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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

Wharton

The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania has posted a legal studies and business ethics professor opening.  As you may suspect, Wharton has an extremely strong legal studies faculty.  More information from the announcement is quoted below. 

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania invites applications for tenured and tenure-track positions in its Department of Legal Studies and Business Ethics.  The Department has eighteen full-time faculty who teach a wide variety of business-oriented courses in law and ethics in the undergraduate, MBA, and Ph.D. programs and whose research is regularly published in leading journals.  The Wharton School has one of the largest and best-published business school faculties in the world.  In addition, the school has a global reach and perspective, as well as an interdisciplinary approach to business issues (embracing ten academic departments and over twenty research centers). 

Applicants must have either a Ph.D., J.D., or both, from an accredited institution (an expected completion date no later than July 1, 2016 is acceptable) and a demonstrated commitment to scholarship in business ethics, business law, or a combination of the two fields.  Specific areas of potential focus for hiring include corporate governance, normative ethics related to business, social impact/sustainability,

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James Woulfe, who was involved in the legislative process around Connecticut benefit corporations, and I have had a number of interesting conversations about social enterprise law over the past few years.  Recently, I asked James to share his thoughts on the new Connecticut benefit corporation law for the blog.  His contribution is below.

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After two previous tries, Connecticut recently became the 24th state in the Union to pass benefit corporation legislation. While some may argue that the fact it took Connecticut so long to pass the bill is a sign of problems with the legislature, our state’s business climate, etc., coming a little late to the game was actually an asset. Waiting to pass the legislation gave lawmakers an opportunity to take a look at national and international trends in social enterprise legal structures, and experiment. As a result, Connecticut tweaked the “model” benefit corporation legislation passed in other states, and included an innovative first in the nation clause in Connecticut’s statute, called a “legacy preservation provision.”

Connecticut’s legacy preservation provision gives social entrepreneurs the opportunity to preserve their company’s status as a benefit corporation in perpetuity, despite changes in company leadership or ownership. In other words, the…

Opus

Below is the information that I received this morning regarding a one-year Visiting Distinguished Service Faculty in Business Law position at the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas (MN). In April, I spoke at a social enterprise conference at the school and was quite impressed with the facilities, faculty members, and students.  

The Department of Ethics & Business Law in the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas has an opening for a one-year position as a Visiting Distinguished Service Faculty in Business Law, for the 2014-15 academic year.  This position will involve teaching three courses (including International Business Law) each semester.  To apply (and for more information about this position), visit this site: https://facultyemployment-stthomas.icims.com/jobs/1252/visiting-distinguished-service-faculty-in-business-law/job, and submit an online application (two letters of recommendation to be sent separately).  Additional questions can be directed to the search committee chair, Dale Thompson (dbthompson@stthomas.edu).

I’ve updated our business law professors on Twitter list here.  

Below are tweets from some of the new additions to the list.  

Building on Elizabeth Pollman’s list, I have compiled post-opinion posts on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby by corporate law professors.  I imagine this list is incomplete and am happy to update the list.

Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA) (here, here, and here)

Lawrence Cunningham (George Washington) (here and here)

John Fershee (West Virginia)

Kent Greenfield (Boston College)

Sarah Hahn (Idaho)

Joan Heminway (Tennessee)

Lyman Johnson (W&L and St. Thomas-MN)

Elizabeth Pollman (Loyola-Los Angeles)

Brian Quinn (Boston College)

Usha Rodrigues (Georgia)

Anne Tucker (Georgia State)

Thanks to all for the interesting posts.  I am sure there will be more to come, followed by a flurry of articles in the fall and spring cycles.  Looking forward to reading more. 

Earlier this week I asked Professor Lyman Johnson if he would care to share his thoughts on the Hobby Lobby case with us because I had so enjoyed his thoughtful posts on the Conglomerate before the decision was issued (see here and here).  Professor Johnson’s contribution is below.

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             I thank the good folks here at the Business Law Prof Blog for inviting me to share some thoughts about the Supreme Court’s decision in the high-profile Hobby Lobby cases.  The Court held that a closely-held business corporation was a “person” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), that such a for-profit corporation could indeed “exercise religion” under that Act, and that as applied to closely-held corporations the contraceptive mandate promulgated under the Affordable Care Act violated RFRA.  Two days after the controversial decision, the sky has not fallen, although dire forecasts to that effect still abound.  My post today makes a simple but basic point:  quite apart from the decision’s implications for religious liberty in the corporate realm – no small thing, to be sure – and notwithstanding the still unfolding legal and political fallout, Hobby Lobby immediately became a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court spoke in…