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Marcia Narine Weldon

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Professor Narine Weldon is the director of the Transactional Skills Program, Faculty Coordinator of the Business Compliance & Sustainability Concentration, Transactional Law Concentration, and a Lecturer in Law.

She earned her law degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School, and her undergraduate degree, cum laude, in political science and psychology from Columbia University. After graduating, she worked as a law clerk to former Justice Marie Garibaldi of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, a commercial litigator with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton in New York, an employment lawyer with Morgan, Lewis and Bockius in Miami, and as a Deputy General Counsel, VP of Global Compliance and Business Standards, and Chief Privacy Officer of Ryder, a Fortune 500 Company. In addition to her academic position, she serves as the general counsel of a startup and a nonprofit.  Read More

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On April 24, 2014, the University of Saint Thomas (Minnesota) will host a conference on social enterprise.  The conference will be interdisciplinary, engaging experts in Catholic studies, entrepreneurship, law, management, and public policy.

The first session will address issues surrounding using business as an agent for social change, with a focus on social entrepreneurship and benefit corporations.  The first session will run from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the Atrium at the University of St. Thomas, School of Law and is approved for 2.0 hours of CLE credit (Minnesota).  Speakers are listed below:

  • Elizabeth K. Babson, Attorney with Drinker, Biddle and Reath LLP and a co-author of the Benefit Corporation White Paper
  • Lyman P. Q. Johnson, LeJeune Distinguished Chair in Law, University of St. Thomas, School of Law, and Robert O. Bentley Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University
  • John F. McVea, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of St. Thomas, Opus College of Business
  • J. Haskell Murray, Assistant Professor of Management and Business Law, Belmont University
  • Michael J. Naughton, Director, John A. Ryan Institute for Catholic Social Thought, University of St. Thomas, Center for Catholic Studies
  • Elizabeth R. Schiltz (moderator), Thomas J. Abood

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A friend and current Delaware attorney just sent me this article from Delaware Online:  Bouchard seen as Chancery candidate.  

Interestingly, Andre Bouchard had been the chairman of the Delaware Judicial Nominating Commission since 2011, and he recently resigned from that position.  Bouchard is currently the managing partner of Bouchard Margules & Friedlander, P.A. in Wilmington, Delaware.   

From what I hear from my friends who practice in Delaware, Bouchard is well-respected and would make an excellent Chancellor.  

According to the article, and as I suspected here, current Vice Chancellor Travis Laster is also in the conversation regarding the next Chancellor.  Superior Court Judge Jan Jurden is being mentioned as a possibility as well.  Previously, Judge Jurden had been considered a serious contender for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Delaware position that ultimately went to Chancellor Strine.

Stay tuned. 

During my brief academic career, I have focused the majority of my research on social enterprise law.  While I have expressed my disagreement with various parts of the current social enterprise statutes, I have tried to make constructive suggestions for improvement, and am largely in favor of businesses that have a society-focused mission.

Lately, I have been thinking about whether my oral and written support of socially responsible businesses significantly impacts my purchasing behavior. 

Frankly and regrettably, the social responsibility of a given company is usually merely a “tie-breaker” in my purchasing decisions.  In my Social Enterprise Law seminar last spring, the class concluded, after doing case studies on a number of social enterprises, that for-profit social enterprises likely need a business plan that is just as good as a traditional for-profit company to be sustainable and successful.  Social enterprises that used their social responsibility as a crutch often failed or performed poorly. 

Patagonia is a socially responsible company that I have supported religiously — long before I started writing in the area.  You can see my worn out Patagonia shoes below.  While Patagonia’s products may be expensive, their value proposition is strong.  …

As I have mentioned before, there appears to be no official “meat market” for legal studies positions in business schools.  I found my current job through Higher Ed Jobs, and thought Higher Ed Jobs was the best source during my search.  Also, the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Vitae recently launched (though they have had a jobs board for quite some time) and is likely worth frequenting.

For those still on the market, I wanted to highlight two recent business law postings: Southeast Missouri State University and University of Alaska (Fairbanks).  Both positions appear to be tenure-track legal studies positions in business schools.  Also, both schools are AACSB-accredited.  (There are multiple accrediting bodies for business schools, and AACSB is the gold standard). 

I maintain that being a professor is the best job in the world (especially given that my childhood dream of becoming an NFL quarterback is looking less glamorous in light of all the talk about concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)). 

Wishing success for our readers who are on the professor market. 

The following call for papers comes to us from Janine Hiller (Virginia Tech):

I am pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a research colloquium focused on “Legal and Ethical Issues in Predictive Data Analytics.” The colloquium is co-organized and the resulting publication will be co-edited by Tonia Hap Murphy of  the University of Notre Dame. The colloquium of 8-10 scholars will be held at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va. on June 19-20, 2014. Virginia Tech and the Center for Business Intelligence and Analytics are sponsoring the research meeting, and will pay for meals and lodging during the colloquium dates.

