Law for Business Students

Citation

Adams, A., Caplan, S., & Lockwood, G. (2026). Law for Business Students (13th ed.). Pearson.

Chapter Summary

The thirteenth edition is a paperback of about 720 pages in 26 chapters. The publisher describes it as written specifically for students who are not studying for a law degree, using real cases to show how business law operates, and says this edition has been updated throughout with particular attention to the impact of artificial intelligence on the law, especially in employment law, to recent legislative reform including the Employment Rights Bill, and to changes in company law. The chapter list is the same as in the twelfth edition, which grouped the chapters into six parts; the summaries below follow that grouping.

Chapters 1–4: Study Skills; The Nature of Law; How the Law Is Made; Resolving Legal Disputes

The book opens with a chapter on study skills before any law is taught, then explains what law is, where it comes from (legislation and the courts) and how disputes are resolved. These chapters give the vocabulary and the picture of the legal system that the rest of the book assumes.

Chapters 5–6: The Law of Contract: Offer and Acceptance; The Law of Contract: Consideration, Intention and Privity

Contract law starts with formation: how an agreement is made through offer and acceptance, and the further elements needed for a binding contract, namely consideration and the intention to create legal relations, together with the doctrine of privity, which limits who can enforce a contract.

Chapters 7–8: The Terms of the Contract at Common Law; Statutory Terms in Contracts for Sale of Goods and Services

Two chapters on the content of a contract: first the terms recognised by the common law, then the terms that statute implies into contracts for the sale of goods and the supply of services, the area where consumer and commercial sales are regulated.

Chapters 9–10: Defects in the Contract: Misrepresentation, Mistake, Duress and Undue Influence; The Consequences of Illegality and Incapacity

These chapters deal with contracts that are flawed from the start: those induced by misrepresentation, made under a mistake or obtained by duress or undue influence, and those affected by illegality or by a party's lack of capacity.

Chapters 11–12: Discharge of the Contract and Remedies for Breach; The Law of Agency

The contract material closes with how contractual obligations come to an end and what remedies are available when a contract is broken. Chapter 12 turns to agency, the relationship through which one person contracts on behalf of another, which is central to how businesses actually make contracts.

Chapters 13–16: The Tort of Negligence; Negligence and Special Duty Situations; Product Liability; Occupiers' Liability, Nuisance and Vicarious Liability

Four chapters on tort. Negligence is split over two chapters, the general tort and then the situations where the duty of care needs special treatment; this restructuring was introduced in the twelfth edition, which also gave product liability its own chapter. Chapter 16 covers liability of occupiers for their premises, nuisance, and vicarious liability, the rule that makes employers answerable for torts committed by employees.

Chapters 17–19: Rights at Work

Employment law is presented as rights at work in three chapters: the contract of employment and health and safety at work; protection against discrimination in employment; and protection against termination of employment through wrongful dismissal, unfair dismissal and redundancy. This is the area the publisher names as most heavily revised for the thirteenth edition.

Chapters 20–24: Business Organisations to Company Meetings

The introduction to company law begins by comparing the forms a business can take, then follows a registered company through its life: forming it (Chapter 21), raising and maintaining capital (Chapter 22), the functions of directors, the company secretary and auditors in management and governance (Chapter 23), and company meetings, shareholder participation and the protection of minority shareholders (Chapter 24).

Chapters 25–26: Statutory Intellectual Property Protection; Common Law Protection of Intellectual Property

The book ends with intellectual property: the statutory rights of copyright, designs, patents and trade marks, and then the common law protections of passing off, malicious falsehood and breach of confidence.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–4: The legal system

• Sources of law: the ways law is made, through legislation and through decisions of the courts.
• Dispute resolution: the routes by which legal disputes are settled, the subject of Chapter 4.

Chapters 5–12: Contract and agency

• Offer and acceptance: the matching of a definite offer with an unconditional acceptance that forms an agreement.
• Consideration and intention: the exchange of value and the intention to be legally bound that turn an agreement into an enforceable contract.
• Privity: the principle that, as a rule, only the parties to a contract can enforce it.
• Misrepresentation, mistake, duress and undue influence: the defects that can make a contract voidable or void.
• Agency: the relationship in which an agent can bind a principal to contracts with third parties.

