Business Associations

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The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) recently released content summaries of the material proposed to be tested on the future bar exam.  Labeled Content Scope Outlines (the “Outlines“), they are available here.  Among them, are content descriptions under the heading “Business Associations & Relationships,” pp. 7-9 of the Outlines.  This post introduces a series of posts over the next week or two on those specific parts of the Outlines.  I will start the ball rolling by making four opening comments below, each focused on a general issue.

  • Testing Guidance – The Outlines designate topics that will be “tested in a way that assumes examinees know the details of the relevant doctrine without consulting legal resources” and distinguishes them from ones that will be “tested in a way that assumes examinees have general familiarity with the topics for purposes of issue-spotting or working efficiently with legal resources provided during the exam.”  I find this designation and separation helpful.
  • High-Level Content Guidance – Given that Delaware corporate and limited liability company law  (a) are national standards and (b) include provisions that are different from those in the Model Business Corporation Act and the Uniform Limited Liability Company

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A recent opinion of the Court of Appeals of Tennessee at Nashville, Buckley v. Carlock, is chock full of great issues from the standard Business Associations course.  Specifically, the case involves allegations of controlling shareholder oppression under Tenn. Code Ann. § 48-24-301.  The plaintiff requested, and was grated, a buy-out of his shares in lieu of dissolution.

As noted in the opinion, the plaintiff raises a variety of issues on appeal, arguing:

that the trial court’s valuation of his interest in TLC was “erroneous as a matter of law, or at least contrary to the weight of the evidence.” He also claims that the court abused its discretion in denying him prejudgment interest. And he contends that he was entitled to attorney’s fees as the prevailing party for the whole case. Lastly, he argues that the trial court erred in dismissing his claim for unjust enrichment as moot.

The Court of Appeals affirms the trial court opinion after oral argument (a note on that below).  In the process, the court validates a dissenters’ rights (“fair value”) approach to calculating the value of the plaintiff’s shares.  It also confirms aspects of the valuation calculation.

All of these “real life”…

I was recently honored to be invited to join a panel at the 16th Annual Meeting of the American College of Business Court Judges (ABCBJ), which was held in Jackson, Mississippi, on October 27-29. The meeting was hosted by Chancellor Denise Owens (the current president of the ACBCJ) in association with the Law & Economics Center (LEC) at George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law.

Chancellor Owens kicked off the event and introduced the keynote speaker, Haley Barbour (former Governor of Mississippi). Governor Barbour gave an excellent talk about the ways in which Mississippi’s musical traditions have helped to improve race relations over the past century.

The meeting panels covered a broad array of topics, including:

  • Ownership, Transfer and Trading of Intellecual Property Rights.
  • The Cost of Truth, Can You Afford It?
  • Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Algorithms: Studies in Law, Economics, and Racial Bias
  • Thriving Post Pandemic – Private Practice and Expanding Regulatory Authority After COVID-19.

I joined Professors Todd Zywicki and Donald Kochan on a panel moderated by Judge Elihu Berle (Los Angeles Superior Court). The panel was entitled, Shareholder Wealth Maximization versus ESG and the Business Roundtable: The Growing Debate Over Corporate Purpose. I…

This just in from friend-of-the-BLPB Sam Thompson at Penn State Law.  Sam hopes we will bring this program to the attention of those “who might be interested in learning more about this very important topic,” including law school administrators, faculty, and students.  I know I plan to make others aware.

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Dear Colleagues: This semester I am teaching a course dealing with issues in Minority Business Development, a subject I took as a student literally 50 years ago in my third year at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.  Because of the importance of this topic, Penn State Law has permitted me to make the course open to anyone who is interested in this very important topic, and recordings of all of the sessions of the course are available on the Penn State Law website here.

The course is divided into the following three segments:

Part I, Introduction and in-Depth Analysis of the Minority-White Gap in Business Ownership,

Part II, The Lawyer’s Essential Tools in Representing a Minority-Owned Small Business, and

Part III, The Big Ideas for Addressing the Minority-White Gap in Business Ownership

Part I was covered over five sessions and ended with a discussion with Professor…

I suggested in my last two posts (here and here) that as Congress and the SEC contemplate reforms to our current insider trading regime, it is important for us all to explore our intuitions about what we think insider trading is, why it is wrong, who is harmed by it, and the nature and extent of the harm. If we are going to rethink how we impose criminal and civil penalties for insider trading, we should have some confidence that the proscribed conduct is wrongful and why. One way to do this is to place ourselves in the shoes of traders and ask, “What would I do?” or “What do I think about that?” With this in mind, I developed some scenarios designed to test our attitudes regarding trading scenarios that distinguish the four historical insider trading regimes (laissez faire, fiduciary-fraud, equal access, and parity of information).

