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Joshua Fershee

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Joshua Fershée, JD, became the 11th dean of the Creighton University School of Law on July 1, 2019. Fershée previously served as associate dean for faculty research and development, professor of law, and director of LLM programs at West Virginia University College of Law.

Earning a bachelor’s degree in social science from Michigan State University in 1995, Fershée began his career in public relations and media outreach before attending the Tulane University School of Law, graduating magna cum laude in 2003 and serving as editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review. He worked in private practice at the firms of Davis Polk & Wardell in New York and Hogan & Hartson, LLP, in Washington, D.C., before joining the legal academy. Read More

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I may be hopelessly old-fashioned, but I believe academic scholarship demands evenhanded objectivity. An academic should present all sides of an issue fairly, weigh those arguments, and reach a conclusion that, to the extent humanly possible, is not merely a reflection of the academic’s predispositions. One must openly acknowledge the weaknesses of one’s conclusions as well as the strengths of the arguments against one’s conclusions.

An advocate also needs to deal with the opponents’ arguments, but the advocate begins with a pre-determined conclusion. In writing a brief, a lawyer is trying to convince the court to rule in favor of his or her client, not to weigh both sides evenhandedly and objectively.

Many faculty candidates are practicing lawyers or work for organizations that have a particular policy position. They’re advocates. In my experience, some candidates find it difficult to make the transition from advocacy to academic analysis, and their job talks (and their early scholarship) often reflect that.

Here’s a question to test that: “Make the strongest argument you can against your position.”

If a candidate can do that in a way that would satisfy those on the other side of the issue, that candidate is probably ready for the…

Yesterday was the third anniversary of the JOBS Act. President Obama signed it into law on April 5, 2012. The JOBS Act, as regular readers of this blog know, requires the SEC to adopt rules to enact an exemption for crowdfunded securities offerings. The statutory deadline for the SEC to do so was December 31, 2012. The SEC proposed the required rules on October 23, 2013, but it still has not adopted them.

It is now

  • 1096 days since Congress passed the JOBS Act
  • 826 days since the deadline for the SEC to adopt the required rules
  • 530 days since the SEC proposed the rules

. . . and still no crowdfunding exemption.

If I treated my tax returns like the SEC has treated the crowdfunding rules, I would be in jail.

SEC Chair Mary Jo White has recently said that the SEC hopes to finalize the rules by the end of the year. I certainly hope so.

Yesterday, Prof. Bainbridge annotated my “creed” on corporate governance, and I appreciated his take. In fact, many of his chosen sources would have been mine.

In a later footnote, he noted that he was not sure what I meant by my statement: “I believe that public companies should be able to plan like private companies . . . .” I thought I’d try to explain. 

My intent there was to address my perception that there is a prevailing view that private companies and public companies must be run differently.  Although there are different disclosure laws and other regulations for such entities that can impact operations, I’m speaking here about the relationship between shareholders and directors when I’m referencing how public and private companies plan. 

Public companies generally have far more shareholders than private companies, so the goals and expectations of those shareholders will likely be more diverse than in a private entity. Therefore, a public entity may need to keep multiple constituencies happy in a way many private companies do not.  However, that is still about shareholder wishes, and not the public or private nature of the entity itself.  A private company with twenty shareholders could crate similar…

The Economist has a helpful brief outline — here — of why oil prices are so low.  I continue to think that oil prices will stabilize in the $55-$65 range, but now that it’s apparent that most Bakken oil is profitable around $42, I would not be surprised to see prices bounce around in that range periodically for a while, too. 

A few things to keep in perspective when you hear about how the energy sector is suffering: 

(1) It’s not very often through the years that anyone would be upset by low energy prices.  That usually is a sign of good things to come in terms of markets because low energy prices can reduce costs of manufacturing, they tend to increase demand (in energy and beyond), and it tends to mean more money in consumers’ pockets. Those are usually very good things. 

(2) Despite layoffs are some energy sector companies, and a dramatic slow down of drilling, if you looked back to 2005 0r 2006 (an even more recently) people would have been thrilled to see the sector with this many jobs. Even another 20-30% slow down represents a strong and viable industry.

(3) Legal work for the sector…

Prof. Bainbridge yesterday posted about The Modern Corporation Statement on Company Law.  The statement has ten fundamental rules, of which number ten is:

Contrary to widespread belief, corporate directors generally are not under a legal obligation to maximise profits for their shareholders. This is reflected in the acceptance in nearly all jurisdictions of some version of the business judgment rule, under which disinterested and informed directors have the discretion to act in what they believe to be in the best long term interests of the company as a separate entity, even if this does not entail seeking to maximise short-term shareholder value. Where directors pursue the latter goal, it is usually a product not of legal obligation, but of the pressures imposed on them by financial markets, activist shareholders, the threat of a hostile takeover and/or stock-based compensation schemes.

