Welcome to LawShelf’s video-course on business organizations. In this course, we’ll introduce you to the wide array of business forms, discuss how to create specific business entities, and explain the benefits and pitfalls of each type of business organization. This is an introductory level course and no prior experience or knowledge of business law is necessary.

A business organization is an entity formed to advance a commercial enterprise. It can be formed by one person or multiple people. We interact with businesses daily and they drive our nation’s economy.

This course begins by discussing the types of business entities and the state and federal laws that impact business formation. We will spend much of our time describing the factors an entrepreneur should consider prior to forming a business, such as liability, ownership, costs, taxation and transferability of ownership interests.

We will then move to specific entities, starting with partnerships. We will discuss the benefits of partnership formation and consider the categories of partnerships before explaining partners’ rights and duties to one another and to the partnership.

In the next part of the course, we will focus on corporations. We’ll start with closely held corporations, including the “S corporation,” which is a pass-through entity for tax purposes. We’ll consider the process of incorporation and we will use examples to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of the corporate form.

In the latter half of our course, we’ll explore larger business organizations. We’ll discuss publicly traded companies, including the process of going public. We’ll also focus on how large corporations are managed and the roles of shareholders, directors and officers of a corporation. We will conclude by looking at limited liability companies, focusing on their benefits over other business forms and their operations.  

Best of luck and we welcome your feedback.