In the previous post, I offered a scenario that would result in liability under equal-access and parity-of-information regimes, but not under the fiduciary-fraud and laissez-faire models. Those of you who were not convinced that the trading in that scenario was wrongful may favor one of the less restrictive models.

In today’s…

As Congress and the SEC continue to contemplate reforms to the U.S. insider-trading enforcement regime, I suggested in my last post that it is important for us all to explore our intuitions about what we think insider trading is, why it is wrong, who is harmed by it, and the nature and extent of the harm. If we are going to rethink how we impose criminal and civil penalties for insider trading, we should have some confidence that the proscribed conduct is wrongful and why. One way to do this is to place ourselves in the shoes of traders and ask, “What would I do?” or “What do I think about that?” To this end, I have developed some scenarios designed to test our attitudes regarding trading scenarios that distinguish the four historical insider trading regimes (laissez faire, fiduciary-fraud, equal access, and parity of information).

In the last post, I offered a scenario that would result in liability under a parity-of-information regime, but not under the other three. Those of you who were not convinced that the trading in that scenario was wrongful may favor one of the less restrictive models.

In this post, I offer the following scenario to…

Indiana University has a top-notch Business Law and Ethics department in their business school. I know a number of their professors and they would be fabulous colleagues.

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The Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in Bloomington seeks applications for a tenured/tenure-track position or positions in the Department of Business Law and Ethics, effective fall 2022. The candidate(s) selected will join a well-established department of 28 full- time faculty members who teach a variety of courses on legal topics, business ethics, and critical thinking at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It is anticipated that the position(s) will be at the assistant professor rank, though appointment at a higher rank could occur if a selected candidate’s record so warrants.

To be qualified, a candidate must have a J.D. degree with an excellent academic record and must demonstrate the potential for outstanding teaching and excellent scholarship in law and/or ethics, as well as the ability to contribute positively to a multicultural campus. Qualified applicants with expertise in any area of law and/or ethics will be considered, and we welcome candidates with teaching interests across a broad range of legal and ethical issues in business, as well as research methods or perspectives,

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The University of Connecticut School of Business hosts The Business and Human Rights Initiative, which “seeks to develop and support multidisciplinary and engaged research, education, and public outreach at the intersection of business and human rights.” Professor Stephen Park, Director of the Business and Human Rights Initiative, invited me to be a discussant at the most recent meeting of the Initiative’s workshop series. The workshop focused on Rachel Chambers’ and Jena Martin’s excellent paper, A Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for Human Rights. Here’s an abstract:

The global movement towards the adoption of human rights due diligence laws is gaining momentum. Starting in France, moving to the Netherlands, and now at the European Union level, lawmakers across Europe are accepting the need to legislate to require that companies conduct human rights due diligence throughout their global operations. The situation in the United States is very different: on the federal level there is currently no law that mandates corporate human rights due diligence. Civil society organization International Corporate Accountability Roundtable is stepping into the breach with a legislative proposal building on the model of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to prohibit corporations from engaging in grave human rights…

As we launch into another online/hybrid semester of legal education, I want to share a new article by Jen Randolph Reise: Moving Ahead: Finding Opportunities for Transactional Training in Remote Legal Education. Here’s the abstract:

This article builds on the many calls for teaching business acumen and transactional skills in law school with a timely insight: the shift to remote legal education creates opportunities to do so, in particular by incorporating practice problems and mini-simulations in doctrinal courses. Weaving together the literature on emerging best practices in online legal education, cognitive psychology, and the science of teaching and learning, Professor Reise argues that adding formative assessments and experiential education is effective in teaching and is critical in remote learning.

Offering vivid examples from her experience teaching Business Organizations online, she urges legal instructors to use the opportunity presented by the shift to remote education to incorporate problems and simulations as an effective way to motivate students to prepare for class, to expose them to transactional practice skills, and to effectively teach them key doctrinal concepts.

For those of you who do not know Jen, she is currently a Visiting Professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law (Twitter: @jenreise). …