Conferences

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As regular readers of this blog know, I am skeptical of many disclosure regimes, particularly those related to conflict minerals. I am, however, a fan of the Sustainability Accounting Standard Board’s (SASB’s) efforts to streamline the disclosure process and provide industry-specific metrics that tie into accepted definitions of materiality.

Dr. Jean Rogers, the CEO and Founder of SASB, presented at the Association of American Law Schools yesterday with other panelists discussing the pros and cons of environmental, social, and governance disclosures. To prove SASB’s case that investors care about sustainability, Dr. Rogers noted that in 2016, sustainable investment strategies came into play in one out of every five dollars under professional management. She cited a number of key sustainability initiatives that investors considered including the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investments ($59 trillion AUM), the Carbon Disclosure Project ($95 trillion AUM), the International Corporate Governance Network ($26 trillion AUM), and the Investor Network on Climate Risk ($13 trillion AUM).

Despite this interest, SASB argues, investors lack information that equips them with an apples to apples comparison on material information related to sustainability. What might be material in the beverage industry such as water usage for example, may…

Tomorrow, I am headed to the Association of American Law Schools (“AALS”) Annual Meeting in San Francisco (from Los Angeles, where I spent NYE and a bit of extra time with my sister).  I want to highlight a program at the conference for you all that may be of interest.  John Anderson and I have convened and are moderating a discussion group at the meeting entitled “Salman v. United States and the Future of Insider Trading Law.”  The program description, written after the case was granted certiorari by the SCOTUS and well before the Court’s opinion was rendered, follows:

In Salman v. United States, the United States Supreme Court is poised to take up the problem of insider trading for the first time in 20 years. In 2015, a circuit split arose over the question of whether a gratuitous tip to a friend or family member would satisfy the personal benefit test for insider trading liability. The potential consequences of the Court’s handling of this case are enormous for both those enforcing the legal prohibitions on insider trading and those accused of violating those prohibitions.

This discussion group will focus on Salman and its implications for the future of insider…

At the end of every semester I resolve to give less work to my students so that I don’t have so much to grade. This upcoming semester I may actually keep that resolution, but I do plan to keep my blogging assignment. In each class, I provide an extra credit or required post or series of posts of between 200-500 words so that students can learn a fundamental legal skill—communicating clearly, correctly, and concisely.

If you are reading this post, then you are already a fan of legal blogs. Academics blog to get their ideas out quickly rather than waiting for the lengthy law review cycle to publicize their thoughts. Academics can also refine ideas they are incubating by blogging and receiving real time feedback from readers. Practicing lawyers blog (or should) for a slightly different reason. Blogging can enhance a lawyer’s reputation and visibility and ultimately lead to more business.

Yesterday, I met with an attorney who will speak to the students in my new course on Legal Issues for Startups, Entrepreneurs, and Small Businesses. I mentioned to him that I found his blog posts enlightening and that they filled a gap in my knowledge base. Although I practiced…

The following comes to us from Prof. Kelly Terry, Co-Director, Institute for Law Teaching and Learning.  Submit proposals to her at ksterry@ualr.edu by 2/1/17 .

Call for Proposals for the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning’s Summer 2017 Conference, “Teaching Cultural Competency and Other Professional Skills Suggested by ABA Standard 302.” The conference will take place July 7-8, 2017 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law.

The Institute invites proposals for workshop sessions addressing how law schools are responding to ABA Standard 302’s call to establish learning outcomes related to “other professional skills needed for competent and ethical participation as a member of the legal profession,” such as “interviewing, counseling, negotiation, fact development and analysis, trial practice, document drafting, conflict resolution, organization and management of legal work, collaboration, cultural competency and self-evaluation.” The conference will focus on how law schools are incorporating these skills, particularly the skills of cultural competency, conflict resolution, collaboration, self-evaluation, and other relational skills, into their institutional outcomes, designing courses to encompass these skills, and teaching and assessing these skills. The deadline to submit a proposal is February 1, 2017.

My October included some signifiant tricks and a bunch of parallel treats.  I will highlight but a few of each here.  They illustrate, in my view, the busy mid-semester lives that law professors may have.

The Tricks

It was a real trick for me to give three distinct presentations in three cities (two in person and one virtually) in a two-day period early in the month.  On the morning of October 6, I participated in a panel discussion at The Crowdfunding Conference in New York City (New York).  That afternoon, I jumped on a plane for Little Rock (Arkansas), where I gave a continuing legal education presentation on crowdfunding for the Arkansas Bar Association as part of a program on “Capital Raising Today and Securities Law Issues.”  Finally, later that day, I was Skyped into a the North Carolina Law Review 2016 annual symposium in Chapel Hill (North Carolina) on “The Role of Law in Entrepreneurship,” at which I presented a draft paper, forthcoming in the North Carolina Law Review, on the important role of business finance lawyers in entrepreneurial enterprise.  

It then was a trick to refocus my energy on faculty hiring a few days later.

