January 2018

As I have written about in past posts (see, e.g., here and here), I fall among those who do New Year’s resolutions.

In 2017, I was 25 out of 34 (73.5%). (Yes, I set 34 resolutions; I may be crazy).

The biggest realization I had this year was that I struggled with resolutions that required daily/weekly tracking. A daily/weekly resolution has at least three issues: (1) if screw up once, you’ve blown the resolution for the year, (2) just tracking the resolution takes habit formation and daily/weekly time, and (3) creating a daily/weekly habit is generally difficult.

So, instead of a resolution to run 5x a week, I had better luck with an achievement goal like “run a mile under 5 minutes by the end of the year.” If the achievement goal was tough enough to require roughly 5x a week running then the achievement goal could get you to basically the same place as the weekly goal without the meticulous tracking requirement and with allowing occasional time off. The bigger achievement goals, however, may need to be broken into smaller steps.

My toughest resolution for 2018, and I “only” have 22 resolutions this year, will probably…

The New York Times recently covered the puzzling persistence of high mutual fund fees.  The article focuses on Baron Funds, a mutual fund family led by Ronald S. Baron. It points out that Baron’s fees exceed the industry average by 54 percent.  Despite the high fees and finishing ahead of their indexes this year, the funds lag behind their benchmarks over a five year period. Baron argues that investors should take a broader view.  According to Baron, an investor that bought his flagship fund in 1994 would have roughly doubled the return otherwise obtainable from holding the S&P 500 over the same period. 

Notably, and not addressed by the Times, the content of Baron funds has changed since their launch.  Investors should not expect today’s large Baron funds to replicate their early performance.  Although Baron funds once made concentrated bets on small companies, the funds have changed as they have grown.  One 2012 article, pointed out that Barons changed its investment policies after a large stake in Sotheby’s imploded.  Baron changed the rules so that “no new investment can account for more than 10 percent of any of [the] funds.”  

Mutual funds get away with high fees for a variety of…

At a time when many boards may be thinking of tax planning and possible M & A deals, they may have to start focusing more on the unseemly topic of their executives’ sex lives because the flood of terminations and resignations due to sexual misconduct shows no signs of slowing down. One of the most shocking but underreported terminations in 2017 related to VISA. The CEO, one year into the role, chose to terminate one of his most valuable executives after an anonymous tip about sexual misconduct.  He wanted his employees to know that the corporate culture and values mattered. Board members should look closely at the VISA example.

We will continue to see the rise of the #MeToo movement spurred on in part by the messaging from a star-studded task force  formed to address Hollywood issues and the establishment of a multimillion-dollar legal defense fund to help blue-collar workers. Even Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts addressed sexual harassment in the court system in his Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary.  More people than ever may now choose to come forward with claims of harassment or assault. Whether companies choose to terminate wrongdoers or the accused choose to…

I did my annual Westlaw check-up on the use of “limited liability corporation” in place of the correct “limited liability company.”  I did a similar review for 2015 and 2016 about this time, and revisiting the same search once again showed consistency (not in a good way). I keep hoping for major improvement, but some noticeable reductions in a few areas is a positive sign. 

Since January 1, 2017, Westlaw reports the following using the phrase “limited liability corporation”:

Type

2017

2016

2015

Cases

352

363

381

Trial Court Orders

110

99

93

Administrative Decisions & Guidance

132

172

169

Secondary Sources

989

1116

1071

Proposed & Enacted Legislation

83

148

169

Modest improvement by courts (yay, judges and clerks!), a little worse showing for trial court orders in trial court orders (boo, judges and clerks!), and sizeable reductions showed up in administrative decisions and on the legislative front, and a modest reduction appeared in secondary sources. 

Hard to say what the cause of any of this is, and I am inclined to think that the legislative number is far more focused on the types of bills being proposed than anything else. That is, all of the other areas have recurring and…

I am laboring with what I hope is the tail end of the fourth cold I have had since the end of October–two in December alone.  Ugh.  So, I am afraid that my new year’s day spirit is somewhat dulled by all the cold medicine.  (I get on a plane for San Diego tomorrow morning, so getting all the head congestion out of the way today is a primary goal!)

Nevertheless, since New Year’s Day is commonly associated with resolutions, I thought I would offer one in the spirit of the BLPB.   It’s not your typical new year’s resolution.  But my co-bloggers and most of our readers will no doubt find it oddly familiar . . . .  Here goes.  (Oh, and happy new year!)

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CONSENT OF SOLE NEW YEAR’S DAY BLPB BLOGGER

Monday, January 1, 2018

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