Although I had to miss the American Bar Association's LLC Institute this past year, it looks like I can still get the benefit of some of the wisdom shared there in written form.  FSU Law Dean Emeritus and Alumni Centennial Professor Don Weidner has posted an articleLLC Default Rules Are Hazardous to Member Liquidity, based on the thoughts he shared as the keynote speaker at that annual event.  The SSRN abstract follows:

This article is based on the author’s Keynote Address at the 2019 LLC Institute sponsored by the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section. It traces and critiques the shift in the default rules in LLC law away from partnership law and toward corporate law, using the Uniform LLC Acts of 1996 and 2006 as exemplars of the national trend. It focuses on two key issues: the removal of liquidity rights, both the right to dissolve and the right to be bought out, and the removal of easy access to member remedies. It argues that, on both key issues, the default rules have moved away from enforcing the presumed intent of small groups of entrepreneurs who form businesses without the benefit of counsel. By forming LLCs, entrepreneurs across the country are now unwittingly locking themselves in to perpetual entities that offer them no liquidity and present them with costly procedural obstacles to enforcing both their rights under the operating agreement and their statutory rights.

I look forward to reading this.  SSRN: it's the next best thing to being there–at least in this case.  I am grateful to Don for writing up his thoughts on the migration of limited liability company default rules (away from partnership norms and toward corporate norms) and for mentioning this work to me in a recent conversation and email message.

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Photo of Joan Heminway Joan Heminway

Professor Heminway brought nearly 15 years of corporate practice experience to the University of Tennessee College of Law when she joined the faculty in 2000. She practiced transactional business law (working in the areas of public offerings, private placements, mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, and…

Professor Heminway brought nearly 15 years of corporate practice experience to the University of Tennessee College of Law when she joined the faculty in 2000. She practiced transactional business law (working in the areas of public offerings, private placements, mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, and restructurings) in the Boston office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP from 1985 through 2000.

She has served as an expert witness and consultant on business entity and finance and federal and state securities law matters and is a frequent academic and continuing legal education presenter on business law issues. Professor Heminway also has represented pro bono clients on political asylum applications, landlord/tenant appeals, social security/disability cases, and not-for-profit incorporations and related business law issues. Read More