Chapters 13–16: Tort

• Negligence: liability for careless conduct that breaches a duty of care and causes damage.
• Product liability: responsibility for damage caused by defective products.
• Vicarious liability: an employer's liability for torts committed by employees in the course of employment.

Chapters 17–19: Employment

• Contract of employment: the agreement that defines the employment relationship, with its statutory overlay.
• Unfair and wrongful dismissal: the statutory and contractual protections against improper termination, including redundancy.

Chapters 20–26: Companies and intellectual property

• Registered company: a business form created by registration, with its own capital rules and governance.
• Minority protection: the legal mechanisms that protect shareholders who cannot control company decisions.
• Passing off: the common law action that protects a business's goodwill against misrepresentation by a competitor.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Built for non-lawyers. The publisher presents it as written for students who are not taking a law degree, with core concepts explained accessibly and illustrated with real cases chosen for their business relevance. The aim, as stated, is to help readers identify legal issues and apply rules to business scenarios rather than to master doctrine for its own sake.
• Study support inside the text. It starts with a full chapter on study skills, and the publisher lists recurring features: scenarios, "worth thinking about" discussion points, exam tips, chapter summaries, key terms in the margins, review questions with outline answers in an appendix, and advanced questions. For a first law module taken alongside other business subjects, this support is a practical advantage.
• Broad coverage of business-relevant law. In one volume it covers the legal system, contract, agency, tort, employment, company law and intellectual property.
• Current law. The thirteenth edition is described as updated for recent developments including the Employment Rights Bill, company law changes and the effect of artificial intelligence on the law, which matters in fast-moving areas such as employment.

Limitations

• English law. The cases, statutes and institutions are those of the English legal system; students in other jurisdictions will need local material, and the book is not a guide to international or comparative business law.
• Introductory depth in company law. Company law takes five chapters at the end of the book. Governance and directors' duties are covered as part of a broad survey, not in the depth a dedicated company law or corporate governance course requires.
• A changing law. Because the edition tracks legislation that was still a bill when it was written, readers should check whether later reforms (in employment law especially) have changed the rules it describes.

Where It Fits in the Course

In this course it is one of two introductory surveys of English law for business students. Marson and Ferris's Business Law covers similar ground (the legal system, contract, negligence, employment and business organisations) for the same audience; either can serve as the main text for a first module, and using one as a second explanation of a difficult topic is often helpful. Clarkson and Miller's Business Law: Text and Cases is a long United States casebook-style text; it is useful only for students studying US law or wanting a comparison.

The remaining books take the company law part further. Mallin's Corporate Governance develops the governance themes of Chapters 23–24 (boards, shareholders, codes and international comparison). Gower Principles of Modern Company Law is the comprehensive treatise on UK company law, the natural next step after Chapters 20–24 for anyone specialising. Micheler's Company Law: A Real Entity Theory is a theoretical study of corporate personality, suited to later, research-oriented study rather than a first course.

How to Use This Book

The book suits first-year business, management and accounting students taking a compulsory law module, and anyone on a professional route that requires English business law. No prior study of law is needed.

A practical reading plan:

• Start with Chapters 1–4. Even students who want to move quickly to contract should read the chapters on how law is made and how disputes are resolved, since later chapters rely on the distinction between legislation and case law. Chapter 1 on study skills is worth reading before the first assessment.
• Core for most modules: Chapters 5–11 on contract, in order, because formation, terms, defects and remedies build on each other. Add Chapter 12 on agency if the module covers how businesses contract through employees and agents.
• Choose by syllabus: tort (Chapters 13–16), employment (Chapters 17–19) and company law (Chapters 20–24) are self-contained blocks. Intellectual property (Chapters 25–26) is often optional, but useful for students heading into marketing, technology or creative industries.

Work through the scenarios and review questions in writing, identifying the legal issue, the rule and its application to the facts, and compare answers with the outline answers in the appendix only after attempting them. Use the exam tips when revising. For employment and company law, check the current position against an up-to-date source before an exam, since these areas change between editions.