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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

Cincinnati
Below is a posting for up to two (nontenured) legal studies positions at University of Cincinnati.
 
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The Accounting Department of the Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati invites applicants for up to two full-time Professor of Business Law, Educator track positions (nontenured, but union), with an August 2015 start date. UC has a large accounting program, with 700 undergraduate majors, a Master of Science in Accounting, a Master of Science in Taxation, and a doctoral program. Business Law is part of the Accounting Department, and offers required and elective business law courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels (including MS Accounting). The Lindner College of Business is nationally ranked in the top 100 business schools, and the MBA program was recently ranked #60 nationally by US News and World Report.
Primary responsibilities involve teaching and related service activities. High quality teaching is expected; teaching load and rank will be determined commensurate with teaching credentials, prior professional law experience, and prior research productivity. Sustained academic and professional engagement is required, and publishing in quality business law related journal is desirable.  Candidates must have a JD from an accredited institution approved by the US American Bar

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Wharton

Below is a call for abstracts from Professor Amy Sepinwall (Wharton).

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Call for Abstracts for the Normative Business Ethics Workshop Series of the Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research:

Over the 2014-2015 academic year, the Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, will be convening a regular works-in-progress series for scholars working in normative business ethics (NBE).

Workshop Objectives:

The series is part of an effort to foster, and increase the prominence of, normative business ethics in the academy and the public sphere. This particular initiative has two key objectives: First, it endeavors to provide a regular forum for scholars working on business ethics from a normative perspective. The community of such scholars is relatively small, and dispersed across numerous institutions, and there are few opportunities for these individuals to convene and share work. This series is an effort to connect these scholars, and enrich their shared intellectual life. Second, the series aims to be especially valuable to junior faculty, by providing them with feedback from, and opportunities to interact with, more established members of the normative business ethics community. To that end, we hope to have one junior…

Maybe having a suitcase that has more books in it than clothes is a sign that I need to follow Steve Bradford’s lead and get an e-reader.

This week I am in Seattle for the 2014 ALSB conference, which I may blog about when I return.  In my suitcase, in addition to a few clothes, are:

Some of these, like Bainbridge, Klein, and O’Hara’s books, I have already read, but I thought they would be worth revisiting while I wait on some new books I recently ordered.  

This year, I will be teaching undergraduate, MBA, and law students at Belmont University.  As an undergraduate professor, I often advise students considering law school.

I focus on helping prospective law students make an informed decision.  Formally or informally, I usually walk the students through a simple cost/benefit analysis.  Even with all the information about law schools out there now, most students still need some help navigating.    

Usually, I ask prospective law students a lot of questions, including at least some of the ones below.

If readers have constructive additions to my list, please e-mail me or leave a comment.  I am always trying to improve my advising. 

  • Why do you want to go to law school? (The student’s answer can be illuminating. Answers that are essentially – to please my parents or because I don’t know what else to do or because I want to get rich – should cause the student to think a bit harder. I think there is now enough data out there that students can see that there are much better avenues to getting rich than going to law school.)
  • Do you understand the total financial cost of going to law school? (See

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While I will miss my friends at the wonderful SEALS conference, I am excited to be attending and presenting at the Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) conference in Seattle next week.

For the ALSB conference, the organizers have set up a Guidebook App.  I am just now exploring all the features, but it looks like an impressive and useful tool.

The App includes:

  • The conference program.
  • The conference schedule.
  • Your schedule. You create your own schedule and can have reminders send to your phone.
  • Full text of all the conference papers, organized by subject, author, and title.
  • An attendee list, where attendees can share their contact information.
  • In-app social networking.
  • Information about exhibitors.
  • A survey.
  • Information about Seattle (restaurants, attractions, etc.) 

There is a free version of Guidebook, but it looks like this ALSB Conference App has features of the rather expensive paid plans.  The free version is limited to 200 downloads and doesn’t appear to allow inclusion of presentation materials.  Given the textbook publisher listed at the bottom of the App, I am guessing that the textbook publisher paid at least part of the cost, though that is pure speculation on my part.

While pricey…

Alabama

Last year, when many law schools made no new hires, Alabama was one of the most active law schools on the market. Alabama hired a new dean and five new faculty members.  It appears that Alabama is looking to hire again this year.  

The University of Alabama School of Law is seeking applications from entry level or lateral candidates.   They will accept applications from applicants in all subject areas, but have a particular interest in applicants that research and teach in one or more of the following areas:

business law (including enterprise, finance, and/or securities); administrative regulation (including the regulatory state and/or regulated industries or activities); intellectual property (specifically trademark and copyright); and criminal law (including substantive criminal law and/or criminal procedure).

(Emphasis added, for the benefit of our business law readers.)

More information is available here.  

We welcome Eric Orts (Wharton) to the “blawgosphere.”  Professor Orts has begun blogging at Ortsian Thoughts and Theories. I have already added his blog to my favorites, and I am sure I will become a regular reader.  His new book, Business Persons: A Legal Theory of the Firm should be in my mailbox soon, and I am looking forward to reading it as well. (H/T David Zaring at the Conglomerate).     

 Given the attention our posts on law reviews received, I thought I would add to my comments on Josh Fershee’s post commenting on Steve Bradford’s post. 

In short, I think the law review submission and review process could be improved by at least two modifications. 

1. Blind Review. 

Currently, law review editors see, and in fact require, not only the author’s name and employer, but also the author’s entire CV.  This is quite unlike the article selection process in other disciplines where all identifying information is supposed to be stripped. 

If blind-review were adopted by law reviews, Josh Fershee claimed that it might still be possible to find the identity of the author through self-citations.  Authors, however, do not always cite themselves and even if they do, law review editors would have to read pretty carefully to figure out the idenity of the author.  Currently, it is simply not possible for law review editors to read closely all article submitted, so stripping the author’s name would, at the very least, require the editors to dig into each article.  Also, Authors could be instructed to remove, during the review process, identifying phrases like “in previous work I argued…” 

This call for…

One of my younger brothers is a PHD Candidate in Literature at University of Alabama.  One of my younger sisters majored in English at the University of Georgia and is working in the media industry.  (Yes, I am a proud older brother, prone to brag about my siblings’ many accomplishments).

Both siblings recently encouraged me to expand my summer reading beyond books about law.  Due to the tall stack of legal books in my “need to read” pile, I usually don’t devote much time to “pleasure reading.”

This summer, however, I am trying to read legal books and, at least some books, which have no noticeable connection to law.  Rick Bragg’s All Over But the Shoutin’ falls into the latter category.  I will let interested readers follow the link for a description of the book, but I only mention it here to say that Bragg writes beautifully.   I finished the 329-page book in two, long, sittings. 

Writer Pat Conroy said the following of the book and its author:

Rick Bragg writes like a man on fire.  And All Over But the Shoutin’ is a work of art. I thought of Melville, I thought of Faulkner. Because I love the

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