Teaching ideas for lawyers about due diligence?

Showem · Post by **Showem** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 11:50 am

I need some creative ideas of how to teach something around the concept of due diligence reports for real estate/real property.

It's a class of lawyers who orginally wanted general business English, but now are asking for this (due diligence), which is a bit over my head, as I'm not a lawyer.

I don't even really know what they want with it, and when questioning them, they didn't seem to really know either. "Just some practice with it".

They have given me a copy of one of their due diligence templates, but I don't have any ideas of what to do with it, other than perhaps divide the pages amongst pairs and get them to analyse it and then present their findings to the group. But I'd like something perhaps a bit more fruitful and am desperate for ideas. Please help!

sbourque · Post by **sbourque** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 5:06 pm

Do they want practice in using the terminology? You can go to Google and type in "due diligence reports"+"real estate" and search through some of the sites to find useful collocations such as
- due diligence investigation/ review/ process
- conducting due diligence
- the due-diligence area
etc.

If they have a template, you could have them do a dialog:
Have you checked...?
What about ...?
Did you find out whether...?
What are the areas of concern?
Should we be worried about...?

Or practice question tags:
-The location of the property isn't a problem, is it?
-The survey shows the property boundaries clearly, doesn't it?

hope this helps...

Showem · Post by **Showem** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 8:32 pm

Thanks sbourque, it does help. I'd love to read some more ideas from people!

tigertiger · Post by **tigertiger** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 2:26 am

I just googled

DTI due dilligence

This came up with lots of articles form Southa Africa and UK.
This will give another more global perspective.

There is an aritcle on M&A and even one on furnishings etc.

Showem · Post by **Showem** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 6:39 am

Yeah, I've googled too. The problem with doing an article is, they are usually way above the level of the article in terms of knowledge of the topic. Most aren't looking at it from the same angle as them either. The articles talk about all risks. The lawyers are only interested in the legal aspects.

Plus, the last time I did an article with them about real estate, it didn't go down so well, so I'd like to avoid them for a while, unless someone has something that is either targeted for what they need or is more than just reading and talking about it after.

Amy_H · Post by **Amy_H** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 3:48 pm

Hi

Since your students are the experts with regard to "due diligence", I would turn the thing around and have them produce something themselves. Make it a project. For example, they could use a real DD checklist (is that what their template is?) and dream up imaginary answers. They could then explain the legal ramifications to you (a presentation) or explain which items are particularly important and why.

Or maybe split them into teams (depending on how many you've got in the group). Each team should create DD info about another team (some but not all of it should be negative info). The DD info is then given to another team as "info about them/their client" and their job would be to convincingly defend themselves/their client and/or convincingly present the reasons why the "good" DD info is actually the much more significant than the "bad". I think this could be good for practicing agreeing + disagreeing phrases.

I would put the language focus on a particular function --- phrases used in presentations, comparing and contrasting, agreeing + disagreeing, facts + figures, cause + effect, etc...

Just some ideas...

Amy

Showem · Post by **Showem** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 6:06 am

Thanks Amy!