Developing Financial Literacy as a Litigator Forum

[Anonymous User]

I am a biglaw lot lawyer in a NYC office and my background is not one of financial literacy. I know about stocks and bonds, what the fed does, etc... but some of my colleagues can talk circles around me with all these financial terms, understanding of financial accounting, business valuation, etc... I really want to gain expertise in this area and I am wondering where to start or if any litigators in similar situations took an online course or something to gain more expertise. Kicking myself for not taking any of these classes in undergrad or law school.

[Anonymous User]

I am a biglaw lot lawyer in a NYC office and my background is not one of financial literacy. I know about stocks and bonds, what the fed does, etc... but some of my colleagues can talk circles around me with all these financial terms, understanding of financial accounting, business valuation, etc... I really want to gain expertise in this area and I am wondering where to start or if any litigators in similar situations took an online course or something to gain more expertise. Kicking myself for not taking any of these classes in undergrad or law school.

Just googling and reading about specific finance topics on the internet is the best thing for this (assuming that you have the ability to distinguish the legitimate internet sources from the illegitimate ones).

[Anonymous User]

I am a biglaw lot lawyer in a NYC office and my background is not one of financial literacy. I know about stocks and bonds, what the fed does, etc... but some of my colleagues can talk circles around me with all these financial terms, understanding of financial accounting, business valuation, etc... I really want to gain expertise in this area and I am wondering where to start or if any litigators in similar situations took an online course or something to gain more expertise. Kicking myself for not taking any of these classes in undergrad or law school.

Just googling and reading about specific finance topics on the internet is the best thing for this (assuming that you have the ability to distinguish the legitimate internet sources from the illegitimate ones).

I think you're overestimating how granularly people understand these things; I think it is more a general understanding of how a DCF works than being able to actually model one.

In addition to the above, just like read Matt Levine lol

[Anonymous User]

Matt Levine on Wall Street stuff. If you do commercial lit you’ll see a lot of business valuation in practice and pick up the lingo and basic math quickly, it’s not rocket science.

[Anonymous User]

Matt Levine on Wall Street stuff. If you do commercial lit you’ll see a lot of business valuation in practice and pick up the lingo and basic math quickly, it’s not rocket science.

This is good to hear because coming off a clerkship and 7 years of school that was basically politics/law with a bit of econ I feel so overwhelmed haha.