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Joan Heminway

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Professor Heminway brought nearly 15 years of corporate practice experience to the University of Tennessee College of Law when she joined the faculty in 2000. She practiced transactional business law (working in the areas of public offerings, private placements, mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, and restructurings) in the Boston office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP from 1985 through 2000.

She has served as an expert witness and consultant on business entity and finance and federal and state securities law matters and is a frequent academic and continuing legal education presenter on business law issues. Professor Heminway also has represented pro bono clients on political asylum applications, landlord/tenant appeals, social security/disability cases, and not-for-profit incorporations and related business law issues. Read More

So much going on today . . . .   Rather than choose one focus, I will offer three.  Each is near and dear to my heart in one way or another.

Happy International Yoga Day to all.  This year’s theme is “Yoga for well-being” or “Yoga for wellness.” The Hindustan Times reports: “On International Yoga Day on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said yoga became a source of inner strength for people and a medium to transform negativity to creativity amid the coronavirus pandemic.” The United Nations’s website similarly adds that:

The message of Yoga in promoting both the physical and mental well-being of humanity has never been more relevant. A growing trend of people around the world embracing Yoga to stay healthy and rejuvenated and to fight social isolation and depression has been witnessed during the pandemic. Yoga is also playing a significant role in the psycho-social care and rehabilitation of COVID-19 patients in quarantine and isolation. It is particularly helpful in allaying their fears and anxiety.

Yes!  I am so grateful for yoga, including asanas and meditation, and other mindfulness practices at this time–for their positive effects on me, my faculty and staff colleagues, and my students.  👏🏼 …

The twelfth annual (and second virtual) National Business Law Scholars Conference (NBLSC) is being hosted by The University of Tennessee College of Law on Zoom this Thursday and Friday, June 17 and 18.  The schedule for the two days of proceedings (fashioned painstakingly and patiently by planning committee member Eric Chaffee) can be found here.  Zoom links for each session are included.

This year’s conference boasts, in addition to the NBLSC’s flagship scholarly paper panels, a Thursday plenary session at 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time) entitled “Beyond Shareholder Primacy.”  The session focuses on Matt Bodie and Grant Hayden’s new book, Reconstructing the Corporation: From Shareholder Primacy to Shared Governance, which follows on their 2020 Boston University Law Review article “The Corporation Reborn: From Shareholder Primacy to Shared Governance.”  The 2021 conference also features a later start time each day to be more inclusive of our West coast participants.

I join the rest of the planning committee (listed below) in looking forward to seeing many of you at the conference.  Please contact any of us with questions.

Afra Afsharipour (University of California, Davis, School of Law)
Tony Casey (The University of Chicago Law School)
Eric C. Chaffee…

Friend of the BLPB Bernie Sharfman recently alerted me to an online piece he posted on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, How BlackRock Strikes Out On the Issue of Climate Change.  In his post, offering BlackRock as an example, Bernie raises concerns about the negative aspects of establishing ESG funds.   Specifically, he offers that a focus on ESG investment and reporting can reduce a sense of urgency in remedying climate change and can have other unintended undesirable effects.  He also notes that BlackRock has only limited influence in establishing efficacious ESG investments, due to the nature of its role and investment portfolio.  He concludes as follows:

BlackRock can be part of the solution by attempting to add “financial innovation” as a tool in the battle against climate change. Such financial innovation should be targeted to creating new private equity funds that help provide the billions of dollars of funding that will be needed by new and growing carbon-cutting companies. BlackRock can market these funds to the millions of retail investors who currently invest in its products.

ESG investment opportunities are a hot topic these days.   Bernie’s post offers some food for thought about the double-edged sword they

BLPB(MemorialDay2021)Image by Jackie Williamson from Pixabay 

Notwithstanding the sales, barbecues, parades, concerts, and the like, at its true core, Memorial Day is a day of solemn reflection.  Those who enter military service for our country deserve our respect and praise.  Those who die in the line of that service hold a special place in our hearts and minds.

If you are at a loss for how to acknowledge this special holiday and show your regard for those it honors, you may be interested in reading the suggestions posted here.  But your gratitude can be shown in so many ways every day, not just on Memorial Day (although it is good to have the holiday as a reminder).  Remember those who served and died, and give thanks for (and, where possible, to) those who served and lived to tell the tale.  (We’ll celebrate the latter directly later in the year, of course.)

Grading done?  Join in for an engaged, energizing day with fellow business law profs to start the summer.

Grading not done?  This is sure to be a fun and enlightening distraction–better than house cleaning or laundry!

Not grading at all (you lucky ducky)?  Clear the decks of other impediments and come join us for what always is a super day filled with teaching tips and catalysts for scholarship and service.

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REGISTER NOW! CONFERENCE IS JUNE 4th!

Emory Law’s 7th biennial conference on the teaching of transactional law and skills is just a few days away! Register here and join us on Friday, June 4th. (Note: The Registration Fee for this one-day, online conference is $50.) A copy of the Conference schedule is posted here.

