Photo of Joan Heminway

Joan Heminway

Subscribe to Joan Heminway's Posts

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 recently was afforded the opportunity to draft a short article for the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law that combines my research on crowd theory (from the crowdfunding space) and my research on women and corporate governance.  The opportunity arose out of a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the journal, for which I had been a published author in the past.  (The journal published my article on women as investors in the context of securities fraud, Female Investors and Securities Fraud: Is the Reasonable Investor a Woman?, back in 2009.)

I just posted the recently released final version of the 20th anniversary article, entitled Women in the Crowd of Corporate Directors: Following, Walking Alone, and Meaningfully Contributing, to the Social Sciences Research Network.  My application of crowd theory to the gender composition of corporate boards of directors in this article does not provide significant new insights on the decision making of female corporate directors.  However, it does result in the observation that women on corporate boards may foster the establishment of new board structures and policies that have the potential to favorably impact board decision making.  The bottom line?  More–and more novel–research still…

A few weeks ago, I described to you a really special extracurricular project undertaken by one of my students, Brandon Whiteley, now an alum, this past year.  The project?  Proposing and securing legislative passage of Invest Tennessee, a Tennessee state securities law exemption for intrastate offerings that incorporates key features of crowdfunding.  The legislation became effective on January 1.

In that first post, I described the project and Brandon’s observations on the legislative process.  This post highlights his description of the influences on the bill that became law.  Here they are, with a few slight edits (and hyperlink inserts) from me.

I just left the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting this morning.  I came back to a flat tire at the airport, but let’s not dwell on that . . . .  The conference was a good one, as these zoo-like mega conferences go.  

I presented at the conference as part of a panel that focused on teaching courses and topics at the intersection of animals and the law.  (Thanks for the plug, Stefan!)  Yes, although it is a little known fact, I do teach courses involving animals and the law.  Regrettably, it is a somewhat rare thing for me, since I always have to teach these courses as an overload.  However, I also am the faculty advisor to our campus chapter of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund and UT Pro Bono’s Animal Law Project (which compiled and annually updates a Tennessee statutory resource used by animal control and other law enforcement officers, as well as other animal-focused professionals, in the State of Tennessee).  In addition, I coach our National Animal Law Competitions team.  These non-classroom activities  give me ample time to teach in different ways . . . .

I will not rehash all of my remarks from the panel presentation here.  In fact, I want to make a very limited point in this post.  While my calling to legal issues involving non-human animals is rooted in large part in being the “animal mom” of a rescue dog and rescue cat, I also participate in educational efforts in this area because I see it as my professional responsibility as a lawyer–and in particular, as a business lawyer.

Grades are in–a few hours late, but in nevertheless.  It must be almost time for New Year’s Eve, syllabus and first-assignment posting, the AALS conferenece, the first day of classes, . . .  and more job searching for our students!

I was reminded in an email from a student this morning that the hunt for summer and permanent law jobs is revving back up again after the holiday doldrums.  The student, a 1L mentee seeking summer employment, was asking a few questions about my cover letter post, to which I eaerlier had referred him.  I expect to start getting more of these communications from students about their job searches over the next few weeks.

Our brother bloggers over at the Law Skills Prof Blog have already struck while the iron is hot on this issue.  Specifically, Lou Sirico posted a quip on dressing for job interviews the other day.  The quoted advice?  “The interviewer should remember what you said and not what you were wearing.”  

Hmm.  Yeah.  I guess so.  Well, maybe not.

Certainly, that’s the advice I was given by NYU Law’s fabulous placement folks in “the day.”  Then, that meant wearing: a black, navy or midnight blue, or gray skirt suit; a neutral (white, ivory, gray, black) collared shirt or jewel-neck blouse; skin-tone hose; dark, solid-colored, medium-heeled pumps or really lovely flats; and either Barbara Bush pearls (the double strand) or a silk floppy bow tie (like an Hermes twilly, only not as fashion-forward).  Bo-ring.

I am proud (but call me lucky) to have gotten my job wearing (to the initial interview) a deep pink–almost fuchsia–silk-blend skirt suit (midi-length skirt, hip-length jacket), with a white collared blouse, neutral hose, black flats, and a patterned (pink, blue, etc.) floppy silk bow tie.  (This is where the folks in the UT Law Career Center lose faith that they are sending students to the right place when they refer them to me for career advice!)  I was confident and radiant in that suit (although I am not sure I realized that fully at the time), and I am convinced that made a big difference in the reception that I got from people when I wore it.  However, it’s true that I  was interviewed by a woman (a female senior associate in a multicolored silk dress with straight blond hair down to her derrière) and I was seeking employment at an entrepreneurial, individualistic firm–Skadden.  

March 21, 2015
University of Georgia School of Law, Athens GA

The ninth annual meeting of the Law and Entrepreneurship Association (LEA) will occur on March 21, 2015 in Athens, Georgia.  The LEA is a group of legal scholars interested in the topic of entrepreneurship—broadly construed.  Topics have ranged from crowdfunding to electronic contracting to issues of taxation in startups.

