Had her for EO fall of 2008. Fairly clear, uses power point, divides class into 4 alphabetical on-call groups for each day of the week and goes through the class alphabetically. Not too harsh when on call. 10-20 pages of reading a night. One exam with MC and an issue spotter essay that was very similar to the sample exam and model answers she gave us. I felt we didn’t really go too far in depth in some of the more complex areas (like M&A) if that is what you are looking for.
I recommend taking EO with someone else. I actually enjoyed the subject material quite a bit, but Professor Beny is very dry and monotone, which made class excruciating to sit through. On top of that, she does not command a large classroom well — she cannot force students who are saying something incorrect or sarcastic to stop speaking — so the class discussion was often counterproductive. Moreover, I thought her overview of the subject was much less complex and in-depth than it could have been in a four-credit class. I am sure that pretty much anyone else is either less boring or at least will teach you more.
On top of that, taking her exam was subjecting yourself to a spin of the grade wheel. Even though she put the pass/fail exams in the curve, they had no effect whatsoever on it and the class average was still 3.19 or something. The essay question half was easy relative to what she could have tested us on, and it was conspicuously similar to a sample question in a study guide (which, of course, only some people had). I went to see her about my exam and she told the person in her office ahead of me that she was very surprised at how many people in the class e-mailed her to complain or come see her after the grades were posted.
She is extremely nice in person, though, and I think she means well. It might be worth taking a seminar with her if the subject matter is interesting enough. I would just avoid a large class with her.
I had Beny for EO and it was an all-round terrible experience. I found her to be quite inarticulate and disorganized and I understood very little of the class even though I kept up with the work. She often didn’t answer students’ questions well and got flustered or angry when students couldn’t answer hers. I would honestly advise you to take the class with someone else if you could.
I took a different class from Beny – Corporate Finance for lawyers. By far the worst professor I’ve ever had in my entire life. I highly recommend EO/Public Corp as a class, but I wouldn’t take it from her. My close friend
took EO from her and hated it. The final was really tough and she didn’t teach things well at all. He went in to discuss his final grade and she couldn’t explain why he got the grades he did on his answers.
I had Beny and she was OK. EO isn’t really a scintillating subject, but I thought she was a good professor and the exam was fair. I don’t have a business background, but I took the 4-credit EO with her anyway and it was fine. She teaches mostly from slides and I think you were only on call one day a week. And business associations are on the bar, so now I’m really glad I had it!
No input on her financial stuff, but her work in international law is absolutely phenomenal. She’s a very established scholar and her research is outstanding. She cares deeply about her students’ research and she’s particularly dedicated to mentoring women of color. She’s also the only tenured Black woman on our faculty, which deserves some respect.
I had her for Corporate Finance over Zoom and wouldn’t recommend it. She’s pretty terrible–talks very monotone, is dismissive of student questions, and has literally no idea how to use Zoom. The class is like 70% math with no explanations as to *why* you’re doing the math. She also doesn’t explain basic underlying assumptions she’s making on the math, which can be really difficult for students without a background in finance. Even though this class is uncurved, I’ve just accepted that I’ll probably need to use a “P” for this class, which sucks.
Prof. Beny’s Corporate Finance is a hidden gem for those looking to try to transition from not-corporate-stuff to I-need-a-job-with-a-salary-please. It’s exceedingly dry, but it covers all the basics of corporate finance at a level that is accessible to anyone and everyone who’s making an active effort to engage the material. I learned an absolute ton in this course. It was also uncurved, because the class is tiny. And I now know what a hybrid security is, what a debenture is, vaguely how to do NPV calculations, and what debt covenants do.
Had her for EO, (and then she quit on us after 5 weeks into the semester). Literally the worst professor or even teacher I’ve had in my life. She was ALWAYS LATE (sometimes even 15 minutes) and would cancel class randomly 10 minutes before the start of class due to things like traffic. She moved several classes online due to snow but was even LATE TO ZOOM! Never apologetic about being late. She is nice but I find the way she runs the class very disrespectful. Everyone just waits for her constantly. She also can’t wait for class to end and constantly checks the clock. She us dismissive of students’ questions and often doesn’t know the basic facts of the cases that she assigns. She would modify the reading literally the night before the assigned reading date. We are constantly behind and once another professor picked up our class, we had to make up 5 additional class because we barely covered any material after five weeks. This is a complete waste of your money and and time and you won’t learn much corporate law. If a student corrects her of the relevant facts because she doesn’t know them half the time, she would get flustered and annoyed and start going on a rant about other things she knows such as SEC or financial model or something unrelated to show how much she knows about certain topics but does not negate the fact that she got the facts wrong…also doesn’t admit she made a mistake.
To the last comment: Professor Beny was experiencing extreme distress from workplace discrimination. She filed a lawsuit. She did care deeply about her students though.
