Following on some email communications regarding my post last week relating to optimal statutory resources for a business associations course, Itai Fiegenbaum and I have decided to organize a discussion group at the 2025 Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) conference (to be held at the Omni Resort in Amelia Island, Florida, July 26-Aug. 2) on teaching practices in the basic business associations course. In addition to addressing the need for and type of statutory resources used in teaching the course, we would expect the discussion group to cover, e.g., teaching and learning objectives, the aggregate number of credit hours devoted to the basics of business associations law, the statutes taught, the overall range of topics covered, assessment methods, and teaching methodologies and tools. Please email me at jheminwa@tennessee.edu to let me know if you are interested in joining us at Amelia Island next summer for this discussion group.

I know this is late notice, but I have a small role in an online symposium on benefit corporations being held today at 3:30 pm Eastern (12:30 pm Pacific). The symposium features essays on Professor Michael Dorff’s recent book on benefit corporations, Becoming a Benefit Corporation. The essays will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Southwestern University Law Review. I am writing a foreword for the issue. If you have time and want to register to attend, the flyer is included above. You also can just register here.

I’m super excited to attend and moderate a panel on How to Improve Your Contract Skills with Gen AI Tools and Products at the ContractsCon in Las Vegas from January 22-23, 2025. As the GC for a startup and a nonprofit, and someone who directs the Transactional Skills Program for a law school, I have to stay up to date on the future of contracts for my clients and to prepare our students for a world that will be completely different from the one they expected.

This is not the typical boring CLE. How to Contract Founder, Laura Frederick describes it as “practical training for the work you do all the time.For every mega M&A transaction or financing, there are thousands of regular contracts that companies handle day-in and day-out. This training helps you learn how to do those BETTER with strategies based on best practices used by top lawyers with solid real-world in-house experience. Have a ton of experience already? This event is perfect for lawyers and professionals with 10+ years of contract experience too. We’ve added a whole day of training built to teach advanced contract skills. Plus you can connect with your peers and help out

If you’re in North Carolina, or just passionate about the topic, consider coming to the NCCU 2024 Law and Technology Symposium and Summit October 10–11, 2024 at the Durham Convention Center. The symposium dives deep into generative AI and its impact on healthcare, while the summit offers a broader look at AI, data privacy, cybersecurity, emerging trends in tech policy, legal services regulation, and more. 

To register for the Symposium on October 10, please email techlawpolicyctr@nccu.edu.

To register for the Summit on October 11, where I’m speaking,  click on the “Register Today” link.

The organizers are still finalizing speakers, but if you come, look out for me on the Legal Risks in Cybersecurity Investigations panel. My co-panelists include Tylin Woodstock of Cisco Systems and Daniel Shin of William & Mary Law School.

The full agenda and impressive line up of speakers for the October 11 Summit , including two members of Congress, is below.

8:00 AM ET

Registration

8:00 AM-3:00 PM8:40 AM ET

Welcome

8:40 AM-8:45 AM

April Dawson

Associate Dean of Technology and Innovation and Professor of Law 

North Carolina Central University School of Law 8:45 AM ET

Greetings

8:45 AM-9:15 AM

Alyn Goodson

Executive Vice Chancellor 

North

The Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) 2025 annual meeting is scheduled for July 26-Aug. 2 at the Omni Resort in Amelia Island, Florida.I am committed to conjure up ideas for business law panels and discussion groups at the conference.  But before I approach that task, I want to follow up on Haskell's recent post, SEALS Conference Reflection — Mind, Soul, and Body?, from August 28th.

In that post, Haskell made the following observations:

Traditionally, legal academics do an excellent job sharpening the mind. “Think like a lawyer” is a phrase even my colleagues across campus know. The soul gets much less attention at most schools, but that seems to be changing a bit, especially with increasing concerns for lawyer well-being.

The body, however, seems almost entirely neglected both at the SEALS Conference and at law schools nationwide. Yes, there were tennis and pickleball tournaments, but I don’t think there was a single panel related to the physical health of our students, faculty, and staff.

I know he's right.  So, in the comments to his post, I suggested a SEALS discussion session on physical wellness.  I want to start the process of putting together that session through this post.

 The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics is hosting a virtual ESG and Compliance Conference on November 7.  I love to hear academics talk about these issues at conferences but because I still engage in the practice of law and I teach about compliance, governance, and sustainability, I find the conversations are very different when listening to practitioners.

