May 16, 2025
Math doesn’t always come naturally for lawyers.
Some even hope to have left the subject behind when they enter law school, before realizing how critically important a basic understanding of math will be to their ability to serve their clients and run their practice in the future.
“There are many lawyers who are afraid of numbers,” says John Friedlan, a professor in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology at Ontario Tech University and the instructor for Osgoode’s Financial Literacy for Lawyers micro-course for JD students.
He sees his class as a type of exposure therapy for that fear, giving legal professionals the confidence to face the financial statements, balance sheets and other accounting information that will inevitably cross their desks in a variety of practice areas, including family law, corporate-commercial law, criminal law and more.
“My goal is to get them comfortable with numbers and see that they aren’t scary. There’s no magic or complex formula to a financial statement; it’s just information expressed in a quantitative form,” Friedlan says.
The roots of the program go back to the 1990s, when Friedlan was a professor at Osgoode’s sister institution, the Schulich School of Business at York University. The law school approached him to take over a continuing legal education program – now offered as OsgoodePD’s Financial Statements for Legal Professionals.
“The course had been taught by lawyers previously and they were looking for someone with an accounting background,” Friedlan says.
Since then, he has trained hundreds of lawyers to understand, analyze and interpret financial statements, so that they can protect their clients’ interests effectively.
Accounting is often called the language of business and Friedlan says he wants students to emerge from his classes “conversant” in their new tongue, rather than fluent. As a result, the content is not technical, with more of a focus on core concepts and principles that explain how accounting works and its economic consequences.
“We’re not trying to turn them into accountants,” he says. “The idea is to make them comfortable with accounting information, so when they sit down with a financial person, they can have an informed conversation without being overwhelmed by the terminology and concepts.”
As part of his effort to keep students engaged, Friedlan uses current real-world examples to demonstrate timely issues, scouring companies’ annual reports for their most recent financial statements.
“I always want it to keep it current, but at a high level, we’re dealing with the same key issues,” he says.
In 2024, content from Friedlan’s Osgoode PD financial statements program was adapted for Financial Literacy for Lawyers, a one-credit course open to JD students in their second and third years.
The program was one of four heavily oversubscribed Professional Skills Micro-Courses designed to give Osgoode students a head start on the practical challenges that come with a burgeoning legal career.
Students lucky enough to make it into the inaugural Financial Literacy for Lawyers micro-course got an introduction to Canadian accounting standards, exploring the key components of a balance sheet and their applications. Attendees also gained insights into income and cash flow statements, as well as how to interpret and leverage financial disclosure documents.
The hybrid course proceeded via asynchronous content that students worked through at their own speed, followed by two live online sessions with Friedlan, filled with interactive exercises and discussions of key issues.
“I really enjoy the interaction with students. They seemed genuinely interested and committed to learning about the material,” Friedlan says. “I always find it enjoyable to teach lawyers. They may not know much about accounting – particularly the ones taking the course – but they tend to be pretty smart and they catch on to stuff very quickly.”
Want to learn more about how Osgoodes JD program combines rigorous legal education with direct, hands-on experience to prepare you for your future career?
John Friedlan – Program chair of OsgoodePD’s Financial Statements for Legal Professionals eCourse.