The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Annual Meeting will be held Tuesday, January 3 – Saturday, January 7, 2017, in San Francisco.  Readers of this blog who may be interested in programs associated with the AALS Section on Socio-Economics & the Society of Socio-Economics should click on the following link for the complete relevant schedule: 

Download Socio-Economic AALS Participants + Descriptions 161018

Specifically, I’d like to highlight the following programs:

On Wednesday, Jan. 4:

9:50 – 10:50 AM Concurrent Sessions:

  1. The Future of Corporate Governance:
    How Do We Get From Here to Where We Need to Go?
    andre cummings (Indiana Tech)                            Steven Ramirez (Loyola – Chicago)
    Lynne Dallas (San Diego) – Co-Moderator        Janis Sarra (British Columbia)
    Kent Greenfield (Boston College)                        Faith Stevelman (New York)
    Daniel Greenwood (Hofstra)                                 Kellye Testy (Dean, Washington)
    Kristin Johnson (Seton Hall)                                 Cheryl Wade (St. John’s ) Co-Moderator
    Lyman Johnson (Washington and Lee)
  2. Socio-Economics and Whistle-Blowers
    William Black (Missouri – KC)                                 Benjamin Edwards (Barry)
    June Carbone (Minnesota) – Moderator             Marcia Narine (St. Thomas)

1:45 – 2:45 PM Concurrent Sessions:

1. What is a Corporation?
Robert Ashford (Syracuse) Moderator                             Stefan Padfield (Akron)
Tamara Belinfanti (New York)                                             Sabeel Rahman (Brooklyn)
Daniel Greenwood (Hofstra)

On Thursday, Jan. …

National Business Law Scholars Conference (NBLSC)
Thursday & Friday, June 8-9, 2017

Call for Papers

The National Business Law Scholars Conference (NBLSC) will be held on Thursday and Friday, June 8-9, 2017, at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. 

This is the eighth meeting of the NBLSC, an annual conference that draws legal scholars from across the United States and around the world.  We welcome all scholarly submissions relating to business law. 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 February 17, 2017.  Please title the email “NBLSC Submission – {Your 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 moderator.  We will respond to submissions with notifications of acceptance shortly after the deadline. We anticipate the conference schedule will be circulated in May. 


Keynote Speaker:

Lynn A. Stout, Distinguished Professor of Corporate & Business Law, Cornell Law School


Plenary Author-Meets-Reader Panel:

Selling Hope, Selling Risk: Corporations, Wall Street, and the Dilemmas of Investor Protection by Donald C. Langevoort…

This Friday, I will co-present on a continuing legal education panel on “The New Crowdfunding Laws for Private Investors & Other Ways to Legally Raise Money For Your Project” at the Americanafest–the Americana Music Festival and Conference.   The program description is set forth below.

There have been significant changes in federal and state laws related to soliciting investors through crowdfunding and other types of investment activities.  These new changes are designed to make certain types of investments easier and more accessible to people and businesses who seek investors for their projects. This panel will discuss those new laws and strategies of how to seek small to moderate size investments under today’s federal and state law. The panel will also discuss “dos” and “don’ts” for those seeking out investors and what to look for when offered an investment opportunity.

I love cultivating this ground, even if I have done much of it in the past with different audiences.  I will prepare some specialized information relating to financing music and other creative projects, for example, for this program.  I also plan to discuss important traps for the unwary.

What I really want to know is: what else might folks working with and in the music…

For the fourth straight year, I plan to present at the Southeastern Academy of Legal Studies in Business (“SEALSB”) Annual Conference, and I am on the SEALSB executive committee.  SEALSB is one of eight regional associations under the Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB), and ALSB is the national organization for legal studies professors in business schools.

More information about the conference can be found here and deadlines are included below. Today is the deadline for early bird registration, best paper submissions, and award nominations. 

Friday, September 16: 

Friday, September 30: 

  • Abstract submission deadline to be a conference presenter

Tuesday, October 11:

  • Hotel cutoff date for group rate (subject to room block availability)

Friday, October 14:

  • Submission of papers (not for award consideration) to be included on USB flash drive. (Otherwise, bring 25 copies to the conference.)

Today marked the end of the 2016 conference of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS).  My discussion session on small business finance capped off the Workshop on Business Law, a series of business law programs at the conference, and closed out the conference itself just after Noon.  It was great to share programs, at various points in the conference, with co-bloggers Josh Fershee, Ann Lipton, Haskell Murray, and Marcia Narine.

Here is a list of the three business law programs in the Workshop on Business Law from this year’s conference:

  • Discussion Group: Sustainability & Sustainable Business
  • Discussion Group: Perspectives on the Future of White-Collar Crime
  • Discussion Group: The Legal Aspects of Small Business Finance in the Crowdfunding Era

Other business law programs included several of the new scholar paper panels, the annual “Supreme Court Update” on “Business, Administrative, Securities, Tax, and Employment Issues,” a discussion group focusing on “Big Data: Big Opportunities in Business and Government, and Big Challenges in Law and Ethics,” and a discussion group in the SEALS “Works-in-Progress Series” that featured papers by veteran scholars on topics ranging from international food labeling regulation, to self-interest in financial regulation, to developing a better understanding of informational intermediaries…