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Benjamin P. Edwards

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Benjamin Edwards joined the faculty of the William S. Boyd School of Law in 2017. He researches and writes about business and securities law, corporate governance, arbitration, and consumer protection.

Prior to teaching, Professor Edwards practiced as a securities litigator in the New York office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. At Skadden, he represented clients in complex civil litigation, including securities class actions arising out of the Madoff Ponzi scheme and litigation arising out of the 2008 financial crisis. Read More

The University of Oklahoma College of Law 

Hiring For Associate/Full Professor of Law 

The University of Oklahoma College of Law seeks outstanding applicants, entry-level or lateral, for up to three full-time tenure-track positions beginning fall 2023. We welcome candidates in all subject areas, with particular interest in filling curricular needs in tax, patents, wills & trusts, evidence, civil procedure, antitrust, and alternative dispute resolution (ADR). 

OU Law is a high-quality, affordable, and forward-looking institution committed to developing a socially-involved and inclusive legal profession. We boast world-class facilities and a diverse student body. Our strong national reputation is buttressed by a commitment to attracting and supporting excellent faculty with summer research grants, publication placement bonuses, course reductions based on productivity, and an extraordinary number of endowed positions.

Our law school sits on the main OU campus in Norman, a university town alive with entertainment, arts, food, and sports. A perennial “best place to live,” Norman has excellent public schools and low cost-of-living. Neighboring Oklahoma City features a dynamic economy, outstanding cultural venues, and a major airport. Visit http://www.ou.edu/flipbook and http://soonerway.ou.edu for more information.

Qualifications

  1. Must have a J.D. or equivalent academic degree.
  2. Must have strong academic credentials.
  3. Must have

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Courtesy of friend-of-the-BLPB Bernie Sharfman, I am linking to his coauthored (with James Copland) comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the climate change rule-making proposal.  The letter includes copious footnotes.  As with other comment letters that have been written on the substance of the SEC proposal, there are some interesting definitional questions on which intelligent folks disagree.  E.g., what is included under the umbrella of investor protection?  What regulation promotes “efficiency, competition, and capital formation”?  These all are among the big picture issues on which the SEC has the opportunity to speak.  I expect thoughtful responses.

In a post last month, I mentioned my recently published article on teaching change leadership in law schools.  That article, Change Leadership and the Law School Curriculum, 62 Santa Clara L. Rev. 43 (2022), offers some ideas about preparing our students for leading change.  The SSRN abstract follows.

Lawyers, as inherent and frequent leaders in professional, community, and personal environments, have a greater-than-average need for proficiency in change leadership. In these many settings, lawyers are charged with promoting, making, and addressing change. For example, one commentator observes that, “as stewards of the family justice system and leaders of change, family law attorneys have an ongoing responsibility to foster continuous system improvement.” Change is part of the fabric of lawyering, writ large. Change leadership, whether voluntarily assumed or involuntarily shouldered, is inherent in the lawyering task. Yet, change leadership—well known as a focus for attention in management settings and related academic literature—is rarely called out for individual or focused attention in the traditional law school curriculum. This article presents a brief argument for the intentional and instrumental teaching of change leadership to law students.

Many of our students already have been in or are assuming leadership roles.  Others…

Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University invites applications for a Visiting Professor for Spring 2023 

The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University is currently seeking applicants for a Visiting Professor to teach during the Spring 2023 semester. We are particularly interested in applicants who can teach Constitutional Law, Corporations and other courses in the business law area.

All applicants should have excellent academic credentials as well as demonstrated skill and experience in teaching.  The position is a temporary, non-tenure-track appointment.

Applicants should be willing and available to teach using in-person or hybrid formats, depending on changing circumstances and the needs of the particular classes.

Applications are encouraged from people of color, individuals of varied sexual and affectional orientations, individuals who are differently-abled, veterans of the armed forces or national service, and anyone whose background and experience will contribute to the diversity of the law school.  Pace University is committed to achieving completely equal opportunity in all aspects of University life.

Please apply via https://careers.pace.edu/postings/22602. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.

Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law offers J.D. degrees, Masters of Law degrees in both Environmental and International Law, and a series of…

This post alerts everyone to a comment letter, drafted by Jill Fisch, George Georgiev, Donna Nagy, and Cindy Williams (signed by the four of them and 26 other securities law scholars, including yours truly and Ann Lipton), affirming that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent proposal related to the enhancement and standardization of climate-related disclosures for investors is within its rulemaking authority.  The letter was filed with the Commission yesterday and has been posted to SSRN.  The SSRN abstract is included below.

This Comment Letter, signed by 30 securities law scholars, responds to the SEC’s request for comment on its March 2022 proposed rules for the “Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors” (the “Proposal”). The letter focuses on a single question—whether the Proposal is within the SEC’s rulemaking authority—and answers this question in the affirmative.

