Business Associations

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As someone who likes to write from time to time on women on corporate boards, I sometimes feel like I am writing about last year’s “news.”  In other words, not much seems to sound new.  So, I am always in search of a novel problem to explore or a different vantage point through which fresh insights can be obtained.

My most recent contribution in this regard is a symposium piece that looks at women on boards through the lens of the literature on crowds–whether they be mad or wise.  Boards can be crowds (albeit small ones), based on prevailing definitions.  Moreover, crowd behaviors can be gendered.  So, it seemed like a reasonable idea.

The fruit of this labor is my most recent article, Women in the Crowd of Corporate Directors: Following, Walking Alone, and Meaningfully Contributing.  The substantive portion of the abstract is as follows:

With the thought that new perspectives often can be helpful in addressing long-standing unresolved questions, this article approaches an analysis of women’s roles on corporate boards of directors from the standpoint of crowd theory. Crowd theory — in reality, a group of theories — explains the behavior of people in crowds. Specifically, this article…

WCU

Western Carolina University has posted an opening for an assistant professor of legal studies.  More information is available here. The position is fixed-term and non-tenure-track, though it comes with the title “assistant professor.” 

Last year, I greatly enjoyed my time presenting at Western Carolina University. WCU is in a beautiful part of the country, about an hour from Ashville, NC. WCU has a strong group of legal studies professors and has one of the nation’s few Business Administration and Law degrees at the undergraduate level.

I’ve updated my list of legal studies professor positions in business schools. Many of the positions have now been filled, but I placed the newer postings in bold font. 

Social enterprise has made two relatively recent appearances in the mainstream media:

(1) David Brooks on “How to Leave a Mark” in the NYT.

(2) George Roberts on “Bringing a Business Approach to Doing Good” in the WSJ.

In addition, a few law schools have started focusing more on social enterprise, including through the Georgetown Social Enterprise and Nonprofit Clinic and the Social Enterprise Law Association at Harvard Law School. 

Interest in social enterprise is and has been increasing, but the legal frameworks could still use significant work as my co-blogger Joan Heminway noted last month.

It’s always nice to be validated. Day two into torturing my business associations students with basic accounting and corporate finance, I was able to post the results of a recent study about what they were learning and why. “Torture” is a strong word– I try to break up the lessons by showing up to the minute video clips about companies that they know to illustrate how their concepts apply to real life settings. But for some students it remains a foreign language no matter how many background YouTube videos I suggest, or how interesting the debate is about McDonalds and Shake Shack on CNBC.

My alma mater Harvard Law School surveyed a number of BigLaw graduates about the essential skills and coursework for both transactional and litigation practitioners. As I explained in an earlier post, most of my students will likely practice solo or in small firms. But I have always believed that the skills sets are inherently the same regardless of the size of the practice or resources of the client. My future litigators need to know what documents to ask for in discovery and what questions to ask during the deposition of a financial expert. My family…

The Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law recently published a March 6, 2014, lecture from Former Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Myron T. Steele, Continuity and Change in Delaware Corporate Law Jurisprudence (available on Westlaw, but fee may apply).  As an aside, I’ll note that it appears to have taken a full calendar year for this to get published (at least on Westlaw), which seems crazy to me.  If there’s any question why legal blogs can fill such a critical role in providing timely commentary on legal issues, this is a big part of the answer.

In the lecture, Chief Justice Steele discusses three main areas: (1) multi-forum jurisdiction, (2) shareholder activism, and (3) the Nevada, Delaware, and North Dakota Debate (a “competition for charters”). 

As to multi-forum jurisdiction, he makes the unsurprising point that Delaware courts are of the view that first impressions of the Delaware General Corporation Law or other “internal affairs doctrine” issues should be handled in Delaware courts.  Of note, he explains that the Delaware constitution (art. IV, § 11(8)) now allows federal courts, the top court from any state, the SEC, and bankruptcy courts to certify questions directly to the Delaware…

Startupstash-icon-90x90

Via an Ethan Mollick (Wharton) tweet, I was recently introduced to Startup Stash.