Prof. Bainbridge is with Delaware Chief Justice Strine in that profit maximization is the only role (or at least only filter) for board members.  As he asserts, “The relationship between the shareholder wealth maximization norm and the business judgment rule, . . . explains why the business judgment rule is consistent with the director’s “legal obligation to maximise profits for…

West Virginia (like Michigan and New Jersey, among others) has decided to follow other states in limiting options for Tesla sales.  As the Charleston Gazette reports: 

On the floor later Friday evening, the House put an amendment in a bill designed to shore up car dealers’ legal standings in dealings with auto manufacturers that effectively blocks innovative electric car manufacturer Tesla from doing business in the state.

The floor debate is best left forgotten: Several delegates played the crony capitalism card, talking about how their local car dealers are generous in sponsoring Little League teams and community events (not to mention campaign contributions), while other sneered about the company being owned by California billionaire Elon Musk (some called him “Monk,” but fortunately no one referred to him as “Elton”), and claiming the company relies on federal subsidies.

Never mind that it was stated that fewer than a dozen West Virginians own Teslas, or that a boom in demand for electric-powered cars might just be a good thing for a state that provides coal for electric power plants.

If you’re about a free (or at least more free) markets, why stop a competitor from competing?  Sorry, but the federal subsidy…

Today in my Energy Law Seminar, I sprung an exercise on my class.  I gave each member of the class a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement (NDA).  Half the class works for a venture fund and the other half works for a technology inventor who was seeking investment. (I give them some more details about the proposed deal the NDA would help facilitate. (The exercise is based on an issue I worked on some years ago.)

I instruct them to read the  NDA, then they can meet with others assigned the same side. They can come up with their negotiating points, then I turn them loose with the other side.  

I always enjoy watching students work like this.  They are forced to react, and it lets them be a little creative.  I also like this exercise, because it has multiple layers. They get to ask me me what they need to know for the business points, and I later get to talk to them about the options they may not have considered.  

I have done this a few times, and the students always negotiate what they see as the key issues. Their issue spotting is usually good, but they…

The Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law recently published a March 6, 2014, lecture from Former Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Myron T. Steele, Continuity and Change in Delaware Corporate Law Jurisprudence (available on Westlaw, but fee may apply).  As an aside, I’ll note that it appears to have taken a full calendar year for this to get published (at least on Westlaw), which seems crazy to me.  If there’s any question why legal blogs can fill such a critical role in providing timely commentary on legal issues, this is a big part of the answer.

In the lecture, Chief Justice Steele discusses three main areas: (1) multi-forum jurisdiction, (2) shareholder activism, and (3) the Nevada, Delaware, and North Dakota Debate (a “competition for charters”). 

As to multi-forum jurisdiction, he makes the unsurprising point that Delaware courts are of the view that first impressions of the Delaware General Corporation Law or other “internal affairs doctrine” issues should be handled in Delaware courts.  Of note, he explains that the Delaware constitution (art. IV, § 11(8)) now allows federal courts, the top court from any state, the SEC, and bankruptcy courts to certify questions directly to the Delaware…

President Obama just vetoed the bill approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.  The President has said the veto is not about the value of the pipeline, but that it represents the President’s view the pipeline should not go around the State Department evaluation process. 

The veto comes at a time when oil transportation is a increasingly an area of concern, especially in light of recent rail accidents in Quebec and West Virginia.  I was recently part of a news story discussing the rail safety concerns in my part of country — here — and pipeline transportation tends to be much safer for human safety, though it raises other environmental concerns.

It’s not clear whether Keystone XL would be built any time soon, in light of low oil prices, but the veto will certainly keep people talking.  More on this soon.  

The internet age has brought tremendous access to information.  As kids, many of us were used to the familiar refrain from our parents, “Go look it up.”  That meant getting out a dictionary or the Encyclopedia Britannica (volumes of books) to see if we could figure out unique facts about the Tasmanian Devil (my fourth-grade report subject), which is “the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial.”   Things have changed.

Today, telling someone to look it up means a trip to the computer, and probably Google, Bing, Yahoo or some other search engine.  Maybe it could mean a news service like the New York Times, and of course Westlaw, LexisNexis, or Bloomberg for legal issues. If I needed any evidence things have changed for all of us, I recently asked my nine-year-old son to put the “word book” he got out to help with his homework. He looked at me and asked, “You mean the dictionary?”  Um, yeah.  

Anyway, with all this information at our fingertips, I am regularly amazed how often I could tell people to, “Look it up.”  Students regularly ask me questions that they could easily look up themselves, and it happens with colleagues or vendors…