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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

I am stealing Haskell’s thunder on this one (at his suggestion) to promote this position at Marist College.  Little known facts (other than for folks, like Haskell, who know my family well): my daughter is a Marist Red Fox (that’s the school’s mascot) having graduated from there with a degree in Media Studies.  It’s a lovely small liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, NY.  And its new President is David N. Yellen, the former Dean and Professor of Law (criminal law expert) at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.  Here are key points from the position announcement (linked to from the first sentence below):

Marist College invites applications and nominations for the position of Assistant /Associate Professor of Law/Business Law to join the School of Management beginning Fall, 2016.

Duties and Responsibilities:
This tenure track position will involve teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses (including online courses) and maintaining a high level of professional activity through research and service in the candidate’s area of emphasis

Qualifications:
Candidates must have a commitment to excellence in teaching and research and should have a JD degree and previous experience teaching legal related and business law courses in a School of Management and/or Business. Professional…

It’s family vacation week, and I am letting securities experts provide you interesting and exciting information far beyond what I could put together (frankly regardless of whether I am away from the office or not).  The D&O Diary (a great blog) hosted a guest post by Michael Klausner, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, and Jason Hegland, Executive Director of Stanford Securities Litigation Analytics reporting on data collected on securities litigation.  Read the full post, Deeper Trends in Securities Class Action Litigation 2006-2015, and look for these highlighted trends:

  • Increased securities class action filing and dismissals
  • Types of cases (overstated earnings and product/operations cases)
  • Targeted industries (technology and health)
  • Role of plaintiffs’ law firms; and
  • Settlement timing (discovery) and amounts

Happy Summer!

-Anne Tucker

Anne Tucker (who, together with Haskell Murray, me, and many others, attended the 8th Annual Berle Symposium in Seattle a week ago) penned an excellent post last week on the importance of shareholder value under Delaware law.  Her post covers important outtakes from the symposium presentation given by former Delaware Chancellor William (Bill) Chandler and Elizabeth Hecker, both lawyers in the Wilmington, Delaware office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. In the post, Anne accurately and succinctly summarizes a key take-away from the former Chancellor’s remarks:

[A] Delaware court will invalidate a board of directors’ other serving actions only if they are in conflict with shareholder value, but never when it is complimentary. And there is a expanding appreciation of when “other interests” are seen as complimentary to, and not in competition with, shareholder value maximization.

Specifically, as Anne’s summary indicates, Chancellor Chandler stated his view that a Delaware corporate board must place shareholder financial wealth (whether in the short term or the long term) ahead of any other value in its decision making.  This is hardly a surprise to anyone who follows Delaware corporate law judicial opinions (although the former Chancellor’s statement of the law was among the clearest and most definite I have heard).  After all, Chancellor Chandler’s opinion in the eBay case is widely cited for this proposition.

The Berle symposium focused on benefit corporations this year, and my draft paper for the symposium highlights the central importance of a corporation’s charter-based corporate purpose in that type of firm.  So, I asked the former Chancellor for his personal view on how a Delaware court might handle a specific type of corporate purpose clause in a non-benefit-corporation Delaware corporate law context.  The specific corporate purpose clause I had in mind is one that expresses a clear “second bottom line” (other than the promotion of shareholder value) and clearly indicates that neither bottom line is to be given constant or presumed precedence over the other in decisions made by the board of directors or the corporate officers.

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As an expression of love for my country, I do try to wear red, white, and blue on Independence Day and, in fact, for the entire holiday weekend.  This causes some wardrobe challenges for obvious reasons.  And it’s probably more than a bit hokey.

However, I did not plan on coordinating my food choices for the weekend with my sartorial selections!  So, when I opened the lovely yogurt parfait that I made to take to Starbucks for breakfast on Saturday morning, I was delighted and surprised to note its appropriate color scheme (and promptly posted a picture memorializing the same to Facebook).  I include the picture above.

Happy Fourth of July to one and all.  Regardless of whether you are as crazy as I am about celebrating with the colors of the day, I wish you a safe and pleasant holiday.  Happy Birthday, U.S.A.!

Today a number of athletes will compete in various track & field events in the Olympic Trials.

One of those events is the qualifying round of the 800m, and one of the 800m runners, Boris Berian, was recently caught in a legal dispute with his old shoe sponsor (Nike) because of his attempt to sign with a new shoe sponsor (New Balance). The story of the dispute even made The Wall Street Journal. 

You can read the details of the case here, here, and here, but I will attempt to summarize briefly.