Startup Stash is a beautifully simple set of curated resources for entrepreneurs. The categories of resources range from Naming to Hosting to Market Research to Marketing to Legal to Human Resources to Finance. And more.

As a law professor, I was obviously most curious about the legal resources. The list has the controversial and well-known Legal Zoom, but also has some relatively unknown resources. For example, UpCounsel (“get high-quality legal services from top business attorneys at reasonable rates”) was new to me. You can see the full list of legal resources here.

As previously stated, the Startup Stash list is curated, so there are only 10 legal resources, all of which look interesting, if also potentially dangerous for those without legal training. As I tell my business students, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and consulting with a knowledgeable attorney early in the start-up process can be invaluable. 

On Monday the White House released a report on The Effects of Conflicted Investment Advise on Retirement Savings which highlights the unique constraints of many retirement investors.  The current “suitable” investment advise standard leaves room for financial service provides to channel retirement investors into investments with higher fees paid by the investor but higher commissions earned by the professional.  Higher fees paid on investments can reduce the return on savings an average of 12% over the life of the retirement account.  In other words, paying less in fees could mean that retirement savings could last an average of an additional 5 years.  This has major implications for individual financial stability as well as our national retirement policy, which is increasingly dependent upon self-directed retirement savings in the form of 401(k)s and IRAs.

To reduce the conflict of interest and lessen the likelihood that retirement investors will “select” higher-fee investment vehicles based on the self-interested advise of financial services providers, the White House is asking the Department of Labor to impose a fiduciary duty standard requiring the advise provided to be consistent with the best interests of the investor.  This is such an intuitive position that many investors…

I serve on the Tennessee Bar Association Business Entity Study Committee (BESC) and Business Law Section Executive Committee (mouthfuls, but accurately descriptive).  The BESC was originated to vet proposed changes to business entity statutes in Tennessee.  It was initially populated by members of the Business Law Section and the Tax Law Section, although it’s evolved to mostly include members of the former with help from the latter.  The Executive Committee of the Business Law Section reviews the work of the BESC before Tennessee Bar Association leadership takes action.

Just about every legislative session of late, these committees of the Tennessee Bar Association have been asked to review proposed legislation on benefit corporations (termed variously depending on the sponsors).  A review request for a bill proposed for adoption for this session recently came in.  Since I serve on both committees, I get to see these proposed bills all the time.  So far, the proposals have pretty much tracked the B Lab model from a substantive perspective, as tailored to Tennessee law.  To date, we have advised the Tennessee Bar Association that we do not favor this proposed legislation.  Set forth below is a summary of the rationale I usually give.

Seitz

The Chancery Daily reports that Governor Markell has nominated Collins “C.J.” Seitz, Jr. to the Delaware Supreme Court. The January 31, 2015 retirement of Justice Henry duPont Ridgely created the vacancy.

C.J. Seitz, Jr. has over thirty years of corporate/commercial/IP litigation experience and is a respected, influential member of the Delaware bar. He has also served as mediator, arbitrator, or special master in numerous cases.  He currently serves as a founding partner of Seitz Ross Aronstam & Moritz LLP.

Joan Heminway and I must be thinking similar thoughts because before I even saw her helpful post on business law jobs, I asked my former research assistant Samuel Moultrie to share his thoughts and advice on finding legal employment in this economic environment.

Sam is one of the hardest workers I know and took his job search seriously. He also took a big risk by going beyond the typical employers we had recruiting on campus when we were at Regent Law – mostly non-profits, government agencies, and a few VA and NC law firms. Sam wanted to practice in the state that has the greatest influence on U.S. corporate law and has made it happen. His journey was not and is not easy, but I thought his story might be inspiring. Recently, Sam was also selected as a 2015 Leadership Delaware Fellow. Sam’s thoughts on finding legal employment are reproduced below. 

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By: Samuel L. Moultrie

The job market for recent law school graduates is, without a doubt, miserable.  While the statistics seem to vary, I think it is safe to say that the supply of new law school graduates exceeds the number of legal job openings.  Nevertheless, graduates should not lose all hope.  Any law school graduate can find a job, if they are motivated, willing to work hard, and take steps to distinguish themselves. 

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