To the random/unrelated comment (not a review) posted on Feb. 1, 2024: The lawsuit she filed was a joke. As a student, I definitely did not feel she cared about us and mostly just herself. We weren’t the problem obviously but she is taking it out on us. Also, most of the review was consistent with comments about her teaching (dismissive of students’ questions, unclear, etc.) in 2019 so it’s not really new.
I took Prof. Beny’s Africa in the global legal system course and it was one of the best law classes I’ve ever taken at UMich.
Lectures were actually interesting and I looked forward to going (trust me, for an evening class and a commuter, I don’t give that compliment lightly). Students genuinely contributed to the conversation every class. It was also nice because everyone had their own perspectives to contribute which was helpful, always respected and often met with even better dialogue (honestly, this was a testament to the type of environment Prof. Beny created for the class from the beginning of the semester in my opinion). Even when we would get distracted with a side topic (which happened sometimes), it was fun because it added to what was already being discussed and she was able to reel us back in and connect it all somehow.
As far as structure, it was mostly lectures which were enjoyable because of the content matter and how she structures the units we were in. We also had a few law professors both from the U.S and globally come to our class to speak on certain topics we would discuss that week which was really cool.
Grading was straightforward between attendance, participation and the choice of a final paper or final exam. We even spent a whole class period as a class anonymously giving feedback to each other for our final paper topic (the overwhelming choice of everyone) and I can’t tell you how helpful that was – everyone agreed it was helpful too when she asked us.
Personally, she was amazing to learn from. Sure, she is more reserved as a professor but to me, it didn’t take away from her teaching ability to educate us on a topic you can tell she is very much an expert on. I can’t speak to the finance stuff here but we all know professors each have their own personalities and styles, especially at our law school. She was clear and effective in her ability to translate some pretty complex international law and historical contexts as well. 100% recommend this class AND Prof. Beny, (she’s a gem of a professor here). This class also really doesn’t exist anywhere else and I honestly think we are lucky she created such a class and should be given the credit she rightly deserves.
I never took a course with this professor and have no facts to base any opinion, but I got to marvel at the extreme opposites of the reviews she is given here. This questions the fairness, objectivity, and even sanity of student reviews of professors. Beyond the obvious conflicts of interest that hinder them from being objective and fair, how can a student judge if a professor has a ‘thorough knowledge of the matter”? If they can, they should not be taking the course and wasting their hard-earned parents (or own) money, and, more importantly, their valuable, irreplaceable time.
MLaw Prof Reviews
Had her for EO fall of 2008. Fairly clear, uses power point, divides class into 4 alphabetical on-call groups for each day of the week and goes through the class alphabetically. Not too harsh when on call. 10-20 pages of reading a night. One exam with MC and an issue spotter essay that was very similar to the sample exam and model answers she gave us. I felt we didn’t really go too far in depth in some of the more complex areas (like M&A) if that is what you are looking for.
I recommend taking EO with someone else. I actually enjoyed the subject material quite a bit, but Professor Beny is very dry and monotone, which made class excruciating to sit through. On top of that, she does not command a large classroom well — she cannot force students who are saying something incorrect or sarcastic to stop speaking — so the class discussion was often counterproductive. Moreover, I thought her overview of the subject was much less complex and in-depth than it could have been in a four-credit class. I am sure that pretty much anyone else is either less boring or at least will teach you more.
On top of that, taking her exam was subjecting yourself to a spin of the grade wheel. Even though she put the pass/fail exams in the curve, they had no effect whatsoever on it and the class average was still 3.19 or something. The essay question half was easy relative to what she could have tested us on, and it was conspicuously similar to a sample question in a study guide (which, of course, only some people had). I went to see her about my exam and she told the person in her office ahead of me that she was very surprised at how many people in the class e-mailed her to complain or come see her after the grades were posted.
She is extremely nice in person, though, and I think she means well. It might be worth taking a seminar with her if the subject matter is interesting enough. I would just avoid a large class with her.
I had Beny for EO and it was an all-round terrible experience. I found her to be quite inarticulate and disorganized and I understood very little of the class even though I kept up with the work. She often didn’t answer students’ questions well and got flustered or angry when students couldn’t answer hers. I would honestly advise you to take the class with someone else if you could.
I took a different class from Beny – Corporate Finance for lawyers. By far the worst professor I’ve ever had in my entire life. I highly recommend EO/Public Corp as a class, but I wouldn’t take it from her. My close friend
took EO from her and hated it. The final was really tough and she didn’t teach things well at all. He went in to discuss his final grade and she couldn’t explain why he got the grades he did on his answers.
I had Beny and she was OK. EO isn’t really a scintillating subject, but I thought she was a good professor and the exam was fair. I don’t have a business background, but I took the 4-credit EO with her anyway and it was fine. She teaches mostly from slides and I think you were only on call one day a week. And business associations are on the bar, so now I’m really glad I had it!
Best teacher I’ve had.
Had her for Corporate Finance. Very nice and low stress (and she regularly lets class out early!), though she can be a bit awkward.
