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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

In my Corporate Finance class this morning, as a capstone experience, I asked my students to read and be prepared to comment on an article I wrote a bit over a decade ago.  The article, Federal Interventions in Private Enterprise in the United States: Their Genesis in and Effects on Corporate Finance Instruments and Transactions, 40 Seton Hall L. Rev 1487 (2010), offers information and observations about the U.S. government’s engagements as an investor, bankruptcy transformer, and M&A gadfly/matchmaker in responding to the global financial crisis.  A discussion of the article typically leads to a nice review of several things we have covered over the course of the semester.  I have a number of topics I want to ensure we engage with, but I allow some free rein.

Today, one of our interesting bits of discussion centered around the possibility that the U.S. government became a controlling shareholder for a time due to the nature of its high percentage ownership interest in, for example, AIG.  This was not directly addressed in my article.  Nevertheless, we set into a discussion of the substance, citing to Sinclair Oil Corp. v. Levien, one of Josh Fershee’s favorite cases.  We also…

This just in from friend-of-the-BLPB Sam Thompson at Penn State Law.  Sam hopes we will bring this program to the attention of those “who might be interested in learning more about this very important topic,” including law school administrators, faculty, and students.  I know I plan to make others aware.

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Dear Colleagues: This semester I am teaching a course dealing with issues in Minority Business Development, a subject I took as a student literally 50 years ago in my third year at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.  Because of the importance of this topic, Penn State Law has permitted me to make the course open to anyone who is interested in this very important topic, and recordings of all of the sessions of the course are available on the Penn State Law website here.

The course is divided into the following three segments:

Part I, Introduction and in-Depth Analysis of the Minority-White Gap in Business Ownership,

Part II, The Lawyer’s Essential Tools in Representing a Minority-Owned Small Business, and

Part III, The Big Ideas for Addressing the Minority-White Gap in Business Ownership

Part I was covered over five sessions and ended with a discussion with Professor…

Friend-of-the-BLPB Lécia Vicente sent along the following post, which I thought our readers might find interesting, especially in light of the blog’s prior posts on Elon Musk and his conduct (including those from Ann and me, like this one–citing to many others–and that one).  Enjoy!  Comment, as desired.  I have my own comments, which I will share in due course.

And (in this week of giving thanks) I offer gratitude to Lécia for bringing this post to us!  (You may remember that she guest blogged with us last December–almost a year ago.  Where did the time go?)

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On November 6th 2021, Elon Musk polled his Twitter followers to determine if he should sell 10% of his stake in his company, Tesla. He wrote, “[m]uch is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?”

On November 8th 2021, two days after Musk’s tweet, I tweeted the following question, “[c]an Musk actually be sued if he doesn’t follow through on his pledge to sell?” Initially, I was more concerned about securities law. Based on Musk’s tweets, shareholders might be misled to sell, meaning…

The College of Business Administration at Central Michigan University (“CMU”) invites applications for two separate entrepreneurship faculty positions to begin service on August 22, 2022.  CMU encourages applicants from diverse academic backgrounds to apply.

The first open position is for a tenure-track assistant professor.  Candidates must have a terminal degree: (i) a Ph.D. or D.B.A in entrepreneurship or a related business field (from an AACSB accredited institution); or, (ii) a J.D. (from an ABA accredited institution) with significant entrepreneurship-related experience; or, (iii) other relevant terminal degree with significant entrepreneurship-related experience. For those pursuing a Ph.D. or D.B.A., ABD applicants will be considered if it is clear that the applicant’s degree will be conferred at the time of appointment.  Tenure-track faculty are generally expected to teach three courses per semester, maintain an active research agenda, and actively participate in service activities.

The second open position is for a fixed-term faculty member at the rank of Lecturer I.  The candidate must have: (i) an earned a master’s degree in a business or other discipline related to entrepreneurship; or, (ii) a relevant terminal degree (such as a Ph.D. or D.B.A in entrepreneurship or related business field or a J.D.).  The candidate must also…

BLPB(NIULawLogo)Assistant Professor

College of Law

Northern Illinois University

NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW invites applications for an anticipated opening for an entry-level tenure-track faculty position beginning August 2022. Duties include engaging in high quality research and teaching, as well as being an active participant in law school and university service. Applicants must hold a J.D. degree from an ABA accredited law school, or a foreign law school equivalent, and must provide evidence of the potential for engaging in high quality research and teaching. 

NIU Law is a public law school. It resides at the heart of a diverse and active university campus of over 17,000 students in DeKalb, Illinois, located on the western edge of the Chicago metropolitan area.

Preferred qualifications include record of scholarly publication, teaching experience (particularly in a law school), legal practice experience, strong law school record, law journal membership, and clerkship experience.

