and finance or in matters relating to financial services, or to pursue postgraduate studies in any of these subjects. A knowledge of how to interpret various accounting statements should enable law students to be in a position to better advise their clients as to the best way forward, given certain circumstances, in order to minimise the possibility of useless lawsuits as well as towards the potential identification of possible bad debtors. Students would also be in a position to identify problem areas potentially exposed by the accounting systems of a corporate structure which might possibly require specific procedures to be adopted in order to make that procedure compliant with law as well as with the standards required in order that the information contained therein would be stored in a way which would enhance its probative value in front of the Courts. Students should be in a position to at least analyse, even if not to the depth normally expected from a fully fledged financial expert in order to be able to put the client in a position to realise whether further consultation with the relative financial or commercial experts is warranted in the particular situation under review. It will enter into the various ways which accounting can be used within a corporate structure in order to ensure stricter compliance with the various laws and regulations in force as well as to ensure that adequate review procedures sometimes necessitated by the need of adherence to these regulations. Study-unit Aims: This study-unit aims to assist the student in becoming able to compile simple accounting statements but more importantly to be able to identify areas within accounting statements which indicate that further professional advice might be warranted. In order to do this, they should be in a position to analyse various financial statements with a view of potential problem areas which might warrant further investigation and possibly advice of a more specialised nature which may be sought from the relevant financial expert, whose expertise may possibly be more relevant in as far as its specialisation is concerned to the problem under consideration This study-unit should be extremely useful for Law students wishing to pursue a career or postgraduate studies in Financial or Corporate Services or similar, as it tries to provide a sound basis upon which all accounting, especially in respect of Corporate structures should be based. The student, at the end of the unit should be in a position to identify areas which might possibly prove problematic on the legal front, as well as possibly on other relevant fronts essential to the legal and possibly financial well being of the, usually corporate, client as a whole, in the future. The possible identification of these problems would lead to possible preemptive corrective action being taken, if required, at an early stage from the part of the client, thus preventing possibly costly lawsuits in the future both from the part of the other parties in the commercial scene as well as from the part of authorities who are enjoined to ensure compliance with the relevant legislation. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - master the basic principles underlying the scope and significance of accounting statements and appreciate the way these principles are in fact reflected in legislation and how; - interpret accounts in such a way as to possibly identify certain potentially problematic areas, which might require further investigations or perhaps a possibly preemptive course of action to undertaken; - acquire an ability to use financial statements to enhance the legal knowledge accumulated throughout the course particularly from studies in company, commercial and financial law. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - compile simple accounting statements nowadays considered necessary for presentation to fiscal authorities, as well as those which might possibly help him towards a position whereby his final advice to his client might possibly be more meaningful; - identify areas within various financial statements which might indicate the existence of particular situations which might warrant further investigation and thus possibly be in a position to recommend corrective or even preemptive action in its respect. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: - Wood Frank - Business Accounting Vol I - Pearson Education, 2005 - Wood Frank - Business Accounting Vol II - Pearson Education, 2005 - Mott Graham - Accounting for Non Accountants - Kogan Page 9th Edition, 2013 - Nicholson Richard W - Basic Accounting for Lawyers - Ali-Aba Publishing, 1999 - Esron McGruder Faris - Accounting for lawyers - Michie Co., 1982 - Silverstone Howard, Sheetz Michael - Forensic Accounting and Fraud Investigation for Non-Experts - John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., 2003 Scott Peter - Accounting for Business (3rd Edition) – University of Oxford, 2018. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||
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| LECTURER/S | Ivan Paul Grixti |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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