Lawyering

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 . . . I figure it is still OK to publish a link to the SSRN posting of my co-authored article from the 2020 Business Law Prof Blog symposium, Connecting the Threads.  Published earlier in the spring, this piece, entitled Business Law and Lawyering in the Wake of COVID-19, was written with two of my students: Anne Crisp (who will start her 3L year in about a month) and Gray Martin (who graduated in May and will take the bar exam next week).  My March 30, 2021 post on business interruption insurance came from this article.  The SSRN abstract is included below.

The public arrival of COVID-19 (the novel coronavirus 2019) in the United States in early 2020 brought with it many social, political, and economic dislocations and pressures. These changes and stresses included and fostered adjustments in business law and the work of business lawyers. This article draws attention to these COVID-19 transformations as a socio-legal reflection on business lawyering, the provision of legal services in business settings, and professional responsibility in business law practice. While business law practitioners, like other lawyers, may have been ill-prepared for pandemic lawyering, we have seen them rise to the occasion to…

Recently, I finished two similar books on problems with extreme meritocracy in the United States: The Tyranny of Merit by Harvard philosophy professor Michael Sandel and The Meritocracy Trap by Yale law professor Daniel Markovits. Law schools and entry level legal jobs tend to be intensely meritocratic. The more competitive entry level legal jobs rely very heavily on school rank and student class rank. Once in a private firm, billable hours seem to be the main metric for bonuses and making partner.

Sandel describes at least three problems with meritocracy: (1) people are not competing on an even playing field in the US “meritocracy” (e.g., children of top 1% in income are 77x more likely to attend an Ivy League school than children of bottom 20%); (2) even if there were an even playing field, natural talents that fit community preferences would lead to wild inequality in a pure meritocracy and those natural advantages are not “earned,” (3) a strict meritocracy leads to excessive hubris among the “winners” and shame among the “losers” who believe they deserve their place in society. 

Markovits hits a lot of the same notes, but pays more attention to how the elite “exploit themselves” …

I recently received the final version of my short article, “The Benefits and Burdens of Limited Liability,” in Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law.  The article is based on some of my prior blog posts, as well as my presentation as part of the fourth annual Business Law Prof Blog symposium, Connecting the Threads. It was great event, as always, thanks to Joan and the whole crew at Tennessee Law, and it was my pleasure to be part of it.  

Here’s the abstract: 

Law students in business associations and people starting businesses often think the only choice for forming a business entity is a limited liability entity like a corporation or a limited liability company (LLC). Although seeking a limited liability entity is usually justifiable, and usually wise, this Article addresses some of the burdens that come from making that decision. We often focus only on the benefits. This Article ponders limited liability as a default rule for contracts with a named business and considers circumstances when choosing a limited liability entity might not communicate what a business owner intends. The Article notes also that when choosing an entity, you get benefits, like limited liability,

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Grading done?  Join in for an engaged, energizing day with fellow business law profs to start the summer.

Grading not done?  This is sure to be a fun and enlightening distraction–better than house cleaning or laundry!

Not grading at all (you lucky ducky)?  Clear the decks of other impediments and come join us for what always is a super day filled with teaching tips and catalysts for scholarship and service.

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REGISTER NOW! CONFERENCE IS JUNE 4th!

Emory Law’s 7th biennial conference on the teaching of transactional law and skills is just a few days away! Register here and join us on Friday, June 4th. (Note: The Registration Fee for this one-day, online conference is $50.) A copy of the Conference schedule is posted here.

Connect with transactional law and skills educators across the country to ponder our theme – “Emerging from the Crisis: The Future of Law and Skills Education.” You’ll hear illuminating keynote addresses from three leaders in our field – Joan MacLeod Heminway, Marcia Narine Weldon, and Robert J. Rhee. And you’ll participate in exciting presentations and try-this exercises designed to help us all become better teachers.

At day’s end, we’ll hold a Vision Workshop to…

A few weeks ago, I posted on COVID-19 and business interruption insurance, quoting from part of a forthcoming coauthored article presented at the Business Law Prof Blog symposium last fall.  This week, I am posting a few more teaser paragraphs from that same article, which focuses overall on business law issues, practice changes, and professional responsibility challenges emanating from the pandemic.  Today’s excerpts focus on lawyers working from home.  Second-year UT Law student Anne Crisp is the primary author of the part of the paper that includes these paragraphs (from which footnotes have been omitted).

 . . . While the work-from-home movement was already taking off in many sectors prior to COVID-19, the legal sector had been slow to adopt this working model. Leaving aside multijurisdictional practice challenges, lawyer resistance to remote work has been attributed in large part to the perceived relationship-based nature of lawyering and the perception that at least some clients expect to meet with their legal counsel in well-appointed offices. But along came COVID-19, and lawyers could no longer avoid the pull of the work-from-home movement. If lawyers wanted to bill hours, they were going to have to work from home.