Our annual conference is an intimate gathering where each participant is expected to have read and actively engage with all of the pieces under discussion.  We call for papers and proposals relating to the general topic of entrepreneurship and the law.

Proposals should be comprehensive enough to allow the LEA board to evaluate the aims and likely content of papers they propose. Papers may be accepted for publication but must not be published prior to the meeting. Works in progress, even those at a relatively early stage, are welcome.  Junior scholars and those considering entering the legal academy are especially encouraged to participate. There is no registration fee, but participants must cover their own costs.

To submit a presentation, email Professor Usha Rodrigues at rodrig@uga.edu with a proposal or paper by February 1, 2015. Please title the email “LEA Submission – {Name}.&rdquo…

Effective as of January 1. 2015, Tennessee will allow Tennessee corporations to engage in intrastate offerings of securities to Tennessee residents over the internet without registration.  The new law, adopted earlier this year, is the direct result of a law-student-led movement.  The key student leader was one of my students, and he kept me informed about the effort as it moved along.  (I was called upon for advice and commentary from time to time, but the bill is all their work.)

In my experience, this kind of effort–a student-initiated, non-credit, extracurricular engagement in business law reform–is almost unheard of.  I was intrigued by the enterprise and impressed by its success.  As a result, I asked the student leader, Brandon Whiteley, now an alumnus, to send me some of his perceptions about drafting and proposing the bill and getting it passed.  

This is the first in a series of three posts that feature Brandon’s observations on the legislative process, the key influences on the bill, and the importance of communication.  This post highlights his commentary on the legislative process (which I have edited minimally with his consent).  I think you’ll agree that his wisdom and humor both shine through in this first installment (as well as the others).  His organizational capabilities also are evident throughout.

 . . . here‘s a relatively new Dodge Challenger commercial (part of a series) that you may find amusing.  I saw it during Saturday Night Live the other night and just had to go find it on YouTube.  It, together with the other commercials in the series, commemorate the Dodge brand’s 100-year anniversary.  “They believed in more than the assembly line . . . .”  Indeed!

You also may enjoy (but may already have read) this engaging and useful essay written by Todd Henderson on the case.  The essay provides significant background information about and commentary on the court’s opinion.  It is a great example of how an informed observer can use the facts of and underlying a transactional business case to help others better understand the law of the case and see broader connections to transactional business law generally.  Great stuff.

On December 10, the press reported the Second Circuit’s decision in the insider trading prosecution of Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson (two of multiple defendants in the original case).  In its opinion, the court reaffirms that tippee liability for insider trading is predicated on a breach of fiduciary duty based on the receipt of a personal benefit by the tipper and clarifies that insider trading liability will not result unless the tippee has knowledge of the facts constituting the breach (i.e., “knew that the insider disclosed confidential information in exchange for a personal benefit”).  The court summarized its opinion, which addresses these matters in the context of the Newman case, a criminal case, as follows:

[W]e conclude that, in order to sustain a conviction for insider trading, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the tippee knew that an insider disclosed confidential information and that he did so in exchange for a personal benefit. Moreover, we hold that the evidence was insufficient to sustain a guilty verdict against Newman and Chiasson for two reasons. First, the Government’s evidence of any personal benefit received by the alleged insiders was insufficient to establish the tipper liability from which defendants’ purported tippee liability would derive. Second, even assuming that the scant evidence offered on the issue of personal benefit was sufficient, which we conclude it was not, the Government presented no evidence that Newman and Chiasson knew that they were trading on information obtained from insiders in violation of those insiders’ fiduciary duties.

Many of you may have seen this already, but this past week’s news brought with it an update to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s health situation–positive news on his cancer treatment results, for which we all can be grateful. I posted here about Dimon’s earlier public disclosure that he was undergoing treatment for this cancer.  Based on publicly available information, I give Dimon my (very unofficial) “Power T for Transparency” cheer for 2014.  (The “Power T” is The University of Tennessee’s key–and now almost exclusive–branding symbol.  See my earlier posts on UT’s related branding decisions regarding the Lady Volunteers here and here.) 

As many of you know, I have written about  securities  law and corporate law disclosure issues relating to private facts about key executives (which include questions relating to the physical health of these important corporate officers).  I do not plan to rehash all that here. But I will note that I think friend and Glom blogger David Zaring gets it just right in his brief report on the recent Dimon announcement (with one small typo corrected and a hyperlink omitted):

Not to pile on, but there’s the slightly unsettling trend of CEOs talking, or not…

In the comments to my post last week on teaching fiduciary duty in Business Associations, Steve Diamond asked whether I had blogged about why we changed our four-credit-hour Business Associations course at The University of Tennessee College of Law to a three-credit-hour offering.  In response, I suggested I might blog about that this week.  So, here we are . . . .