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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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This is the third installment of a multi-part guest blog presenting some of the results of the first comprehensive, large-scale, national survey of public attitudes regarding insider trading. My co-authors (Jeremy Kidd and George Mocsary) and I present the survey’s complete results in our forthcoming article, Public Perceptions of Insider Trading. This installment focuses on the public’s views concerning the morality of insider trading.

The survey asked participants (1) whether they would trade on inside information if it came into their possession; (2) whether they believe that insider trading is morally wrong; and (3) whether they believe that insider trading should be illegal. The following table offers a demographic breakdown of the results.

 

Would you trade based on inside info?

Is insider trading morally wrong?

Should insider trading be illegal?
 

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Overall

44.9%

55.1%

62.8%

35.5%

66.7%

33.3%

Gender

Female

45.9%

54.1%

59.4%

39.3%

62.5%

37.5%

Male

43.6%

56.4%

66.7%

31.2%

71.5%

28.5%

Race

Asian

56.1%

43.9%

56.1%

42.4%

62.1%

37.9%

Black

59.0%

41.0%

43.3%

55.1%

45.5%

54.5%

Latinx

61.5%

38.6%

45.8%

51.8%

48.2%

51.8%

Native Am.

66.7%

33.3%

58.3%

41.7%

58.3%

41.7%

White

39.7%

60.2%

68.6%

29.7%

72.6%

27.4%

…

This is the second installment of a multi-part guest blog presenting some of the results of the first comprehensive, large-scale, national survey of public attitudes regarding insider trading. My co-authors (Jeremy Kidd and George Mocsary) and I present the survey’s complete results in our forthcoming article, Public Perceptions of Insider Trading. This installment focuses on some of our results pertaining to the effect of insider trading on the public’s confidence in the integrity of our capital markets.

It turns out that most Americans believe that insider trading is pervasive. The following table breaks down respondents’ answers to the question, “How common do you think insider trading is?”

 

Very Common

Common

Rare

Very Rare

Overall

25.4%

55.0%

15.0%

4.6%

Gender

Female

24.0%

57.0%

14.4%

4.5%

Male

26.8%

52.7%

15.9%

4.6%

Race

Asian

25.8%

51.5%

18.2%

4.5%

Black

41.6%

38.8%

15.2%

4.5%

Latinx

25.3%

55.4%

14.5%

4.8%

Native Am.

25.0%

58.3%

0.0%

16.7%

White

22.3%

58.3%

15.1%

4.3%

Other

22.7%

54.6%

13.6%

9.1%

Trading Status

Invest

30.5%

52.1%

14.4%

3.0%

Abstain

21.5%

56.9%

15.9%

5.7%
           

Approximately 80% of Americans believe insider trading is common or very common. If insider trading’s perceived pervasiveness…

This is the first installment of a multi-part guest blog presenting some results of the first comprehensive, large-scale, national survey of public attitudes regarding insider trading. My co-authors (Jeremy Kidd and George Mocsary) and I present the survey’s complete results in our forthcoming article, Public Perceptions of Insider Trading. This installment situates the survey amidst the ongoing debate over the goals of the U.S. insider-trading enforcement regime, and current efforts to reform it. Subsequent installments will share some of the survey results and their implications.

U.S. insider-trading law has been mired in controversy for most of its sixty-year history. Many scholars have argued that restrictions on insider trading should never have been adopted because it is victimless and improves market performance. Others claim that insider trading is unfair, imposes a tax on market participation, and undermines the public’s confidence in our capital markets. Some such critics advocate for broader theories of liability along with stiffer penalties.

Arguments on both sides of this controversy regularly appeal to claims that turn crucially on the public’s actual attitudes concerning insider trading. For example, the recently-published Report of the Bharara Task Force on Insider Trading opens with the declaration that “[m]ost…

Details for the ALSB Annual Conference are here. 

The organization is primarily geared toward law faculty who teach in business schools, but we have presenters from practice and law school faculties from time to time as well.

The call for participation deadline is June 1, 2020.  And the virtual conference will be held August 2-7, 2020.

After finishing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, I devoured Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. Published in 1985, Postman’s thesis is that Huxley in Brave New World, not George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984, more accurately predicted life in the modern United States. In the forward to his book, Postman writes:

Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history, As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth

…

I would have thought that eliminating my commute during the pandemic would have meant more time to read, but those of us with young children seem to have significantly less free time during all of this. Nevertheless, my neighborhood book club prompted some reading, and I squeezed in a few others. Always open to suggestions. 