I had Beny and she was really nice. She is very knowledgeable, though haven’t learned the tricks of being a good Professor.
No input on her financial stuff, but her work in international law is absolutely phenomenal. She’s a very established scholar and her research is outstanding. She cares deeply about her students’ research and she’s particularly dedicated to mentoring women of color. She’s also the only tenured Black woman on our faculty, which deserves some respect.
I had her for Corporate Finance over Zoom and wouldn’t recommend it. She’s pretty terrible–talks very monotone, is dismissive of student questions, and has literally no idea how to use Zoom. The class is like 70% math with no explanations as to *why* you’re doing the math. She also doesn’t explain basic underlying assumptions she’s making on the math, which can be really difficult for students without a background in finance. Even though this class is uncurved, I’ve just accepted that I’ll probably need to use a “P” for this class, which sucks.
Awful
Prof. Beny’s Corporate Finance is a hidden gem for those looking to try to transition from not-corporate-stuff to I-need-a-job-with-a-salary-please. It’s exceedingly dry, but it covers all the basics of corporate finance at a level that is accessible to anyone and everyone who’s making an active effort to engage the material. I learned an absolute ton in this course. It was also uncurved, because the class is tiny. And I now know what a hybrid security is, what a debenture is, vaguely how to do NPV calculations, and what debt covenants do.
Had her for EO, (and then she quit on us after 5 weeks into the semester). Literally the worst professor or even teacher I’ve had in my life. She was ALWAYS LATE (sometimes even 15 minutes) and would cancel class randomly 10 minutes before the start of class due to things like traffic. She moved several classes online due to snow but was even LATE TO ZOOM! Never apologetic about being late. She is nice but I find the way she runs the class very disrespectful. Everyone just waits for her constantly. She also can’t wait for class to end and constantly checks the clock. She us dismissive of students’ questions and often doesn’t know the basic facts of the cases that she assigns. She would modify the reading literally the night before the assigned reading date. We are constantly behind and once another professor picked up our class, we had to make up 5 additional class because we barely covered any material after five weeks. This is a complete waste of your money and and time and you won’t learn much corporate law. If a student corrects her of the relevant facts because she doesn’t know them half the time, she would get flustered and annoyed and start going on a rant about other things she knows such as SEC or financial model or something unrelated to show how much she knows about certain topics but does not negate the fact that she got the facts wrong…also doesn’t admit she made a mistake.
To the last comment: Professor Beny was experiencing extreme distress from workplace discrimination. She filed a lawsuit. She did care deeply about her students though.
To the random/unrelated comment (not a review) posted on Feb. 1, 2024: The lawsuit she filed was a joke. As a student, I definitely did not feel she cared about us and mostly just herself. We weren’t the problem obviously but she is taking it out on us. Also, most of the review was consistent with comments about her teaching (dismissive of students’ questions, unclear, etc.) in 2019 so it’s not really new.
I took Prof. Beny’s Africa in the global legal system course and it was one of the best law classes I’ve ever taken at UMich.
Lectures were actually interesting and I looked forward to going (trust me, for an evening class and a commuter, I don’t give that compliment lightly). Students genuinely contributed to the conversation every class. It was also nice because everyone had their own perspectives to contribute which was helpful, always respected and often met with even better dialogue (honestly, this was a testament to the type of environment Prof. Beny created for the class from the beginning of the semester in my opinion). Even when we would get distracted with a side topic (which happened sometimes), it was fun because it added to what was already being discussed and she was able to reel us back in and connect it all somehow.
As far as structure, it was mostly lectures which were enjoyable because of the content matter and how she structures the units we were in. We also had a few law professors both from the U.S and globally come to our class to speak on certain topics we would discuss that week which was really cool.
Grading was straightforward between attendance, participation and the choice of a final paper or final exam. We even spent a whole class period as a class anonymously giving feedback to each other for our final paper topic (the overwhelming choice of everyone) and I can’t tell you how helpful that was – everyone agreed it was helpful too when she asked us.
Personally, she was amazing to learn from. Sure, she is more reserved as a professor but to me, it didn’t take away from her teaching ability to educate us on a topic you can tell she is very much an expert on. I can’t speak to the finance stuff here but we all know professors each have their own personalities and styles, especially at our law school. She was clear and effective in her ability to translate some pretty complex international law and historical contexts as well. 100% recommend this class AND Prof. Beny, (she’s a gem of a professor here).
This class also really doesn’t exist anywhere else and I honestly think we are lucky she created such a class and should be given the credit she rightly deserves.
I never took a course with this professor and have no facts to base any opinion, but I got to marvel at the extreme opposites of the reviews she is given here. This questions the fairness, objectivity, and even sanity of student reviews of professors. Beyond the obvious conflicts of interest that hinder them from being objective and fair, how can a student judge if a professor has a ‘thorough knowledge of the matter”? If they can, they should not be taking the course and wasting their hard-earned parents (or own) money, and, more importantly, their valuable, irreplaceable time.