As lawyers began working…

It’s been one year since the US declared a pandemic. It’s been a stressful time for everyone, but this post will focus on lawyers.

I haven’t posted any substantive legal content on LinkedIn in weeks because so many of my woo woo, motivational posts have been resonating with my contacts. They’ve shared the posts, and lawyers from around the world have reached out to me thanking me for sharing positive, inspirational messages. I hope that this care and compassion in the (my) legal community will continue once people return back to the office.

Earlier this week, I took a chance and posted about a particularly dark period in my life. I’ve now received several requests to connect and to speak to legal groups and law firms about mindset, wellness, resilience, and stress management. I’ve heard from executives that I used to work with 15 years ago asking to reconnect. Others have publicly or privately shared their own struggles with mental health or depression. I’m attaching a link to the video here. Warning- it addresses suicide prevention, but it may help someone. 

I’m also sharing an article that my colleague Jarrod Reich wrote last year. He and I have just finished…

Happy New Year!

I first posted this on Thrive Global a few weeks ago. In the spirit of the New Year, I’m sharing it with you all. 

It’s time to work on your happiness like it’s a full-time job. 2020 has challenged everyone and 2021 may not be much better. You’ve made it this far so now it’s time to reclaim your power at work with these five tips.

  • Worklife balance is a myth. Whether you’re working from home or actually going to a work site, there’s no such thing as work life balance and there never has been. It’s impossible to devote your full attention to work and family at the same time — something will suffer. As time management guru David Allen explained, you can do anything you want, you just can’t do everything you want. Learn how to say no to anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. For me, if it’s not a hell yes, then it’s a hell no. Unless you can’t say “no,” use your non-work time to do something that brings you joy and sustains you. Find a passion project. When you focus on life balance, your work life will improve.
  • Change your thoughts

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A job posting that may be of interest to some of our readers.

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Job Description
BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, a top-tier law school with an international reputation, is a community of leading legal scholars, teachers, students, and alumni, dedicated to providing one of the finest legal educations in the world. The breadth and depth of our curriculum, especially our clinical program, as well as our innovative spirit are distinctive in American legal education.

Boston University School of Law is seeking to hire a full-time attorney in its Startup Law Clinic (the “Clinic”). The Clinic is part of BU Law’s Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, and Cyberlaw Program, which is a unique collaboration between BU Law and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The School of Law believes that the cultural and social diversity of our faculty, staff, and students is vitally important to the distinction and excellence of our academic programs. To that end, we are especially eager to hear from applicants who support our institutional commitment to BU as an inclusive, equitable, and diverse community.

The Clinic represents current students at MIT and BU on matters related to a wide range of legal issues faced by early-stage business ventures. The…

How are you doing? I’m exhausted between teaching, grading, consulting, writing, and living through a pandemic. I actually wasn’t planning to post today because I post every other Friday, as a way to maintain some balance. I may not post next Friday because I’ll be participating in  Connecting the Threads, IV, our business law professor blog annual conference. It’s virtual and you may get up to 8 CLE credits, including an ethics credit. If you love our posts, you’ll get to see us up close and personal, and you won’t even need a mask.

I decided to do this short post today because it may help some of you, whether you’re professors or practitioners. Several years ago, Haskell Murray wrote that he does a mid-semester survey. He asks his students what they like and don’t like. I love this idea … in theory. How many of us really want to know how we’re doing? I’ve done it a couple of times when I knew that the class was going great, but I don’t do it consistently. I decided to do it this year because we are piloting a new program modeled after Emory’s Transactional Law Program. I used…

No. You didn’t miss Part 1. I wrote about Weinstein clauses last July. Last Wednesday, I spoke with a reporter who had read that blog post.  Acquirors use these #MeToo/Weinstein clauses to require target companies to represent that there have been no allegations of, or settlement related to, sexual misconduct or harassment. I look at these clauses through the lens of a management-side employment lawyer/compliance officer/transactional drafting professor. It’s almost impossible to write these in a way that’s precise enough to provide the assurances that the acquiror wants or needs.

Specifically, the reporter wanted to know whether it was unusual that Chevron had added this clause into its merger documents with Noble Energy. As per the Prospectus:

Since January 1, 2018, to the knowledge of the Company, (i), no allegations of sexual harassment or other sexual misconduct have been made against any employee of the Company with the title of director, vice president or above through the Company’s anonymous employee hotline or any formal human resources communication channels at the Company, and (ii) there are no actions, suits, investigations or proceedings pending or, to the Company’s knowledge, threatened related to any allegations of sexual harassment or other sexual misconduct by any…