Predictive data analytics are used in a variety of settings and applications,  including personalized marketing, crime prevention, insurance, health care, and increasingly in the legal profession itself. Within the next few years, the sale of predictive analytics business software alone is forecast to reach billions of dollars and to be utilized in a wide variety of industries. In contrast to the growth of data analytics and predictive modeling, legal and ethical considerations have not been widely identified or discussed in academic literature. The goal of the colloquium is to provide leadership for research about these issues and

…

Information about the annual Academy of Legal Studies in Business (“ALSB”) conference is available here. 

Supposedly, the conference hotel, the Hyatt Olive 8, is already booked.  (Who knew that you had to book earlier than January 24 for an early August academic conference).  I hear that the conference organizers are negotiating for reduced rates at the nearby hotels, or perhaps more rooms will come available (at the conference rate of $159/night) at the Hyatt Olive 8.

This will be my first ALSB conference and my first trip to Seattle.  I am looking forward to it.  The ALSB conference is the annual, national conference for legal studies professors in business schools.  Last fall I attended, presented, and enjoyed the SEALSB regional conference in Tampa.  I am told that ALSB will be similar, but on a much larger scale.

If you are interested in this conference and/or are interested in teaching law in business schools, it might be worth joining ALSB.  The new member rate is only $30. 

Hope to see some of our readers in Seattle in August.   

An announcement from the Faculty Lounge that may be of interest to some of our readers is reproduced below:

“The National Business Law Scholars Conference (NBLSC) will be held on Thursday, June 19th and Friday, June 20th at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles.

This is the fifth annual meeting of the NBLSC, a conference which annually draws together dozens of legal scholars from across the United States and around the world. We welcome all scholarly submissions relating to business law. Presentations should focus on research appropriate for publication in academic journals, especially law reviews, and should make a contribution to the existing scholarly literature. We will attempt to provide the opportunity for everyone to actively participate. Junior scholars and those considering entering the legal academy are especially encouraged to participate.

To submit a presentation, email Professor Eric C. Chaffee at eric.chaffee@utoledo.edu with an abstract or paper by April 4, 2014. Please title the email “NBLSC Submission – {Name}”. If you would like to attend, but not present, email Professor Chaffee with an email entitled “NBLSC Attendance.” Please specify in your email whether you are willing to serve as a commentator or moderator. A conference schedule will be circulated in late

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Freedom Industries — the company apparently responsible for contaminating the Elk River (and, along with it, 300,000 West Virginia residents’ drinking water) – has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  The company wasted little time filing for reorganization, and the process already has some people on edge. 

From a public relations perspective, this kind of cases does not serve the concepts of Business Organizations especially well.  The use of limited liability vehicles is sanctioned by law, and such use has been credited with creating all kinds of opportunities for growth through pooled resources that would not otherwise occur without the grant of limited liability.  I happen to think that’s true.  (See, e.g., Corporate Moral Agency and the Role of the Corporation in Society, p. 176, By David Ronnegard) 

Still, one of the issues is that figuring out who owned Freedom Industries took some sleuthing (reporter’s findings here).  It appears the structure is as follows: 

Freedom Industries’ Chapter 11 documents list its sole owner as Chemstream Holdings, which is owned by J. Clifford Forrest.  Forrest also owned the Pennsylvania company, Rosebud Mining, which is located at the same address Chemstream Holdings lists for its headquarters.  The Reports note that…

As a resident of West Virginia, I am especially appalled at the disastrous chemical spill into the Elk River that has left 300,000 without safe water. My family and I are fortunate that we live well north of the spill and we have not been burdened by a lack of safe water. Still, our state, our friends, and our environment have been, and we can sense the suffering. 

In the wake of disasters, there often follow what are known as “policy windows” that create opportunities for new legislation. G. Richard Shell describes the concept like this in Make the Rules or Your Rivals Will (Amazon link) :  

Policy windows “open” in the wake of a high visibility event such as an expose, a scandal, a public-health crisis, or a disaster.  They “close” when the legislature acts to address the problem or when some other news event pushes the issue off the front pages and diverts public attention elsewhere.

Some have noted that the disaster in West Virginia has not gotten its due on some of the news shows (see, e.g., Sunday Shows To West Virginia: Drop Dead!”, but the disaster has still been a high-profile media event. 

This chemical…

In December, the Deal Professor, Steven Davidoff, wrote a great piece about the grey areas triggered by DISH Network Chairman Charles Ergen’s debt purchase from LightSquared (a failing satellite-based broadband comany).  This case has several twists and turns, and I plan to write a few posts on some of these areas.  Today, we’ll start with debt purchase. 

As Davidoff explains, Lightsquared’s debt could not (per the debt documents) be purchased by “direct competitor” (e.g., Dish Network), so Ergen used a personal investment vehicle to buy the debt.  This, the Deal Professor notes, appears acceptable under the debt documents (even if it’s not what was intended):

In a court filing, LightSquared contends that Mr. Ergen breached the debt agreement because the documents define a “direct competitor” to also be a subsidiary of a direct competitor. LightSquared is arguing that because Mr. Ergen controls both Dish and the hedge fund that bought the debt, the fund is a subsidiary of Dish.

Yet that argument stretches the plain meaning of a “subsidiary” — a company owned or controlled by a holding company — language that is not in the document. So LightSquared’s claims against Mr. Ergen are tenuous at best.

The acquisition itself seemed…