As I understand the timeline from the reporting and legal filings:

  • After the 2012 season, Boris dropped out of his division II college (Adams State) to pursue pro-running.
  • For a couple of years, Boris struggled to find world class success, and he worked at McDonald’s.
  • Boris didn’t have a real breakthrough until mid-2015, when he ran the fastest time for an American that year.
  • On June 17, 2015, shortly after his breakthrough race, Boris signed a short-term exclusive sponsorship deal with Nike (chosen from among many suitors).
  • On December 31, 2015, the Nike-Boris contract expired, though the contract gave Nike the right to match any competitor’s bona fide offer within

…

Back in May, I posted about a legal action against Starbucks for too much ice in its drinks.  I referenced in that post the earlier legal action taken against Starbucks for under-filling its latte drinks and against McDonald’s for damage done by hot coffee.  I can’t resist adding another hot coffee case to the mix . . . .

Another suit has been brought against Starbucks–my daughter’s employer (as I disclosed at the outset in my previous post).  This time, the case involves damage caused by hot coffee resulting from a bad drive-through pass-off.  The plaintiff requests up to $1 million “for medical expenses, loss of work, and for the mental and physical pain she claims the burning coffee caused her,” according to the news report.  The case involves second-degree burns–a serious matter in anyone’s eyes.  Depending on the facts elucidated at trial, this case may (like the McDonald’s case from 20+ years ago) have some traction in court.  (Apparently, there have been other Starbucks cases involving hot drinks.)

I do feel sorry for plaintiffs who are damaged by hot coffee or beverages.  These cases undoubtedly have more gravitas than cases alleging damages based on the amount of ice or beverage…

I am still at Berle VIII with Haskell Murray and Anne Tucker.  One more day of my June Scholarship and Teaching Tour to go–and I have a final presentation to do.  Then, back to Knoxville to stay until late in July.  Whew!

As you may recall or know, my Berle appearance this week follows closely on the heels of a talk on the same work (on corporate purpose and litigation risk in publicly held U.S. benefit corporations) that I made at last week’s 2016 National Business Law Scholars conference.  While I am thinking about this conference, please join me in saving the date for the next one:  the 2017 National Business Law Scholars conference.  Next year’s conference will be held June 8-9 at The University of Utah S. J. Quinney College of Law, with Jeff Schwartz hosting.  I will post more information and the call for papers, etc. once I have it.

Last fall, I posted some thoughts on the film Poverty Inc., which looked at the impact of foreign aid and business giving through programs like TOMS Shoes’ One for One initiative. 

Recently, I came across this discussion on Poverty Inc. by Bill Easterly (NYU Economics) and the film’s creators (Michael Matheson Miller and Mark Weber). I posted on one of Bill Easterly’s books here. 

In the discussion at NYU, I especially liked this quote from Michael Matheson Miller: “We tend to treat poor people as objects–as objects of our charity, objects of our pity, objects of our compassion.–instead of subjects…Poor people are not objects; they are subjects and they should be the protagonists in their own stories of development.” The personal story Mark Weber tells of his trip while he was studying at Notre Dame was moving, but you will have to watch the discussion to hear it, as it would be tough to summarize. Some of the audience questions are a bit long-winded, but I think the panel does a nice job deciphering and answering. 

The film’s trailer, the discussion, and the Q&A with the audience are all worth watching.

Film Trailer

Discussion

Q&A

Having helped a few Tennessee bar applicants get straight on their knowledge of agency, unincorporated business associations, and personal property law last Friday at my BARBRI lecture (such a nice group present at the taping to keep me company!), it’s now time for me to wrap up my June Scholarship and Teaching Tour with a twofer–a week of travel to two of my favorite U.S. cities: Chicago, for the National Business Law Scholars Conference and Seattle for Berle VIII.  At both events, I will present my draft paper (still in process today, unfortunately) on publicly held benefit corporations, Corporate Purpose and Litigation Risk in Publicly Held U.S. Benefit Corporations.  Here’s the bird’s-eye view from the introduction:

Benefit corporations—corporations organized for the express purpose of realizing both financial wealth for shareholders and articulated social or environmental benefits—have taken the United States by storm. With Maryland passing the first benefit corporation statute in 2010, legislative growth of the form has been rapid. Currently, 31 states have passed benefit corporation statutes.

The proliferation of benefit corporation statutes and B Corp certifications can largely be attributed to the active promotional work of B Lab Company, a nonprofit corporation organized in 2006 under Pennsylvania law that…

By now, I am sure all readers are aware of the horrific, hateful mass shooting that occurred in Orlando earlier this week.

If your social media feeds are anything like mine, it did not take long for politicians, pundits, and friends to politicize this tragedy. The tragedy was quickly used, by people all along the political spectrum, as evidence supporting their views on guns, religion, sexuality, and immigration. There is certainly a time and need for solutions, but there needs to be space to mourn. Orin Kerr (George Washington Law) summarized my thoughts well when he tweeted:

What could and should be done immediately after a tragedy? I am not entirely sure, but those who took steps to donate blood and financial resources should be commended.

Some local businesses also attempted to help. For example, it was reported that Chick-fil-A, which is famously closed on Sundays, cooked and gave away food to those waiting in line to donate blood. This is an admittedly small gesture, but at a time when our nation often seems hopelessly divided, I am thankful for…