Research/Scholarhip

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Stefan’s Independence Day post is far more erudite than mine.  Kudos and thanks to him for the substantive legal content.  This post covers more of a teaching point–one that I often think about in the background but want to being to the fore here.

I am focused in writing this on things like family reunions, local holiday festivities, grilling out, and fireworks.  It has been a rocky road to the Fourth in these and other aspects this year.  Overlapping causes can easily be identified.  As if the continuing COVID-19 nightmare were not enough . . . .

I will start with COVID-19, however.  I have heard of many who are missing family and other events this weekend because of positive COVID-19 diagnoses, test results, or exposures.  I was sad to learn, for example, that Martina Navratilova had to miss the historic Wimbledon centennial celebration, including the Parade of Champions, yesterday.  But there is more.

The air travel debacles have been well publicized.  Weather, labor shortages, and other issues contribute to the flight changes and cancellations airlines need to make on this very popular travel weekend–expected to set records.  And gas prices have stymied the trips of some by land (again…

This exciting news came to us earlier today from Emily Grant, Professor of Law and Co-Director, of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning at Washburn University School of Law:

The Institute for Law Teaching and Learning is thrilled to be launching a new scholarly journal. The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning will publish scholarly articles about pedagogy and will provide authors with rigorous peer review. We hope to publish our first issue in Fall 2023.

If you have a scholarly article that might fit the needs of The Journal of Law Teaching and Learning, please consider submitting it directly to us via email at mcolatrella@pacific.edu or through the Scholastica platform.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Emily!  I know there is lots of good business law teaching going on out there that all can learn from.  I hope that some of you will consider sharing your teaching wisdom.

Dear Section Members —

On behalf of the Executive Committee for the AALS section on Business Associations, I’m writing with details of our two sessions at the 2023 AALS Annual Meeting, which will be held in San Diego, CA from January 4-7, 2023.

First, our main program is entitled, “Corporate Governance in a Time of Global Uncertainty.” We anticipate selecting up to two papers from this call for papers. To submit, please submit an abstract or a draft of an unpublished paper to Professor Mira Ganor, mganor@law.utexas.edu, on or before Friday, August 19, 2022. Authors should include their name and contact information in their submission email but remove all identifying information from their submission. Please include the words “AALS – BA- Paper Submission” in the subject line of your submission email.

Second, we are excited to announce that we will again hold a “New Voices in Business Law” program, which will bring together junior and senior scholars in the field of business law for the purpose of providing junior scholars with feedback and guidance on their draft articles. Junior scholars who are interested in participating in the program should send a draft or summary of at least five…

The University of Illinois College of Law, in partnership with UCLA School of Law, University of Richmond School of Law, and Vanderbilt Law School, invites submissions for the Ninth Annual Workshop for Corporate & Securities Litigation. This workshop will be held on Friday, September 23 and Saturday, September 24, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois.

Overview

This annual workshop brings together scholars focused on corporate and securities litigation to present their scholarly works. Papers addressing any aspect of corporate and securities litigation or enforcement are eligible, including securities class actions, fiduciary duty litigation, and SEC enforcement actions. We welcome scholars working in a variety of methodologies, as well as both completed papers and works-in-progress.

Authors whose papers are selected will be invited to present their work at a workshop hosted by the University of Illinois College of Law. Participants will pay for their own travel, lodging, and other expenses.

Submissions

If you are interested in participating, please send the paper you would like to present or an abstract of the paper to corpandsecworkshop@gmail.com by Friday, May 13, 2022. Please include your name, current position, and contact information in the e-mail accompanying the submission. Authors of accepted papers will be notified in June.…

2022 Online Symposium – Mainstreet vs. Wallstreet: The Democratization of Investing

I’m thrilled to moderate two panels this Friday and one features our rock star BLPB editor, Ben Edwards. 

                                                                     REGISTER HERE

The University of Miami Business Law Review is hosting its 2022 online symposium on Friday, March 4, 2022. The symposium will run from 12:30 PM to 3:30 PM. The symposium will be conducted via Zoom. Attendees can apply to receive CLE credits for attending this event—3.5 CLE credits have been approved by the Florida Bar. 

The symposium will host two sessions with expert panelists discussing the gamification of trading platforms and the growing popularity of aligning investments with personal values.

The panels will be moderated by Professor Marcia Narine Weldon, who is the director of the Transactional Skills Program, Faculty Coordinator of the Business Compliance & Sustainability Concentration, and a Lecturer in Law at the University of Miami School of Law.

