Research/Scholarhip

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We are at a time of year where schools are starting to make offers for professor position.

In business schools, the hiring process is more of a year-round affair than it is in law schools, but business schools have started to learn that they need to hire on the same schedule as law schools if they want to compete for the best legal academic talent. Also, a few business schools, such as the University of Georgia this year, have started to attend the AALS hiring conference.

As I explained a few years ago, working as a law professor in a business school can be a good bit different than working in a law school.

Business school legal studies positions have become more popular in recent years as law school hiring has diminished and as many law schools face financial difficulties. Personally, I have fielded dozens of calls from prospective academics and current law school professors, asking advice about getting a job teaching law in a business school.

The business school legal studies positions are quite diverse – vastly different pay scales, vastly different teaching loads, vastly different research expectations, and some are tenure-track and some are not. As such…

I’m passing this on from Karen Bravo at IU  given all of the ESG disclosures on slavery, supply chains, and human trafficking. 

Call for Papers: 

SLAVERY PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE: 3rd Global Meeting

Indiana University Europe Gateway, Berlin, Germany
July 10 & 11, 2018

 

Throughout history, slavery (the purchase and sale of human beings as chattel), enslavement (through conquest, and exploitation of indebtedness, among other vulnerabilities), and similar extreme forms of exploitation and control have been an intrinsic part of human societies. 

Is slavery an inevitable part of the human condition?

Controversial estimates indicate that up to 35 million people worldwide are enslaved today.  This modern re-emergence of slavery, following legal abolition over two hundred years ago, is said to be linked to the deepening interconnectedness of countries in the global economy, overpopulation, and the economic and other vulnerabilities of the individual victims and communities.

This conference will explore slavery in all its dimensions and, in particular, the ways in which individual humans and societies understand and attempt to respond to it. 

The varieties of contemporary forms of exploitation appear to be endless.  Consider, for example, enslavement or mere “exploitation” among:

  • fishermen in Thailand’s

…

The information below the line is from an e-mail I received about the SEALSB Conference. The SEALSB conference is the southeastern regional conference for law professors in business schools, but we have had practicing lawyers (especially those hoping to break into academia) and law school professors participate in the past.

The conference rotates locations in the southeast, and this year the conference will be held in Atlanta, GA from November 9-11. 

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SEALSB Conference 2017
 
The deadline to upload papers for inclusion in the conference materials has been extended to this Friday, October 20th. You may upload your paper by clicking on the following link: Paper Upload. Otherwise, please bring 25 copies to the meeting.
 
Friday, October 20th is also the conference registration deadline, so if you are planning to attend the conference but have not yet registered please make sure you do so sometime this week!
 
Additional information is available on the Conference Website. We look forward to seeing you at the Georgian Terrace!

My UT Law colleague Jonathan Rohr has coauthored (with Aaron Wright) an important piece of scholarship on an of-the-moment topic–financial instrument offerings using distributed ledger technology.  Even more fun?  He and his co-author are interested in aspects of this topic at its intersection with the regulation of securities offerings.  Totally cool.

Here is the extended abstract.  I cannot wait to dig into this one.  Can you?  As of the time I authored this post, the article already had almost 700 downloads . . . .  Join the crowd!

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Blockchain-Based Token Sales, Initial Coin Offerings, and the Democratization of Public Capital Markets

Jonathan Rohr & Aaron Wright

Best known for their role in the creation of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, blockchains are revolutionizing the way tech entrepreneurs are financing their business enterprises. In 2017 alone, over $2.2 billion has been raised through the sale of blockchain-based digital tokens in what some are calling initial coin offerings or “ICOs,” with some sales lasting mere seconds. In a token sale, organizers of a project sell digital tokens to members of the public to finance the development of future technology. An active secondary market for tokens has emerged, with tokens being bought and sold…

From our friend and BLPB colleague, Anne Tucker, following is nice workshop opportunity for your consideration: 

Dear Colleagues,

We (Rob Weber & Anne Tucker) are submitting a funding proposal to host a works-in-progress workshop for 4-8 scholars at Georgia State University College of Law, in Atlanta, Georgia in spring 2018 [between April 16th and May 8th].  Workshop participants will submit a 10-15 page treatment and read all participant papers prior to attending the workshop.  If our proposal is accepted, we will have funding to sponsor travel and provide meals for participants. Interested parties should email amtucker@gsu.edu on or before November 15th with a short abstract (no more than 500 words) of your proposed contribution that is responsive to the description below. Please include your name, school, and whether you will require airfare, miles reimbursement and/or hotel. We will notify interested parties in late December regarding the funding of the workshop and acceptance of proposals.  Please direct all inquiries to Rob Weber (mailto:rweber@gsu.edu) or Anne Tucker (amtucker@gsu.edu).

Call for Proposals: Organizing, Deploying & Regulating Capital in the U.S.

