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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

The Oklahoma Law Review recently published an article I wrote for a symposium the law review sponsored last year at The University of Oklahoma College of Law.  The symposium, “Confronting New Market Realities: Implications for Stockholder Rights to Vote, Sell, and Sue,” featured a variety of presentations from some really exciting teacher-scholars, some of which resulted in formal published pieces.  The index for the related volume of the Oklahoma Law Review can be found here.  I commend these articles to you.

The abstract for my article, “Selling Crowdfunded Equity: A New Frontier,” follows.

This article briefly offers information and observations about federal securities law transfer restrictions imposed on holders of equity securities purchased in offerings that are exempt from federal registration under the CROWDFUND Act, Title III of the JOBS Act. The article first generally describes crowdfunding and the federal securities regulation regime governing offerings conducted through equity crowdfunding — most typically, the offer and sale of shares of common or preferred stock in a corporation over the Internet — in a transaction exempt from federal registration under the CROWDFUND Act and the related rules adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This regime includes restrictions on transferring…

Quietly, just over two months ago, we got our Lady Vols back.  As you may recall, back in 2014, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville decided to consolidate its athletic branding behind the ubiquitous orange “Power T.” The women’s basketball team was exempted from the brand consolidation and retained the Lady Vol name and old-school logo in honor of our beloved departed coach, Pat Head Summitt. (See here.)

Many can be credited with the revival of the Lady Vols brand (and I do consider it to be an accomplishment), although perhaps these five heroic women are owed the largest debt of gratitude for the achievement.  I guess my earlier envisioned dreams of profiting from the abandonment of the trademarked Lady Vols logo will not soon be realized . . . .

There are lingering lessons in this affair for businesses and their management–and universities (as well as their athletic departments) are, among other things, businesses.  Knoxville’s former Mayor weighed in with comments on the matter in a recent local news column, advising “you need to be sensitive to what the customer likes.” He concludes (bracketed text added by me):

People will speculate for a long time on how UT…

I am putting together a panel or discussion group (depending on how many folks respond positively) for the SEALS conference for next summer, which is scheduled to be held August 5-11, 2018, at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort & Spa in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (details here).

Here is the proposed title and a brief draft description (which may have to be shortened for the submission):

The Role of Corporate Personhood in Masterpiece Cakeshop

The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission on Dec. 5, 2017 (SCOTUSblog summary here). The issue presented in that case is: “Whether applying Colorado’s public accommodations law to compel the petitioner to create expression that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage violates the free speech or free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.” A group of corporate law professors have filed an amicus brief in support to the CCRC (available here). One of the two arguments in that brief is: “Because Of The Separate Legal Personality Of Corporations And Shareholders, The Constitutional Interests Of Shareholders Should Not Be Projected Onto The Corporation.” This [panel] [discussion group] features…

The Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation is pleased to announce the availability of positions of Post-Graduate Academic Fellows in the areas of corporate governance and law and finance. Qualified candidates who are interested in working with the Program as Post-Graduate Academic Fellows may apply at any time and the start date is flexible.

Candidates should be interested in spending two to three years at Harvard Law School (longer periods may be possible). Candidates should have a J.D., LL.M., or S.J.D. from a U.S. law school, or a Ph.D. in economics, finance, or related areas by the time they commence their fellowship. Candidates still pursuing an S.J.D. or Ph.D. are eligible so long as they will have completed their program’s coursework requirements by the time they start. During the term of their appointment, Post-Graduate Academic Fellows work on research and corporate governance activities of the Program, depending on their skills, interests, and Program needs. Fellows may also work on their own research and publishing in preparation for a career in academia or policy research. Former Fellows of the Program now teach in leading law schools in the U.S. and abroad.

Interested candidates should submit a CV, …

I had the privilege of being invited again this year to present at the 2017 LLC Institute, an annual program produced by the LLC, Partnership and Unincorporated Entities Committee of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section.  As part of a panel discussion on LLC fiduciary duties (with friend-of-the-BLPB Mohsen Manesh and others), I sang a few bars of Rocky Top (!) and talked about the fiduciary duty waiver issue that we faced in Tennessee in revamping our limited partnership law this past year.  But that was far from the highlight of the program!  

Luckily, friend-of-the-BLPB Tom Rutledge–a leader in (and former chair of) the LLC, Partnership and Unincorporated Entities Committee–has captured the essence of the two-day event in blog posts here and here.  He notes in sum:

Over the last two days we have . . . , by means exceptional panels, considered and informed the participants on the broadest range of issues materially important to our shared area of interest and practice.  That is the mission of the LLC Institute, and hopefully it has again delivered on its objective.  The materials are posted and available for anyone, and in a few weeks the audio recordings will…

As some of our BLPB readers know, I am a habitual 12,000-step-a-day walker.  I monitor my progress on steps, stairs, and sometimes sleep using a Fitbit “One” that I have had since Christmas Day 2012.  Fitbit recently announced that it is discontinuing the One.  So, if my existing One dies off, I will have to switch trackers.  And, sadly, I am likely to have to switch suppliers.  While Fitbit has been good to me, the rest of its trackers are not at all interesting or suitable for my desired uses.  They are almost all wrist models, and the one clip-on tracker Fitbit sells is relatively bulky and antiquated.

I am not the only one who is unhappy about the discontinuation of the One tracker.  Fitbit has discussion boards for members of its “community.”  The discussion board titled “Is Fitbit One being discontinued?” (which was started over the summer) has lit up over the past week.  As of the time of this post, there were 519 posts in the Fitbit forum.  

I have been impressed by the passion of the folks who have posted comments and responses.  Many posted reviews of other Fitbit products and competitor products that might be…