My panel is titled ESG Due Diligence Across the Corporate Lifecycle From Start-Up to Maturity: The Roles of Compliance, Ethics, Legal, and the Board. My co-panelists, Ahpaly Coradin, Partner, Pierson Ferdinand, and Eugenia di Marco, a startup founder and international legal advisor, and I will focus on:

  •  how to measure and prioritize ESG factors at different stages of a company's life cycle, according to a company's industry, and technology use.
  •  how ESG creates value in M&A  beyond risk mitigation and learn the impact of ESG on target selection, valuation, and integration.
  • board and management responsibilities in overseeing and managing ESG-related risks, particularly in light of Caremark duties and Marchand.

Date & Time: Thursday, November 7 from 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM central time

Other topics that speakers will discuss include:

  • Supply chains and European due diligence 
  • Global regulatory and legislative developments
  • Sustainable governance

The following comes to us from friends-of-the-BLPB J.S. Nelson and Geeyoung Min:

Dear Business Law Professor Blog readers,

This is a call to participate in Law & Society CRN 46's programming. CRN 46 broadly covers Corporate and Securities Law in Society.

The 2025 Law & Society Association (LSA) Annual Meeting is scheduled for Chicago, Illinois, USA from May 22-25, 2025. The meeting will be hosted at the Hyatt Regency. This year’s sessions will take place in-person.

If you are a member of our CRN and on our CRN email list, we will send you several reminders of deadlines as they approach from our CRN's email list. Of course, if you would like to be removed from these emails at any point, simply let us know.

If you have been forwarded this message, are not on our direct CRN 46 mailing list and want to be, please fill out your information here.

Meanwhile, the 2025 LSA Call-for-Participation submission window is now open. 

Submissions Now Open!

>> Click Here to Visit the 2025 Conference Website!

>> Submit an Abstract or Session!

The deadline for our Call for Submissions is October 15, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. ET (USA and Canada).

There are

AALS Section on Agency, Partnerships, LLCs, and Unincorporated Associations

Calls for Papers

The AALS Section on Agency, Partnerships, LLCs, and Unincorporated Associations is pleased to announce two calls for papers, one for a panel presentation and one for a works-in progress session geared to workshopping the research and writing of junior faculty.

Panel Presentation:

Up to three paper presenters will be selected for the section's principal panel to be held during the AALS 2025 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA. The program is entitled Technology's Intersection with Agency, Partnerships, and Unincorporated Associations. Co-Sponsored by the Sections on Technology, Law and Legal Education and Transactional Law and Skills, the session is designed to explore research and teaching involving the interactions of principal/agent relationships, partnerships, and unincorporated business associations with artificial intelligence, blockchains, cybersecurity, and other technological developments.

Works-in-Progress Session:

The section seeks paper proposals from junior scholars for a works-in-progress program.  Submissions for this session may relate to any topic within the scope of the law governing agency, partnerships, LLCs, or unincorporated associations.

Submission Information: 

To respond to either or both calls for papers, please submit a substantial abstract (five or more pages) or draft of an unpublished paper to

Cornell Law Review will be hosting its 2024 symposium, Mass Torts Inferno: New Battle Lines in the Resolution Debate, on September 20, 2024 in Ithaca, New York. Modern mass torts involve hundreds of thousands of victims affected by various types of tortious conduct ranging from sexual abuse and asbestos exposure to opioid trafficking. This symposium brings together diverse scholars to address the new, non-class aggregate litigation strategy that is reshaping the field. It also seeks to create a dialogue among scholars and practitioners of tort law, bankruptcy law, civil procedure, and constitutional law. The law review is proud to partner with Andrew Bradt, Sergio Campos, Zachary Clopton, Alexandra Lahav, and Samir Parikh to present this event.  

For those interested in attending, please contact Griffin Perrault at gp344@cornell.edu.

CornellPoster2024

I just came back on Sunday from the 2024 Law and Society Association Annual Meeting in Denver.  It was, as always, a stimulating few days.  A number of us business law profs were in attendance.  The corporate and securities law collaborative research network (CRN46) habitually organizes several programs.  This year was no exception.  I was privileged to be featured in two.  But I will say more on my participation in the conference later.

Today, I want to highlight an interesting piece that was presented at the conference during one of the CRN46 paper panels: "The Original Meaning of Equity " by Asaf Raz (forthcoming in the Washington University Law Review).  The SSRN abstract follows:

Equity is seeing a new wave of attention in scholarship and practice. Yet, as this Article argues, our current understanding of equity is divided between two distinct meanings: on one side, the federal courts, guided by the Supreme Court, tend to discuss equity as the precise set of remedies known at a fixed point in the past (static equity). On the other, state courts—most prominently, in Delaware—administer equity to preserve the correct operation of law in unforeseeable situations (substantive equity). Only the latter