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Haskell Murray

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Professor Murray teaches business law, business ethics, and alternative dispute resolution courses to undergraduate and graduate students. Currently, his research focuses on corporate governance, mergers & acquisitions, sports law, and social entrepreneurship law issues.

Professor Murray is the 2018-19 President of the Southeastern Academy of Legal Studies in Business (“SEALSB”) and is a co-editor of the Business Law Professor Blog. His articles have been published in a variety of journals, including the American Business Law Journal, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the Harvard Business Law Review, and the Maryland Law Review. Read More

I have written about Etsy in at least three past posts: (1) Etsy becoming a certified B Corp, (2) Etsy going public, and (3) Delaware amending it’s public benefit corporation laws (likely, in part, to help Etsy convert to a PBC, which Etsy would need to do to maintain its certification because it incorporated in a non-constituency statute state that does have a benefit corporation statute (Delaware)).

In May, some questioned whether Etsy would keep its social focus after a “management shakeup.” In September, B Lab granted Etsy an extension on converting to a PBC. That article claims that B Lab would reset the deadline for conversion to 2019, if Etsy re-certified as a B Corp by the end of 2017 and would commit to converting to a PBC.

The 2019 date was 4 years from the 2015 Delaware PBC amendments (instead of 4 years from Etsy’s first certification). One of B Lab’s co-founder reportedly said that the statutory amendments were needed because the original 2013 version of the Delaware PBC law was “perfectly fine for private companies and unworkable for public companies.”

Just a few days ago, however, Etsy announced that it would abandon its B…

AveMariaLaw

Ave Maria School of Law seeks applicants for a tenure-track position to begin in the 2018-2019 academic year. The school’s greatest curricular needs are business law subjects such as Contracts, Business Organizations, and Uniform Commercial Code courses. Applicants must have a Juris Doctorate or equivalent degree and a strong academic record. Duties will include teaching, scholarship, and service to the law school.

Ave Maria offers students a distinctive legal education marked by the integration of the Catholic faith and the law. Students are trained to reflect critically on the law and to understand that all areas of legal practice serve the common good. The law school emphasizes the importance of faith and community among its faculty, staff, and students, and seeks applicants attracted by, and supportive of, its mission. 

 Ave Maria has an increasingly diverse student body and desires to provide students with faculty role models and mentors of shared background and experience. As such, we particularly encourage applications from women and members of underrepresented groups within the profession.

Ave Maria is located in Naples, Florida along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Naples has been recognized for its healthy lifestyle and excellent quality of life, and is known for its…

The title of this post is hyperbole on some level.  But with Halloween being tomorrow, I couldn’t resist the temptation to use a festive greeting to introduce today’s post.  And there is a bit of a method to my titling madness . . . .

I admit that I do feel a bit tricked by the removal of the Leidos, Inc. v. Indiana Public Retirement System case (about which co-blogger Ann Lipton and I each have written–Ann most recently here and I most recently here) from the U.S. Supreme Court’s calendar.  It was original scheduled to be heard a week from today.  Apparently, based on the related filings with the Court, the parties are documenting a settlement of the case.  Kevin LaCroix offers a nice summary here.  How cunning and skillful!  Just when I thought resolution of important duty-to-disclose issues in Section 10(b)/Rule 10b-5 litigation was at hand . . . .

Indeed, I had hoped for a treat.  What pleasure it would have given me to see this matter resolved consistent with my understanding of the law!  The issue before the Court in Leidos is somewhat personal for me (in a professional sense) for a simple reason–a…

NotreDamerLawLogo
 
 
University of Notre Dame: The Law School
Director, California Innovation Intensive

Location: Palo Alto, California

Notre Dame Law School invites applications to serve as the inaugural full-time Director of the Law School’s new California Innovation Clinic.  The Clinic will provide transactional services and related advice to individuals or entities in the Bay Area seeking to start or expand their own ventures.  The Clinic will operate out of the Notre Dame California center in Palo Alto, California.

The Clinic will provide students, under the supervision of the Clinic Director, opportunities to serve the transactional needs of early-stage startup ventures. The services offered by the Clinic will depend in significant part on the background and skills of the Clinic Director, but we anticipate that the Clinic will assist clients with some or all of the following: entity formation, founder agreements, non-disclosure agreements, ownership agreements, licensing and/or freedom to operate agreements, and privacy and data security policies. Specific client matters will be determined by the Clinic Director, although decisions about the overall direction of the Clinic’s work will be made in consultation with the Dean and other law school faculty members.

The Director will be a full-time staff attorney or non-tenure

…

My UT Law colleague Jonathan Rohr has coauthored (with Aaron Wright) an important piece of scholarship on an of-the-moment topic–financial instrument offerings using distributed ledger technology.  Even more fun?  He and his co-author are interested in aspects of this topic at its intersection with the regulation of securities offerings.  Totally cool.

Here is the extended abstract.  I cannot wait to dig into this one.  Can you?  As of the time I authored this post, the article already had almost 700 downloads . . . .  Join the crowd!