Connect with transactional law and skills educators across the country to ponder our theme – “Emerging from the Crisis: The Future of Law and Skills Education.” You’ll hear illuminating keynote addresses from three leaders in our field – Joan MacLeod Heminway, Marcia Narine Weldon, and Robert J. Rhee. And you’ll participate in exciting presentations and try-this exercises designed to help us all become better teachers.

At day’s end, we’ll hold a Vision Workshop to…

SIU Law is hiring one full-time visiting faculty position to begin on August 16, 2021.  Please see the job announcement below. 

Position Summary: Southern Illinois University School of Law is an outstanding small public law school that provides its students with an optimal mix of theoretical and experiential educational opportunities in a student-centered environment in order to prepare them for a changing legal profession in a global environment. SIU School of Law seeks to fill one full-time visiting faculty position to begin on August 16, 2021. The anticipated term of appointment is two 9-month academic terms. The appointment will be structured as a 9-month academic term, renewable for a second 9-month academic term contingent on satisfactory performance. The successful candidate will teach courses in Torts, Constitutional Law, Family Law, Corporations, and/or Legal Writing, as well as other courses depending on the needs of the School of Law and on the successful candidate’s area of expertise. Academic rank will depend on academic credentials and experience of the selected individual.

Duties and Responsibilities: Classroom instruction and other duties as assigned by the Dean.

Minimum Qualifications: Applicants must possess a Juris Doctor degree from an ABA-accredited law school or its equivalent.…

USC Gould School of Law and Lewis & Clark Law School present the inaugural West Coast Bankruptcy Roundtable to be held February 3-4, 2022 in Los Angeles. Spearheaded by Robert Rasmussen, Michael Simkovic, and Samir Parikh, the Roundtable seeks to bring together experienced and junior scholars to discuss particularly noteworthy scholarship involving financial restructuring and business law. We seek scholars researching diverse topics and will be interested in interdisciplinary perspectives.

The Roundtable invites the submission of papers. Selected participants will receive a $1,000 stipend and have the opportunity to workshop their papers in an intimate, collegial setting.

Papers will be selected through a blind review process. Scholars are invited to submit a 3 – 5 page overview of a proposed paper. Submissions may be an introduction or excerpt from an existing unpublished paper, an extended abstract, or a general paper proposal. The submission should be anonymized, and – aside from general citations to the author’s previous work – all references to the author should be removed.

Please submit proposals by September 7, 2021. Invitations will be issued via email by October 8th. Working drafts of papers must be available for circulation to participants by January 11, 2022.

The Roundtable…

The University of Alabama School of Law is embarking on a search for a chairholder position and invites applications and nominations, the details of which are below.

The University of Alabama School of Law announces a search for the D. Paul Jones, Jr. & Charlene Jones Chairholder of Law. We seek a person who is a nationally or internationally recognized scholar and teacher of business law, who will continue to make substantial and meaningful scholarly contributions, participate actively in the life of the Law School, and enhance the School of Law’s visibility and stature in law and regulation related to enterprise. The Chairholder will have the opportunity to establish and direct a new Program in Law and Business, which will include an endowed lecture series, an endowed professor of practice, and other innovative elements that will contribute to teaching and scholarship at the highest levels.

The School of Law has achieved a high level of excellence in the quality of its faculty, students, administration, and staff, and we seek to build on our standing as one of the leading public law schools in the United States. The Search Committee welcomes both applications and nominations. Candidates must have outstanding academic credentials…

North Carolina Central University School of Law is seeking to hire a lateral professor at the Associate or Full rank to serve as the inaugural Intel Technology and Social Equity Endowed Chair. The person hired will be expected to teach two upper level technology law courses and one first year course. The areas of first-year course need include Contracts, Civil Procedure and Torts. The position will start July 1, 2022. Applicants should be willing and available to teach using in-person, remote, or hybrid formats, depending on the needs of the particular classes.

Applications will be considered until the position is filled. For priority consideration, please apply by July 1, 2021. Application materials should include a cover letter, CV, and the names and contact information of at least three references. Application materials and general inquiries should be submitted to April Dawson, Associate Dean of Technology and Innovation at adawson@nccu.edu.

North Carolina Central University School of Law was founded in 1939 to provide an opportunity for legal education to African Americans. The School of Law now provides this opportunity to a more diverse student body than any other in the nation, as it pertains to race and gender. This…

The planning committee for the National Business Law Scholars Conference has again determined to host a virtual workshop this year (June 17-18). As is the custom, the workshop will consist of several keynote events and many, many moderated paper panels featuring the work of business law scholars who submitted proposals. We are working on finalizing the program now.  Each registrant for the 2021 conference who submitted an accepted proposal will receive a message with additional details. 

As you may recall, the conference this year was scheduled to be held at The University of Tennessee College of Law. We still do hope to hold a future National Business Law Scholars Conference at UT Law in Knoxville–perhaps next June. Stay tuned for more on that at a later time.  However, for those who have a yen to travel out my way this June during the conference (maybe your heart was set on it–or at least on getting out of the house), I am happy to host you in person.  While our campus has various restrictions that would need to be addressed for you to access our buildings, the surrounding area (Knoxville and East Tennessee generally, including the Great Smoky Mountains National Park)…