We will consider candidates with a broad range of teaching and research interests. Our needs include, but are not limited to, Business Law, Civil Procedure, Commercial Law, Tax, Trusts and Estates, and skills courses. Applications are encouraged from women, members of minority groups, and others whose background and experience would contribute to the diversity…

Expressions of interest due November 19, 2021
Drafts due December 22, 2021

Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

The Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law is the official quarterly publication of the Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law of the American Bar Association. The Journal is the nation’s only law journal dedicated to affordable housing, fair housing and community development law. The Journal educates readers and provides a forum for discussion and resolution of problems in these fields by publishing articles from distinguished law professors, policy advocates and practitioners. This issue, which will hit mailboxes in late April of 2022, will have a theme: preservation of affordable housing, expiring use restrictions, and “Year 15” issues. Your submission does not have to address the theme but we will be looking out for pieces that do.

Article/Essay Length. The Journal welcomes essays (typically no longer than 6,000 words) or articles (typically 5,000 – 10,000 words). Generally, articles are more thoroughly researched and footnoted than essays.

Style. The writing should be appropriate for a readership that consists primarily of lawyers. Authors should avoid excess verbiage, long quotations and jargon. Authors should use gender-neutral language.…

Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane, Washington seeks a Full-time Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor (Tenured or Tenure Track) who will typically teach two courses per semester, which may include first-year and/or required courses. Our curricular needs include Contracts, Bankruptcy, Secured Transactions, and other Commercial Law courses; experiential courses in the realm of business law; and academic support or bar preparation courses taught in conjunction with doctrinal courses. Gonzaga Law embraces a unified faculty model, in which all faculty members are supported as scholars in all subject matter areas and have the opportunity to teach experiential, clinical, academic support, or bar preparation courses if desired. Candidates must demonstrate the ability to be an outstanding teacher, a commitment to service, and excellent scholarly potential, particularly in alignment with one or both of Gonzaga Law’s two academic Centers – the Center for Civil & Human Rights and the Center for Law, Ethics & Commerce.

Gonzaga Law embraces its humanist mission of educating the whole person and preparing lawyers to serve marginalized populations in an increasingly international legal market. Law faculty instruct law students, provide service to the law school and University, and engage with other professionals and the public to contribute…

For prospective law teachers, “[t]he Illinois Academic Fellowship Program helps new legal academics place into tenure-stream positions at U.S. law schools.”  More specifically, the University of Illinois College of Law

 . . . is accepting applications for fellowship positions for the 2022-2023 academic year. Applicants should submit a cover letter, CV, and a research agenda at https://jobs.illinois.edu/academic-job-board/job-details?jobID=149338. Applicants may also submit up to three letters of reference.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit their materials by January 1, 2022. We expect interviews to take place starting in January 2022. No applications will be accepted after January 31, 2022. For assistance with the application process, please email lehigh@illinois.edu.

The full posting is available here.

Open Rank – Tenure-Track Professor of Law

The University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law (UNH Franklin Pierce), a national leader in legal education with a commitment to inclusion, diversity, and quality engagement for all, is pleased to announce that it is currently seeking applicants for two tenure-track appointments to its full-time faculty starting in August 2022. The law school has a number of curricular needs but is particularly interested in candidates with subject-matter expertise and scholarship in Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Torts, Business and Commercial Law, Technology Law, and/or Intellectual Property. Both first-time faculty and junior lateral faculty are welcome to apply.

Additional Job Information

Cover letter should be addressed to Professor Courtney Brooks, co-chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee. In your cover letter, please describe your scholarly agenda, why you are interested in this position, and what makes you a strong candidate in light of the required and preferred qualifications described above. In the required Diversity Statement, please address how you have contributed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in your scholarship and work. This position is open until filled. Review of applications will begin immediately. Priority review date: November 19, 2021.

Link to the full

Earlier this year, Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law, published papers presented at the 2020 Connecting the Threads IV symposium, held on Zoom just about a year ago.  Back in July, I wrote about my coauthored piece from the 2020 symposium.  That was my primary contribution to the event and the published output.

However, I also had the privilege of commenting on two papers at the symposium last year, and my comments were published in the Transactions symposium volume. I have been wanting to post about those published commentaries for a number of months, but other news just seemed more important.  Given the recent completion of this year’s Connecting the Threads V symposium, it seems like a good time to make those posts.  I start with the first of the two here.

This post covers my commentary on Stefan Padfield’s paper, An Introduction to Viewpoint Diversity Shareholder Proposals.  It was a fascinating read for me.  I was unaware of this genre of shareholder proposal before I picked up Stefan’s draft.  If you also are in the dark about these shareholder proposals, his article offers a great introduction.  Essentially, viewpoint diversity shareholder proposals are shareholder-initiated matters…