Atomic Habits – James Clear (2018) (Self-Help). Didn’t think there was much novel here, but I did like his suggestion to start small with habits (create some 2-minute habits and build from there). This podcast with Donald Miller on writing and exercise habits prompted me to read the book. 

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – John Mark Comer (2019) (Religion). “The modern world is a virtual conspiracy against the interior life.”

A Lesson Before Dying – Ernest Gaines (1993) (Novel/Historical Fiction). Story of family, humanity, race, teaching, and belief. 

Talking to Strangers – Malcom Gladwell (2019) (Pop Psychology).  Book club (and he spoke at Belmont on this book). Basically, Blink Part II. Challenges our judgment of others, especially those we do not know well.  Liked this note of humility and willingness to be corrected at the end of the book. “Instances where I am plainly …

In a reflection on the meaning of career success, a majority of my business ethics students mentioned happiness as a barometer. 

“Happiness,” however, is an incredibly imprecise term. For example, here is over seventy-five minutes of Jennifer Frey (University of South Carolina, Philosophy) and Jonathan Masur (University of Chicago, Law) discussing happiness under two different definitions. 

Frey, in the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas, considers happiness not as a private good, but rather as the highest common good. Happiness is enjoyed in community. True happiness according to Frey, is bound up in the cultivation of virtue and human excellence. Under Frey’s definition, happiness makes room for sacrifice and suffering as beautiful and awe-inspiring. 

Masur, a self-described hedonist, seems to have a more psychological, subjective view of happiness. Masur defines happiness as positive feelings, and unhappiness as negative feelings. Masur acknowledges that happiness–maybe even the deepest happiness–can arise from relationships and altruistic behavior. Unlike Frey, however, Masur includes positive feelings that are artificially produced or arising from unvirtuous behavior as part of “happiness.” Masur sees happiness and living a good, moral life as often overlapping, but as not necessarily intertwined. 

These are two different conceptions of happiness. I think we need …

I am taking a free online course from Coursera and Yale University on the Science of Well-Being. The course is taught by Professor Laurie Santos.

Join me.

I may blog about the course at a later date. I am taking the course both for the content and for online teaching strategies.

Update (1/2/21): While I found some suggestions in this course helpful, I think philosopher Jennifer Frey makes a thoughtful critique of this course and the happiness hacking it promotes. In relevant part, Professor Frey writes:

“Happiness, pagan and Christian philosophers agreed, requires something more than technique or self-help; it requires the transformation of the person that comes with the acquisition of virtue: wisdom, prudence, justice, courage, and temperance. Wisdom gives us a clear vision of what is truly good, prudence allows us to deliberate well so as to attain and maintain that vision, justice to realize it in our actions, and courage and temperance to preserve it in the face of fears and temptations. Acquiring virtue is not about hacking oneself or engaging in other forms of self-manipulation; it is about the proper habituation of one’s thoughts, feelings, and desires so that one becomes existentially ready to…

I am publishing this call for papers below with permission from the editor.

In 2018, I published with the Virginia Sports & Entertainment Law Journal (out of UVA), and I think it is fair to say that they are a leader in this specialty area. 

—–

My name is Blake Steinberg and I am the current Editor-in-Chief of the Virginia Sports & Entertainment Law Journal at UVA Law. I am reaching out to you because you have published with our Journal in the past. We are currently looking for submissions, and would be glad to review any piece that you hope to publish.

Although we received a large number of student notes this year, our Journal has received fewer pieces from professors and practitioners than we would like. If you are a professor or practitioner who focuses on legal issues arising in the sports or entertainment industries, we would be especially interested in reviewing a submission from you.

In the past, published pieces have addressed topics such as video game licensing, basketball arena and team owners’ tort liability for spectator injuries, negotiations over cell phone ringtone revenue, and copyright law’s treatment of entertainers as compared to its treatment of other …

CNN recently ran a story entitled – the pandemic risks bringing out the worst in humanity.

Rather than focus on the negative, I decided to collect some of the positive business responses to COVID-19. This is probably just a small sampling of the positive responses. I may update this list from time to time; please feel free to add more in the comments or email me. [Updated with some suggestions from my business ethics students and to include some of the highlights from this excellent, more extensive list that a reader e-mailed.]

…