We are here today because we are tired. We are tired of paying more for less. We are tired of living in rat-infested slums… We are tired of having to pay a median rent of $97 a month in Lawndale for four rooms while whites living in South Deering pay $73 a month for five rooms. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children . . . .

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Chicago Soldier Field Stadium, Chicago Open Housing Movement, 1966

Each year, as the Monday-focused blogger for the Business Law Prof Blog, I endeavor to offer a post that connects with Dr. King’s work in some way. Today, which also is the day on which the United States inaugurates a new presidential administration, I focus on the role of federal regulation in creating and sustaining racial separation and racism. In 2020, The University of Tennessee College of Law produced a faculty video series labeled “How Did We Get Here.” The series focused on areas in which law or policy has contributed to systemic racism.

The video in the series I

Mississippi College School of Law invites applications from entry-level candidates for multiple tenure-track faculty positions expected to begin in July 2025. Our search will focus primarily on candidates with an interest in teaching one or more of the following subject areas: Real Property, Intellectual Property, Sports/Entertainment Law, and Cyber Law/Law & Technology.

We seek candidates with a distinguished academic background (having earned a J.D. and/or Ph.D.), a commitment to excellence in teaching, and a demonstrated commitment to scholarly research and publication. We particularly encourage applications from candidates who will enrich the diversity of our faculty. We will consider candidates listed in the AALS-distributed FAR, as well as those who apply directly.

Applications should include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, a scholarly research agenda, the names and contact information of three references, and teaching evaluations (if available). Applications should submitted using the following link: https://www.mc.edu/offices/human-resources/employment?rID[32]=389.

The Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University invites applications for up to three entry-level or junior tenure-track or newly-tenured faculty members, to begin in Fall 2025. We seek candidates with a strong record of or potential for significant scholarship and commitment to excellence in teaching who will bring diverse experiences and perspectives to enrich our law school community. We seek candidates across all subject areas, but have particular interest in fulfilling curricular needs in Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Property, Environmental Law, and Intellectual Property.

Located on Long Island, less than thirty miles from midtown Manhattan, Hofstra Law is known as an innovator in legal education, from being one of the first schools to implement clinical education as a means of graduating practice-ready lawyers to recent advancements in experiential learning and interdisciplinary programming.  Hofstra's strong national reputation is the product of a demonstrated commitment to attracting and supporting talented and productive faculty through summer research grants, sustained teaching load reductions, and other resources for both teaching and research initiatives. 

Applications should be submitted electronically at this link on the Hofstra portal and include the following: 

• A letter of application
• CV
• Scholarly agenda
• Proposed job talk

I just heard about this a few days ago, but I do not think anyone has posted on it yet.  Sadly, it looks like the formal application deadline has passed.  But they may still be accepting applications.  Those considering applying may want to inquire . . . .

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YALE LAW SCHOOL CLINICAL FELLOWSHIPS

in the Veterans Legal Services Clinic   
and Housing and Community & Economic Development Clinics

Yale Law School seeks applicants for two clinical fellowships in the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, within Yale Law School's clinical program. These Fellowships are two-year positions with a third-year option, beginning on or about July 1, 2023, and are designed for lawyers with at least three years of practice who are considering a career in law school teaching. Each fellow will work with a different clinic. Responsibilities include representing clients, supervising students, assisting in teaching classes, and pursuing a scholarship agenda. Fellows also have an option to co-teach a section of a six-week fall program for first-year students, Introduction to Legal Analysis and Writing, for additional compensation. Candidates must be prepared to apply for admission to the Connecticut bar (candidates

Expressions of interest due November 19, 2021
Drafts due December 22, 2021

Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

The Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law is the official quarterly publication of the Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law of the American Bar Association. The Journal is the nation's only law journal dedicated to affordable housing, fair housing and community development law. The Journal educates readers and provides a forum for discussion and resolution of problems in these fields by publishing articles from distinguished law professors, policy advocates and practitioners. This issue, which will hit mailboxes in late April of 2022, will have a theme: preservation of affordable housing, expiring use restrictions, and "Year 15" issues. Your submission does not have to address the theme but we will be looking out for pieces that do.

Article/Essay Length. The Journal welcomes essays (typically no longer than 6,000 words) or articles (typically 5,000 – 10,000 words). Generally, articles are more thoroughly researched and footnoted than essays.

Style. The writing should be appropriate for a readership that consists primarily of lawyers. Authors should avoid excess verbiage, long quotations and jargon. Authors should use gender-neutral language.

Over the years, I have been contributor to the Texas A&M Journal of Property's annual oil and gas law survey. This year's article (available here) took a little longer to post than usual, but given all that's gone on in the past year, that's pretty much unavoidable.  For those who wonder what oil and gas law as to do with business law, well, I humbly submit that access to energy is, in the modern world, the foundation upon which virtually all business is built. 

I don't think that's overstating it, though it may be overstating the importance of this particular piece. Nonetheless, hopefully it will have value for some folks.  The abstract for my Oil & Gas Survey: West Virginia (2020) follows: 

This Article summarizes and discusses important recent developments in West Virginia’s oil and gas law as determined by recent West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals cases. There were no substantial legislative changes in the covered period.

