Conferences

Subscribe to Conferences via RSS

In 2015, I and several academics and other experts traveled to Guatemala as part of the Lat-Crit study space. The main goal of the program was to examine the effect of the extractive industries on indigenous peoples and the environment. During our visit, we met with indigenous peoples, government ministers, the chamber of commerce, labor leaders, activists (some who had received multiple death threats), and village elders.

Our labor of love, From Extraction to Emancipation Development Reimagined, edited by Raquel Aldana and Steve Bender, was released this week. My chapter “Corporate Social Responsibility in Latin America: Fact or Fiction” introduces the book. I first blogged about CSR in the region in 2015 in the context of a number of companies that had touted their records but in fact, had been implicated in environmental degradation and even murder. Over the past few years, one of the companies I blogged about, Tahoe Resources, has been sued in Canada for human rights violations, the Norwegian pension fund has divested, and shareholders have filed a class action based on allegations re: the rights of indigenous people.

Although the whole book should be of interest to business law professors and practitioners, chapters of particular interest…

Call for Papers for the

Section on Business Associations Program on

Contractual Governance: the Role of Private Ordering

at the 2019 Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting

The AALS Section on Business Associations is pleased to announce a Call for Papers from which up to two additional presenters will be selected for the section’s program to be held during the AALS 2019 Annual Meeting in New Orleans on Contractual Governance: the Role of Private Ordering.  The program will explore the use of contracts to define and modify the governance structure of business entities, whether through corporate charters and bylaws, LLC operating agreements, or other private equity agreements.  From venture capital preferred stock provisions, to shareholder involvement in approval procedures, to forum selection and arbitration, is the contract king in establishing the corporate governance contours of firms?  In addition to paper presenters, the program will feature prominent panelists, including SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce and Professor Jill E. Fisch of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Our Section is proud to partner with the following co-sponsoring sections: Agency, Partnership, LLC’s and Unincorporated Associations; Contracts; Securities Regulation; and Transactional Law & Skills.

Submission Information:

Please submit an abstract or draft of…

Greetings from the ABA Business Law Meeting in sunny Orlando, Florida. Today, I attended an excellent program on Protecting Human Rights in Supply Chains; Moving from Policy to Action. I plan to blog more about the meeting next week, highlighting the work surrounding draft human rights clauses for supplier contracts. The project was spearheaded by David Snyder of American University and corporate lawyer Susan Maslow. In this post, I want to address one of the topics Susan Maslow discussed– the recent spate of lawsuits brought by consumers who allege unfair trade practices based on what companies say (or don’t say) about their human rights records.

I’ve blogged (incessantly for the past five years) and written longer articles about the various ESG disclosure regimes. I’ve argued that in theory, disclosure is a good thing. But without meaningful financial penalties from regulators for violations, many corporations won’t do anything more than the bare minimum for human rights, even with the threat of (often short-lived) consumer boycotts. Further, most consumers suffer from disclosure overload or don’t understand or remember what they read.

The disclosure issue has now reached the courts. In 2015, a law firm filed cases in California under unfair competition and…

As you may recall, I posted back in January on Emory Law’s upcoming biennial conference on transactional law and skills, “To Teach is to Learn Twice:  Fostering Excellence in Transactional Law and Skills Education.” The conference is scheduled for Friday, June 1, 2018 and Saturday, June 2, 2018. 

I learned earlier today that the conference organizers are offering one last chance for interested transactional law and skills instructors to submit a proposal and have extended the proposal deadline through Friday, March 30, 2018.  They do ask that folks submit proposals as soon as possible.  Even if you do not submit a proposal, you can register for the conference now.   

Our friends at Emory Law desire to reach far and wide to embrace the whole community of transactional law and skills educators, so please pass this on and encourage your colleagues–including new teachers and adjunct professors (both able to participate at reduced registration fees)–to attend.  I plan to be there again, although I can only attend the first day of the conference this year.  I always learn something at these conferences.  They attract a great, thoughtful community of teachers and scholars.

Mark your calendars!

March 1, 2018 is the deadline for nominations for the inaugural award of the Grunin Prize.

The Grunin Prize has been created to recognize the variety and impact of lawyers’ participation in the ways in which business, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, is increasingly advancing the goals of sustainability and human development.

Lawyers, legal educators, policymakers, in-house counsel, or legal teams that recently have developed innovative, scalable, and social entrepreneurial solutions using existing law, legal education, or the development of new legal structures or metrics are eligible for nomination. And self-nominations are encouraged!

The Grunin Prize will be presented on June 5, 2018 at the IILWG/Grunin Center conference. To learn more about the Grunin Prize and the nomination process, go to http://www.law.nyu.edu/centers/grunin-social-entrepreneurship/grunin-prize.

June 5-6, 2018 are the dates of the Impact Investing Legal Working Group (IILWG)/Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship’s 2018 Conference on “Legal Issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing – in the US and Beyond.” This year’s IILWG/Grunin Center’s annual conference will take place at NYU School of Law in New York City.