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Blockchain-Based Token Sales, Initial Coin Offerings, and the Democratization of Public Capital Markets

Jonathan Rohr & Aaron Wright

Best known for their role in the creation of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, blockchains are revolutionizing the way tech entrepreneurs are financing their business enterprises. In 2017 alone, over $2.2 billion has been raised through the sale of blockchain-based digital tokens in what some are calling initial coin offerings or “ICOs,” with some sales lasting mere seconds. In a token sale, organizers of a project sell digital tokens to members of the public to finance the development of future technology. An active secondary market for tokens has emerged, with tokens being bought and sold…

National Business Law Scholars Conference
Thursday & Friday, June 21-22, 2018

Call for Papers

The National Business Law Scholars Conference (NBLSC) will be held on Thursday and Friday, June 21-22, 2018, at the University of Georgia School of Law in Athens, Georgia.  A vibrant college town, Athens is readily accessible from the Atlanta airport by vans that depart hourly. Information about transportation, hotels, and other conference-related matters can be found on the conference website.

This is the ninth meeting of the NBLSC, an annual conference that draws legal scholars from across the United States and around the world.  We welcome all scholarly submissions relating to business law. Junior scholars and those considering entering the legal academy are especially encouraged to participate. If you are thinking about entering the academy and would like to receive informal mentoring and learn more about job market dynamics, please let us know when you make your submission.

To submit a presentation, email Professor Eric C. Chaffee at eric.chaffee@utoledo.edu with an abstract or paper by February 16, 2018.  Please title the email “NBLSC Submission – {Your Name}.”  If you would like to attend, but not present, email Professor Chaffee with an email entitled “NBLSC Attendance.”  Please specify in your email whether you…

 RockyTopPride

A recent Knoxville New Sentinel article (as well as articles and other press coverage, including stories on local television outlets like this one) noted the golden anniversary of The University of Tennessee’s unofficial* fight song (also a Tennessee state song), Rocky Top.  Any of you who have been to Neyland Stadium–or to Thompson-Boling Arena or any other venue at which the Vols are accompanied by the Pride of the Southland Marching Band or one of the pep bands–are familiar with the tune.  Many of our opponents just despise it.  It’s catchy, and it’s country.

And it has led to merch in which The University of Tennessee has an interest.  Rocky Top hats, t-shirts, etc. abound.  Lyrics from the song (especially “Home sweet home to me”) adorn the same.  That little song has become a big (read: commercially successful) deal.

But it also has been involved in some recent intellectual property law controversies involving a town just North of us here in Knoxville–a town formerly known as Lake City, Tennessee and now known as (you guessed it) Rocky Top, Tennessee.  It will take me two posts to cover this without boring you all, but I will start with…

This from friend-of-the-BLPB Andrea Boyack, Professor of Law and Co-Director of Business & Transactional Law Center at the Washburn University School of Law:

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT – DEAN, SCHOOL OF LAW

Washburn University invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean of the Washburn University School of Law. The Law School is recognized for its outstanding teaching and faculty scholarship and its commitment to public service. It has a highly favorable student/faculty ratio, with an excellent student body drawn from a national pool.

One of only two law schools in the state of Kansas, Washburn University School of Law is located in Topeka, the state capital. It was established in 1903 and has built a long tradition and legacy of providing an outstanding legal education. Washburn Law offers a broad-based curriculum in national and international law to students enrolled in the J.D., LL.M., and M.S.L. programs. It features six centers for excellence, nine certificate programs, and four dual degree programs. The thirty-two full-time faculty members, along with a strong cohort of adjunct professors, teach and conduct scholarship across a wide array of legal specializations. The Law School enjoys a dedicated staff and strong support from the community.

For more than a century, Washburn…

Yale Law School invites applications for an inaugural, full time faculty director for its new Entrepreneurship Clinic. The position, which will be at the rank of Clinical Associate Professor or Clinical Professor of Law, will begin on July 1, 2018.

A key ambition of Yale University is “to provide an unsurpassed campus learning environment that cultivates innovators, leaders, pioneers, creators, and entrepreneurs in all fields and for all sectors of society.” Yale Law School is contributing to that goal by forming a new Entrepreneurship Clinic, which will provide transactional services and related legal advice to individuals or entities seeking to start or expand their own ventures. The Entrepreneurship Clinic is expected to become a central component of the Yale University student innovation ecosystem, which encompasses both curricular programs (such as the Yale School of Management Programs on Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise), as well as independent, cross disciplinary centers (such as the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale). Although it is envisioned that clients for the Entrepreneurship Clinic will come primarily from these programs, there may be opportunities for creating partnerships with the Office of Cooperative Research (which focuses on faculty ventures) and with the greater New Haven entrepreneurial community.…

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As I earlier reported, on Saturday, The University of Tennessee College of Law hosted “Business Law: Connecting the Threads”, a conference and continuing legal education program featuring most of us here at the BLPB–Josh, me, Ann, Doug, Haskell, Stefan, and Marcia.  These stalwart bloggers, law profs, and scholars survived two hurricanes (Harvey for Doug and Irma for Marcia) and put aside their personal and private lives for a day or two to travel to Knoxville to share their work and their winning personalities with my faculty and bar colleagues and our students.  It was truly wonderful for me to see so many of my favorite people in one place together enjoying and learning from each other.

Interestingly (although maybe not surprisingly), in many of the presentations (and likely the essays and articles that come from them), we cite to each other’s work.  I think that’s wonderful.  Who would have known that all of this would come from our decision over time to blog together here?  But we have learned a lot more about each other and each other’s work by editing this blog together over the past few years.  As a result, the whole conference was pure joy for…