Our topic description is intentionally broad reflecting our different areas of focus, and hoping to…

UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO SCHOOL OF LAW

BUSINESS LAW AND/OR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

OPEN RANK FACULTY POSITION

The University of New Mexico (“UNM”) School of Law invites applications for a faculty position in Business Law and/or Intellectual Property. The faculty position is a full-time tenured or tenure-track position starting in Fall 2018. Entry-level and experienced teachers are encouraged to apply. Courses taught by this faculty member could include general business courses, intellectual property courses, and commercial law courses. Candidates must possess a J.D. or equivalent legal degree. Preferred qualifications include a record of demonstrated excellence or the promise of excellence in teaching and academic scholarship and who demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and student success, as well as working with broadly diverse communities. Academic rank and salary will be based on experience and qualifications. For best consideration, applicants should apply by October 22, 2017. The position will remain open until filled. For complete information, visit the UNMJobs website: https://unmjobs.unm.edu/. The position is listed as Open Rank – Business Law Requisition Number 2761.

The University of New Mexico is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

Direct Link to Job: https://unm.csod.com/ats/careersite/jobdetails.aspx?site=1&c=unm&id=2761&m=-1&u=16023

I recently finished Elizabeth Pollman and Jordan Barry’s article entitled Regulatory Entrepreneurship. The article is thoughtfully written and timely. I highly recommend it. 

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This Article examines what we term “regulatory entrepreneurship” — pursuing a line of business in which changing the law is a significant part of the business plan. Regulatory entrepreneurship is not new, but it has become increasingly salient in recent years as companies from Airbnb to Tesla, and from DraftKings to Uber, have become agents of legal change. We document the tactics that companies have employed, including operating in legal gray areas, growing “too big to ban,” and mobilizing users for political support. Further, we theorize the business and law-related factors that foster regulatory entrepreneurship. Well-funded, scalable, and highly connected startup businesses with mass appeal have advantages, especially when they target state and local laws and litigate them in the political sphere instead of in court.

Finally, we predict that regulatory entrepreneurship will increase, driven by significant state and local policy issues, strong institutional support for startup companies, and continued technological progress that facilitates political mobilization. We explore how this could catalyze new coalitions, lower the cost of political participation, and improve policymaking. However, it…

Call for Papers (DEADLINE: August 24, 2017)

AALS Section on Business Associations

Institutional Investors and Corporate Governance

AALS Annual Meeting, January 5, 2018

The AALS Section on Business Associations is pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a joint program to be held on Friday, January 5, 2018 at the 2018 AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego, California.  The topic of the program is “Institutional Investors and Corporate Governance.”

In thinking through the difficulty of agency costs within the public corporation, corporate law academics have turned repeatedly to institutional investors as a potential solution.  The agglomeration of shares within a large investing firm, together with ongoing cooperation amongst a large set of such investors, could overcome the rational apathy the average shareholder has towards participation in corporate governance.  Alternatively, activist investors could exert specific pressure on isolated companies that have been singled out—like the weakest animals in the herd—for extended scrutiny and pressure.  In these examples, the institutionalization of investing offers a counterbalance to the power of management and arguably provides a systematized way of reorienting corporate governance.  These institutional-investor archetypes have, in fact, come to life since the 1970s and have disrupted the stereotype of the passive investor.  But…

My latest paper, The Inclusive Capitalism Shareholder Proposal, 17 U.C. Davis Bus. L.J. 147 (2017), is now available on Westlaw. Here is the abstract:

When it comes to the long-term well being of our society, it is difficult to overstate the importance of addressing poverty and economic inequality. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty famously argued that growing economic inequality is inherent in capitalist systems because the return to capital inevitably exceeds the national growth rate. Proponents of “Inclusive Capitalism” can be understood to respond to this issue by advocating for broadening the distribution of the acquisition of capital with the earnings of capital. This paper advances the relevant discussion by explaining how shareholder proposals may be used to increase understanding of Inclusive Capitalism, and thereby further the likelihood that Inclusive Capitalism will be implemented. In addition, even if the suggested proposals are rejected, the shareholder proposal process can be expected to facilitate a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Inclusive Capitalism, as well as foster useful new lines of communication for addressing both poverty and economic inequality.

My colleague, Joan Heminway, yesterday posted Democratic Norms and the Corporation: The Core Notion of Accountability. She raises some interesting points (as usual), and she argues: “In my view, more work can be done in corporate legal scholarship to push on the importance of accountability as a corporate norm and explore further analogies between political accountability and corporate accountability.”

I have not done a lot of reading in this area, but I am inclined to agree that it seems like an area that warrants more discussion and research.  The post opens with some thought-provoking writing by Daniel Greenwood, including this:  

Most fundamentally, corporate law and our major business corporations treat the people most analogous to the governed, those most concerned with corporate decisions, as mere helots. Employees in the American corporate law system have no political rights at all—not only no vote, but not even virtual representation in the boardroom legislature.
Joan correctly observes, “Whether you agree with Daniel or not on the substance, his views are transparent and his belief and energy are palpable.” Although I admit I have not spent a lot of time with his writing, but my initial take is that I do not

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