January 2017

The University of Georgia, Terry College of Business has posted information about two legal studies professor positions – one tenure-track and one lecturer. I know each of the University of Georgia legal studies professors; they are an impressive and thoughtful and friendly group. 

Assistant or Associate Professor of Legal Studies:

https://facultyjobs.uga.edu/postings/1754

Lecturer of Legal Studies:

https://facultyjobs.uga.edu/postings/1750

Applications received by February 15, 2017, are assured of consideration; however applications will continue to be accepted until the positions are filled.

A couple of months ago, Snapchat’s parent announced that the company would hold an IPO in 2017 – the largest and most high-profile IPO since Alibaba in 2014.  Given the sluggish IPO market, as well as Snapchat’s general name recognition and tech cachet, the announcement was a big deal.

But it’s possible there’s going to be a monkey in the wrench.  On January 4, a former Snapchat employee (fired after 3 weeks) filed a lawsuit alleging two of Snapchat’s metrics – and which ones are redacted from the complaint – were fraudulently manipulated in order to inflate Snapchat’s valuations to private investors and in anticipation of the IPO.  (The redactions are due to concerns that the allegations are covered by the plaintiff’s confidentiality agreement).  The unredacted portions of the complaint allege that the company never built an appropriate team to analyze its metrics, and that the employee was illegally fired in retaliation for blowing the whistle.

Snapchat has given a statement to the media denying the allegations as the fictional creations of a “disgruntled former employee.”

Though the redactions are extensive, the complaint does offer at least a hint of what’s at stake.  In Paragraph 24, the complaint…

Tulane Law School invites applications for its Forrester Fellowship and visiting assistant professor positions, both of which are designed for promising scholars who plan to apply for tenure-track law school positions. Both positions are full-time faculty in the law school and are encouraged to participate in all aspects of the intellectual life of the school. The law school provides significant support, both formal and informal, including faculty mentors, a professional travel budget, and opportunities to present works-in-progress to other faculty at workshops and in various settings.

Tulane’s Forrester Fellows teach legal writing in the first-year curriculum to two sections of 25 to 30 first-year law students in a program coordinated by the Director of Legal Writing. Fellows are appointed to a one-year term with the possibility of a single one-year renewal. Applicants must have a J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school, outstanding academic credentials, and at least three years of law-related practice and/or clerkship experience. To apply, please submit your materials via Interfolio at https://apply.interfolio.com/40042. If you have any questions, please contact Erin Donelon at edonelon@tulane.edu.

Tulane’s visiting assistant professor (VAP), a two-year position, is supported by the Murphy Institute at Tulane University (http://murphy.tulane.edu/home/), an interdisciplinary…

I recently finished my first consistent year of running since high school. To celebrate, I bought and read Once a Runner. Yes, that is how nerds like me celebrate – buy and read a book. I was asleep by 10pm on New Year’s Eve.

Once a Runner is a cult classic published in 1978 and authored by a former University of Florida runner (and fellow lawyer), John Parker Jr. The novel was originally self-published, sold at running stores and out of the back of the author’s car. It eventually became a New York Times Bestseller. The story follows the fictional Quenton Cassidy as he moves from a successful (but still somewhat distracted) college runner to a laser-focused, woods-dwelling hermit who increases his training to beat the best runners in the world. He does, eventually, beat one of the very best milers (in a small track meet), and then goes on to win silver in the Olympic Games.

Among the passages that struck me was the following from Quenton’s time at a cocktail party, after spending months (in relative solitude) training and logging 100+ mile weeks:

What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know

…

As regular readers of this blog know, I am skeptical of many disclosure regimes, particularly those related to conflict minerals. I am, however, a fan of the Sustainability Accounting Standard Board’s (SASB’s) efforts to streamline the disclosure process and provide industry-specific metrics that tie into accepted definitions of materiality.

