In the season premiere, Professor Seth C. Oranburg opens Financial Literacy for Lawyers by confronting a costly myth in legal practice—that lawyers can safely ignore financial statements. Across the season, Oranburg will equip lawyers with the financial fluency to connect law and business, showing how accounting concepts translate into legal strategy for transactions, compliance, and litigation. This first episode reframes balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements as essential evidence, not just bookkeeping artifacts. Drawing on real-world cautionary tales, including the Enron and WorldCom scandals, Oranburg demonstrates how insolvency risks, fraudulent conveyance claims, and governance failures often appear in the numbers long before they show up in court filings. Listeners are introduced to key concepts—such as liquidity ratios, capitalization, and hidden liabilities—in plain language, with an emphasis on their legal consequences. The episode also previews the season’s progression: from breaking down each major financial statement to analyzing valuation methods, uncovering red flags, and exploring how financial data influences areas like fiduciary duties, M&A, and bankruptcy. By the end of the episode, lawyers will see that financial literacy is not just a business skill—it’s a professional safeguard and a source of strategic advantage.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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