The themes of this year’s conference include:

· Embedding Impact into Deal Structures and Terms
· Policy and…

WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP IN ACADEMIA CONFERENCE

Advancing women professors, librarians, and clinicians in leadership positions in the academy.

Thursday & Friday July 19-20, 2018
University of Georgia School of Law
Athens, Georgia

Call for Proposals!

DEADLINE: Thursday, March 15, 2018

 

The University of Georgia School of Law is proud to organize and host the inaugural Women’s Leadership in Academia Conference. This Conference strives to address the concerns and needs voiced by our respective communities. In response to suggestions from colleagues across the nation, this Conference will offer programming focused on building skills and providing tools and information that are directly applicable to women in legal education looking to be leaders within the academy.
 
To help us create targeted programs of interest, we are looking to the expertise within our diverse community. We invite you to submit a proposal for a conference session. The Planning Committee is looking for proposals in a variety of formats, including hands-on workshops, panel presentations, roundtables, and short lectures. However, we are open to all suggestions and encourage creativity and collaboration with your colleagues. All proposal topics should address the unique perspective and challenges of women, and provide programming that will be useful to developing

…

Call for Papers

The NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association invite you to submit papers: 4th Annual Conference of the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association at New York University, New York City, on September 14-15, 2018. Scholars from all disciplines are invited to apply, and we invite contributions that reflect the interdisciplinary character of BHR in theory and in practice.

We will also consider applications to participate as observers and discussants. Anyone interested in this possibility should submit their application in a few sentences to the email address below. Doctoral candidates are not eligible to present their research at this workshop, but they are welcome to attend. To discuss their work, PhD students may apply to the Young Researchers Summit (https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/youngresearchers/). This is a workshop to discuss research-in-progress; papers must be unpublished at the time of presentation.

In addition to presenting a paper at the conference, participants are expected to read and be prepared to comment on and discuss the papers of other participants. The conference will be organized around three parallel working groups. Please indicate in your application to which of the three broad tracks you…

Sixth Biennial Conference:
To Teach is to Learn Twice: Fostering Excellence in Transactional Law and Skills Education

June 1-2, 2018 • Atlanta

Emory’s Center for Transactional Law and Practice is delighted to announce its sixth biennial conference on the teaching of transactional law and skills.  The conference, entitled “To Teach is to Learn Twice:  Fostering Excellence in Transactional Law and Skills Education,” will be held at Emory Law, beginning at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, June 1, 2018, and ending at 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, June 2, 2018. 

Four New and Different Things about the Conference: 

  • Presentation of the inaugural Tina L. Stark Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Transactional Law and Skills.  Note:  For information about how to nominate yourself or someone else for this award, please visit http://bit.ly/2C1HdMW.
  • New 45-minute “Try-This” time slots for individual presenters to demonstrate in-class activities.   
  • Reduced registration fee for new transactional law and skills educators.
  • Reduced registration fee for adjunct professors.  

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

We are accepting proposals immediately, but in no event later than 5 p.m. on Monday, February 16, 2018. 

We welcome you to present on any aspect of transactional law and skills education as long as you view…

AALS2018(SHProposalPanel)

Last week, I had the privilege of attending and participating in the 2018 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (#aals2018).  I saw many of you there.  It was a full four days for me.  The conference concluded on Saturday with the program captured in the photo above–four of us BLPB co-bloggers (Stefan, me, Josh, and Ann) jawing about shareholder proposals–as among ourselves and with our engaged audience members (who provided excellent questions and insights).  Thanks to Stefan for organizing the session and inspiring our work with his article, The Inclusive Capitalism Shareholder Proposal.  I learned a lot in preparing for and participating in this part of the program.

Earlier that day, BLPB co-blogger Anne Tucker and I co-moderated (really, Anne did the lion’s share of the work) a discussion group entitled “A New Era for Business Regulation?” on current and future regulatory and de-regulatory initiatives.  In some part, this session stemmed from posts that Anne and I wrote for the BLPB here, here, and here.  I earlier posted a call for participation in this session.  The conversation was wide-ranging and fascinating.  I took notes for two essays I am writing this…

Our colleagues and friends at the Burgundy School of Business have informed me about an opportunity to participate in the European Academy of Management (EURAM) conference to be held in Reykjavik, Iceland from June 20-23.  (Note: these dates overlap with the 2018 National Business Law Scholars Conference.)  The Strategic Interest Group on Entrepreneurship (GIS 03) for the EURAM conference has established a sub-track on the “Sharing Economy” at the EURAM 2018 meeting. Djamchid Assadi of the Burgundy School of Business is coordinating this part of the program.

Djamchid is looking for both paper submissions and reviewers for the Sharing Economy sub-track.  Paper submissions are due by January 10 (2:00 pm Belgium time) and applications to serve as a reviewer are due December 31.  (Paper presenters are required to review at least two papers at the conference.)  Information about the conference can be found here.  The reviewer application form is available here.

Please contact Djamchid at Djamchid.Assadi@bsb-education.com if you are interested in submitting a paper.  He can tell you how to designate the paper for GIS 03.  Apparently, in GIS 03, you can declare your interest in the “The Sharing Economy” subtract.  Please feel free to use my name in…