The SEC’s authority for the Proposal is grounded in the text, legislative history, and judicial interpretation of the federal securities laws. The letter explains the objectives of federal regulation and demonstrates that the Proposal’s requirements are properly understood as core capital markets disclosure in the service of those objectives. The statutory framework requires the SEC to adjust and update the content of the…

I am excited to be promoting here an inventive and interesting paper, Total Return Meltdown: The Case for Treating Total Return Swaps as Disguised Secured Transactions, written by friend-of-the-BLPB Colin Marks (St. Mary’s School of Law).   The SSRN abstract follows.

Archegos Capital Management, at its height, had $20 billion in assets. But in the spring of 2021, in part through its use of total return swaps, Archegos sparked a $30 billion dollar sell-off that left many of the world’s largest banks footing the bill. Mitsubishi UFJ Group estimated a loss of $300 million; UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, lost $861 million; Morgan Stanley lost $911 million; Japan’s Nomura, lost $2.85 billion; but the biggest hit came to Credit Suisse Group AG which lost $5.5 billion. Archegos, itself lost $20 billion over two days. These losses were made possible due to the unique characteristics of total return swaps and Archegos’ formation as a family office, both of which permitted Archegos to skirt trading regulations and reporting requirements. Archegos essentially purchased beneficial ownership in large amounts of stocks, particularly ViacomCBS Inc. and Discovery Inc., on credit. Under Regulation T of the Federal Reserve Board, up to 50 percent of the purchase price…

This exciting news came to us earlier today from Emily Grant, Professor of Law and Co-Director, of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning at Washburn University School of Law:

The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning is thrilled to be launching a new scholarly journal. The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning will publish scholarly articles about pedagogy and will provide authors with rigorous peer review. We hope to publish our first issue in Fall 2023.

If you have a scholarly article that might fit the needs of The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning, please consider submitting it directly to us via email at mcolatrella@pacific.edu or through the Scholastica platform.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Emily!  I know there is lots of good business law teaching going on out there that all can learn from.  I hope that some of you will consider sharing your teaching wisdom.

I am at a family reunion this weekend celebrating the joys of family.  We celebrate those that are here.  At the same time, we remember and honor those who are gone.  Some of those no longer with us have been lost in armed conflict or otherwise in service to their country–service to all of us.

Today, reflecting on all this, I have found it important to remind myself of the meaning of Memorial Day.  It always has had special meaning to/for me.  Yet, I was unfamiliar with the statute designating the national holiday.  When I read it, it was not what I expected (although I do not plan to offer a lawyerly or personal critique here).

(a) Designation.—

The last Monday in May is Memorial Day.

(b) Proclamation.—The President is requested to issue each year a proclamation—

(1) calling on the people of the United States to observe Memorial Day by praying, according to their individual religious faith, for permanent peace;
(2) designating a period of time on Memorial Day during which the people may unite in prayer for a permanent peace;
(3) calling on the people of the United States to unite in prayer at that time; and
(4)…

The edited (and annotated) transcript of my 2021 “Try This” session from the 7th Biennial Conference on the Teaching of Transactional Law and Skills (“Emerging from the Crisis: The Future of Transactional Law and Skills Education,” hosted virtually by Emory Law in the spring of 2021) was recently published.  Leadership for the Transactional Business Law Student, 23 Transactions: Tenn. J. Bus. L. 311 (2022), offers background and tips on teaching leadership to transactional business law students.  The substantive part of the SSRN abstract follows.

We do not always acknowledge this in legal education, but our students are learning to be leaders, because lawyers are leaders. That is as true of transactional business lawyers as it is of litigators, lawyers who hold political or regulatory appointments, lawyers engaged with compliance, and lawyers in general advisory practices. Yet, most law schools do little, if anything, to teach law students about leadership, or allow them to explore the contours and practices of lawyer leadership.

This edited transcript explains the importance of teaching leadership skills, traits, and processes to transactional business law students and offers insights on how instructors in a law school setting might engage in that kind of teaching…

Dear Section Members —

On behalf of the Executive Committee for the AALS section on Business Associations, I’m writing with details of our two sessions at the 2023 AALS Annual Meeting, which will be held in San Diego, CA from January 4-7, 2023.

First, our main program is entitled, “Corporate Governance in a Time of Global Uncertainty.” We anticipate selecting up to two papers from this call for papers. To submit, please submit an abstract or a draft of an unpublished paper to Professor Mira Ganor, mganor@law.utexas.edu, on or before Friday, August 19, 2022. Authors should include their name and contact information in their submission email but remove all identifying information from their submission. Please include the words “AALS – BA- Paper Submission” in the subject line of your submission email.

Second, we are excited to announce that we will again hold a “New Voices in Business Law” program, which will bring together junior and senior scholars in the field of business law for the purpose of providing junior scholars with feedback and guidance on their draft articles. Junior scholars who are interested in participating in the program should send a draft or summary of at least five…