Dr. Jean Rogers, the CEO and Founder of SASB, presented at the Association of American Law Schools yesterday with other panelists discussing the pros and cons of environmental, social, and governance disclosures. To prove SASB’s case that investors care about sustainability, Dr. Rogers noted that in 2016, sustainable investment strategies came into play in one out of every five dollars under professional management. She cited a number of key sustainability initiatives that investors considered including the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investments ($59 trillion AUM), the Carbon Disclosure Project ($95 trillion AUM), the International Corporate Governance Network ($26 trillion AUM), and the Investor Network on Climate Risk ($13 trillion AUM).

Despite this interest, SASB argues, investors lack information that equips them with an apples to apples comparison on material information related to sustainability. What might be material in the beverage industry such as water usage for example, may…

Ethics has been a recurrent news headline from questions of President-elect Trump’s business holdings to the Republican House’s “secret” vote on ethics oversight on Monday.  

I want to share research from a seminar student’s paper on financial regulation and the role of ethics.  She made a compelling argument about the role of ethics to be a gap filler in the regulatory framework.  Financial regulation, as many like Stephen Bainbridge have argued, is reactionary and reminds one of a game of whack-a-mole.  Once the the regulation has been acted to target the specific bad act, that bad act has been jettisoned and new ones undertaken.  Her research brought to my attention something that I find hopeful and uplifting in a mental space where I am hungry for such morsels.

In 2015, in response to a perceived moral failing that contributed to the financial crisis, the Netherlands required all bankers to take an ethics oath.  The oath states: “I swear that I will endeavor to maintain and promote confidence in the financial sector, so help me God.”  The full oath is available here.  Moreover, “by taking and signing this oath, bank employees declare that they agree with the content of the statement…

Today is my annual check-up on the use of “limited liability corporation” in place of the correct “limited liability company.”  I did a similar review last year about this time, and revisiting the same search led to remarkable consistency. This is disappointing in that I am hoping for improvement, but at least it is not getting notably worse. 

Since January 1, 2016, Westlaw reports the following using the phrase “limited liability corporation”:

  • Cases: 363 (last year was 381)
  • Trial Court Orders: 99 (last year was 93)
  • Administrative Decisions & Guidance: 172 (last year was 169)
  • Secondary Sources: 1116 (last year was 1071)
  • Proposed & Enacted Legislation: 148 (last year was 169)

As was the case last year, I am most distressed by the legislative uses of the phrase, because codifying the use of “limited liability corporation” makes this situation far murkier than a court making the mistake in a particular application. 

New York, for example, passed the following legislation:

Section 1. Subject to the provisions of this act, the commissioner of parks and recreation of the city of New York is hereby authorized to enter into an agreement with the Kids’ Powerhouse Discovery Center Limited Liability Corporation for the maintenance

…

Last week, friend of the BLPB Steve Bainbridge published a great hypothetical raising insider trading tipper issues post-Salman.  He invited comments.  So, I sent him one!  He has started posting comments in a mini-symposium.  Mine is here.  Andrew Verstein’s is here.  There may be more to come . . . .  I will try to remember to come back and edit this post to add any new links.  Prompt me, if you see one before I get to it . . . .

Postscript (January 5, 2017): James Park also has responded to Steve’s call for comments.  His responsive post is here.

Postscript (January 9, 2017, as amended): Mark Ramseyer has weighed in here.  And then Sung Hui Kim and Adam Pritchard added their commentary, here and here, respectively.  Steve collects the posts here.

Tomorrow, I am headed to the Association of American Law Schools (“AALS”) Annual Meeting in San Francisco (from Los Angeles, where I spent NYE and a bit of extra time with my sister).  I want to highlight a program at the conference for you all that may be of interest.  John Anderson and I have convened and are moderating a discussion group at the meeting entitled “Salman v. United States and the Future of Insider Trading Law.”  The program description, written after the case was granted certiorari by the SCOTUS and well before the Court’s opinion was rendered, follows:

In Salman v. United States, the United States Supreme Court is poised to take up the problem of insider trading for the first time in 20 years. In 2015, a circuit split arose over the question of whether a gratuitous tip to a friend or family member would satisfy the personal benefit test for insider trading liability. The potential consequences of the Court’s handling of this case are enormous for both those enforcing the legal prohibitions on insider trading and those accused of violating those prohibitions.

This discussion group will focus on Salman and its implications for the future of insider…