Similarly, a student who plans on some specialized career in private practice will often be heavily involved in fields considered remote in law school. Thus, a criminal lawyer is likely to find that many cases involve problems of tax law and accounting, while a corporation lawyer may need knowledge of fields such as labor and antitrust law in order to respond effectively to all problems corporate clients may have. Clinical education, as pointed out later in this statement, assists by introducing and exploring issues of professional role and responsibility relevant to all forms of practice. Accounting Students are encouraged to take accounting because the course provides a basic introduction to approaches and techniques of the accounting profession that are of greater relevance to the work of the bar than those of any other profession. The course is not designed to enable the student to perform accountant's work.
Little emphasis is put on bookkeeping, and no mathematical skill is required.
Instead, the course is intended to enable a lawyer to communicate effectively with accountants, to evaluate their advice, and to reach sound decisions in areas where legal and accounting issues interact. Experience shows that a lawyer unversed in accounting, and in particular one who reacts negatively to it, will attribute too much precision and finality to the views of accountants and will underestimate the degree to which those views are based on judgments between competing views and considerations. In terms of Law School subjects, Accounting is most obviously related to Corporations, Taxation and related courses, but it also has applications in Economic Regulation. In addition, some work in Accounting is a prerequisite for the third-year course in Business Planning. This may be of special importance to the lawyer engaged in counseling new businesses in economically underdeveloped urban areas.