Panel 1: Gamification of Trading 

This panel will focus on the role of

…

Last week, I had the privilege of presenting at the first of three sessions in an academic research symposium cohosted by George Mason’s institute for Humane Studies and Florida Atlantic University’s Madden Center for Value Creation.  The symposium, Contemporary Challenges in Corporate Governance, has two spring semester online (Zoom) components and an in-person session in August in Seattle, Washington.  The program in which I was featured, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives,” also included two management scholars (Siri Terjesen from Florida Atlantic University and Aaron Hill from the University of Florida).  We each had the opportunity to talk about our work in the DEI space, engage with audience questions, and (in breakout rooms) discuss ongoing research projects and questions with other participants.  The format was very engaging.  And friend-of-the-BLPB Paul Rose was in attendance saying nice things about our blog.  (Thanks, Paul!)

We should do more of this.  And when I say “this,” I mean getting together with scholars from other fields.  Paul and I ended up in a fun conversation with a philosopher who is working on issues involving the purpose of the corporation, which led us into a productive discussion of the nature of fiduciary duties–to…

This in from friend-of-the-BLPB Jessica Erickson:

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Dear AALS Business Association Section Members,

I hope the end of your semester is going well! I’m writing with programming details for the January 2022 AALS Annual Meeting and to invite you to nominate yourself or others for Executive Committee positions next year.

January 2022 Annual Meeting

1. Registration is still open, and you can register here https://aals.secure-platform.com/a/organizations/main/submissions/details/7094 . As you may know, most law schools have paid school-wide registration fees again this year, which makes registration simpler, but you still have to register to attend any of the sessions.

2. The Business Associations Section main program, “Race and Teaching Business Associations,” will be held Friday, January 7th at 12:35 to 1:50 EST. Many thanks to James Park, the section’s chair-elect, for organizing this panel!

Description: Business Associations classes taught in most law schools spend little if any time on issues relating to racial discrimination and inequity. But as important social institutions, businesses have long had a significant impact on racial equity. The increasing scrutiny of the lack of diversity on public company boards is one of several fronts where businesses are facing both legal and social pressure to address racial inequity. Students…

The following comes to us from one of our devoted readers (and fellow business law blogger), Walter Effross. He writes to inform us about a new initiative that he suggested to the American University Law Review, in which faculty, practitioners, judges, regulators, and others discuss “My Favorite Law Review Article.” The inaugural video (in which Walter recommends an Elizabeth Warren article) is here.

The guidelines for submissions are as follows:

1. Select the law review article that you wish to discuss. (Please choose an article that you did not write or co-author.)
2. All forms of video recording (Zoom, Photo Booth, phone camera, etc.) are acceptable; our team will edit appropriately.
3. Please try to keep your review between five and seven minutes long.
4. At the beginning of the video, please introduce (1) yourself and (2) the title and author of the Article. [including the citation, or at least the year of publication?]
5. Please provide a brief synopsis of the piece, read one or more pertinent passages, and/or discuss a particularly moving/interesting segment.
6. Most importantly, explain why this article is your favorite. You might consider discussing: when and how you first read it…

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With my bum shoulder and a lot of work on our dean search cramping my style over the past few weeks, I have been remiss in posting about the 2021 Business Law Prof Blog Symposium, Connecting the Threads V.  The idea behind the name (and Doug Moll likes to riff on it–so have at it, Doug!) is that our bloggers here at the BLPB connect the many threads of business law in what we do–here on the blog and elsewhere.

Anyhoo (as Ann would say), as always, my BLPB co-bloggers did not disappoint in their presentations.  I know our students look forward to publishing many of the articles and the related commentaries in the spring book of our business law journal, Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law.  I also am always so proud of, and interested to hear, the commentary of my colleagues and students.  This year was no exception.

In the future, I will post more about the article that I presented.  But I will offer a teaser here, accompanied by the above screen shot from the symposium.  (It was “Big Orange Friday” on our campus.  The orange had to be worn.  Go Vols!)

The title…

I’m so excited to present later this morning at the University of Tennessee College of Law Connecting the Threads Conference today at 10:45 EST. Here’s the abstract from my presentation. In future posts, I will dive more deeply into some of these issues. These aren’t the only ethical traps, of course, but there’s only so many things you can talk about in a 45-minute slot. 

All lawyers strive to be ethical, but they don’t always know what they don’t know, and this ignorance can lead to ethical lapses or violations. This presentation will discuss ethical pitfalls related to conflicts of interest with individual and organizational clients; investing with clients; dealing with unsophisticated clients and opposing counsel; competence and new technologies; the ever-changing social media landscape; confidentiality; privilege issues for in-house counsel; and cross-border issues. Although any of the topics listed above could constitute an entire CLE session, this program will provide a high-level overview and review of the ethical issues that business lawyers face.

Specifically, this interactive session will discuss issues related to ABA Model Rules 1.5 (fees), 1.6 (confidentiality), 1.7 (conflicts of interest), 1.8 (prohibited transactions with a client), 1.10 (imputed conflicts of interest), 1.13 (organizational clients), 4.3 (dealing…