The discussed cases considered:

(1) whether hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling were allowed when an old lease could not have contemplated such methods were not permissible;

(2) proper interpretation of deed language;

(3) whether all oil and gas leases have implied

Although my UT Law colleague Greg Stein is perhaps most well known for his work in the area of real estate law (development, finance, land use, etc.–see his SSRN page here), of late, he has been focusing increased attention on issues at the intersection of technological innovation and economic enterprise.  I have been interested in and engaged by this new twist to his research, thinking, and writing.  This post promotes two works he has completed that occupy this scholarly space, the first of which was recently published in the Brooklyn Law Review and the second of which is forthcoming in the Florida State University Law Review.

The Brooklyn Law Review piece is entitled "Inequality in the Sharing Economy."  The SSRN abstract follows.

The rise of the sharing economy benefits consumers and providers alike. Consumers can access a wider range of goods and services on an as-needed basis and no longer need to own a smaller number of costly assets that sit unused most of the time. Providers can engage in profitable short-term ventures, working on their own schedule and enjoying many new opportunities to supplement their income.

Sharing economy platforms often employ dynamic pricing, which means

Did I lose you with the title to this post? Do you have no idea what a DAO is? In its simplest terms, a DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization, whose decisions are made electronically by a written computer code or through the vote of its members. In theory, it eliminates the need for traditional documentation and people for governance. This post won't explain any more about DAOs or the infamous hack of the Slock.it DAO in 2016. I chose this provocative title to inspire you to read an article entitled Legal Education in the Blockchain Revolution.

The authors Mark Fenwick, Wulf A. Kaal, and Erik P. M. Vermeulen discuss how technological innovations, including artificial intelligence and blockchain will change how we teach and practice law related to real property, IP, privacy, contracts, and employment law. If you're a practicing lawyer, you have a duty of competence. You need to know what you don't know so that you avoid advising on areas outside of your level of expertise. It may be exciting to advise a company on tax, IP, securities law or other legal issues related to cryptocurrency or blockchain, but you could subject yourself to discipline for doing so

The-overnighters

Over the break, I watched the documentary Overnighters on Netflix. 

In short, the documentary chronicles the story of a pastor who opens the church to migrant workers in North Dakota during the energy boom in that state. The pastor faces pushback from his congregation, neighbors, and city officials who do not appreciate having these men – some with criminal records – housed so close. 

In my opinion, the pastor is right, and the congregants are wrong, about the purpose of a church. The church should be in a community to serve, especially its needy neighbors. That said, the logistics of how to serve may be up for debate. Also, it is at least arguable that by serving the migrant workers the church strayed from serving its congregation. It would have been helpful if the church had a clear statement on its purpose and priorities. Many social enterprises have extremely vague purpose statements, which I do not think are very helpful. Benefit corporations are often required by statue to "benefit society and the environment." A purpose statement like that would not have helped the church in Overnighters much at all. A statement that showed that those in need would be prioritized

Friend of the blog and South Texas College of Law (Houston) Professor Joe Leahy sent over the following post he authored. It is cross-posted at UberLaw.Net and Medium. Embarrassingly, I had not heard about Loftium before reading this post, though at least I know of and have used Airbnb. Joe has some interesting thoughts, and I am happy to include his post on this blog. 

———-

Yesterday, the New York Times trumpeted a new internet company, Loftium, and its interesting, new-economy business model (which, for the time being, operates only in Seattle):

Loftium will provide prospective homebuyers with up to $50,000 for a down payment, as long as they are willing to continuously list an extra bedroom on Airbnb for one to three years and share most of the income with Loftium over that time.

At first glance, the arrangement between Loftium and participating homebuyers might sound like a loan.  (Indeed, the Times even describes it as such in an infographic.)  But upon a closer look, the arrangement that Loftium contemplates with homebuyers clearly is not a loan.  First of all, Loftium says it is not a loan; rather, according to Loftium, the down payment assistance it provides to homebuyers is “a part of a services agreement” lasting 12-36 months.  Second, and more important, the arrangement between Loftium and homebuyers has none of the characteristics of a traditional (term) loan.  There is no “principal” amount that the homebuyer is required to repay in a set period of time, and Loftium does not charge the homeowner any “interest.”  In fact, the homebuyer is not required to make anypayments to Loftium in return for the company’s cash (unless the homeowner breaches the parties’ agreement and stops renting on Airbnb before the term expires).

All the homebuyer must do in exchange for Loftium’s money is (1) list her spare room on Airbnb continuously through the term of her agreement with Loftium, (2) be a decent host (i.e., “not be[] rude to guests”) and (3) split her Airbnb  rental revenue with Loftium (with two-thirds going to the company.)  If, at the end of the term, Loftium has not been repaid its initial investment, the homeowner is not required to repay Loftium’s initial contribution. Hence, if renting out the homeowner’s spare room is not profitable during the term of the parties’ agreement, “Loftium takes full responsibility for that loss.”

Of course, Loftium expects that the total income from renting out a homeowner’s spare room will greatly exceed the amount that it originally provided to the homebuyer, so that both will profit.  If Loftium makes more in rental income than it pays towards the homeowner’s down payment, Loftium will make a profit.

Further, by all appearances, there is no cap on Loftium’s potential profit is its business arrangement with homebuyers.  In fact, Loftium makes clear that it wants to maximize the income that it splits with homebuyers:  Loftium promises that it will work with them “to increase monthly bookings as much as possible, so both sides can benefit from the additional income.”  To that end, Loftium provides homebuyers with some start-up supplies for their spare bedroom (and a keyless entry lock), access to advice and know-how regarding how to rent an Airbnb room, and online tools to help maximize their rental income.

So, if the business arrangement between Loftium and homeowners is not a loan, what is it?  It is almost certainly a general partnership for a term (i.e., a “joint venture”).

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