When I learnt that every second-year student from the Grande École du Droit would be following a new « Economy and Corporation management » course, taught by Jean-Philippe Denis, a renowned teacher, I must admit that I was rather skeptical at first. Indeed, I did not think it would be very useful for the law students that we are. Besides, as I did not like this subject when I was in high school, I feared that the course would be boring. And I was completely wrong.

Indeed, this course was not about calculating the GDP of a given country, or measuring the impact of an economic phenomenon on a given population, such as indebtedness. We had to think about abstract issues which are key to understand economy and its deep, yet hidden, relationship with law. We became aware that we were all part of a lot of different organizations: a friendship, our university, the economic market… You may wonder how is this statement related to economy and law, but the answer is very simple: it appears obvious that organizations are first imagined in abstracto. Once they are realized and “built”, it is up to the law, and to the rules it provides, to become their pillar and to ensure it does not collapse through regulations.

I can certainly understand that you might feel a little lost right now, as I was lost myself at the beginning of the class! However, this kind of conceptual elements are essential to understand how the “baby lawyers” that we are must deal with legal issues in our everyday life.

Now that I have made a little overview of the purely academic content of the course, I must talk about the most interesting part, which is… the professor and his innovative pedagogy! In order to give you an insight of his personality, I will give you a little fun fact : Professor Denis is very famous in France for having chosen a quote from the French rapper Booba as an exam subject (yes, a rap song as an exam)! In class, he frequently referred to French and American rappers, such as Jay-Z, to explain the notions, and he often showed us movies and videos to support his arguments. We understood that economy (and law) were absolutely everywhere, even in Hollywood movies. We were offered another way to perceive law and the world around us, and I think it is a real advantage of the GED.

The exam was very thrilling and stimulating as well. Professor Denis asked us to write a kind of article about the “Kerviel Case”, that we had to present in front of the class. Jérôme Kerviel was a trader accused of diverting funds from the “Société Générale”, who was discharged in September. In order to motivate us for this difficult task (and I assure you that it truly was), he told us that the best paper would be published on The Conversation, a real research website. You can imagine that it is much more rewarding than a good grade! And … I am quite proud to say that our group, composed of Ariane EDERY, Nina Ravine VA and I won!

This task was really challenging, perhaps the most difficult of the entire semester, but I thought it was extremely interesting to make us look at a case from another point of view.

Overall, although I was really doubtful at the beginning of the year, this course was the one I believe to be the most interesting and the most useful in the whole semester, as it helped us to form a legal reasoning in a totally different way from any other lecture, and any GED student should realize how lucky he is to have such a good teacher!

Timothée FORET (GED2)