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Today marks the 125th anniversary of our celebration of Labor Day as a U.S. national holiday.  As the U.S. Department of Labor reminds us:

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. . . .

The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership – the American worker.

Certainly, there remains much to celebrate.  Yet, an online piece written two years ago that focuses in on the history in a more detailed way offers words of caution:

The original holiday was meant to handle a problem of long working hours and no time off. Although the battle over these issues would seem to have been won…

Back in April, I posted on a leadership conference focusing on lawyers and legal education, sponsored by and held at UT Law.  I also posted earlier this summer on the second annual Women’s Leadership in Legal Academia conference.  I admit that I have developed a passion for leadership literature and practices through my prior leadership training and experiences in law practice and in the legal academy.

Because lawyers often become leaders in and through their practice (both at work and their other communities) and because leadership principles interact with firm governance, I want to make a pitch that we all, but especially all of us teaching business associations (or a similar course), focus some attention on leadership in our teaching.  It is a nice adjunct to governance.  For example, management and control issues, especially director/officer processes in corporations, are a logical place to discuss leadership.  Who are the managers and the rank-and-file employees inspired by in managing and sustaining the firm?  Who is able to persuade the board to take action?  Is it because of that person’s authority, or does that person hold a trust relationship with others that motivates them to follow?  And speaking of trust, it is an…

Apropos of my post last week on female founders and leaders of beauty unicorns (and women-founded unicorns more generally), I want to highlight this recent piece from our local paper here in Knoxville.   The women featured in the article range from high school students to holders of advanced degrees in their respective fields.  Their businesses are all technology driven and have received significant start-up funds through competition awards and grants.  None may become unicorns.  Their growth and exit strategies may not take them there.  Regardless, their ideas have apparent traction and their businesses are experiencing early-stage success.  I found each woman and her ideas totally inspiring.

Speaking of inspiring, I also will note that a day earlier, the same news outlet published an article that focused on women-led businesses in our community–and more specifically, on advice that local female CEOs desired to offer to others who are starting or managing their own businesses.  Their counsel (which includes, among many other things, encouragement to step away from business operations to achieve greater business success, as well as life balance) is priceless.  So are some of the observations these businesswomen make along the way.  Here are a few of my favorite…

     Last week, I led a “legal hack” for some of the first year students during orientation. Each participating professor spoke for ten minutes on a topic of our choice and then answered questions for ten minutes. I picked business and human rights, my passion. I titled my brief lecture, “Are you using a product made by slaves, and if you are, can you do anything about it”?

     In my ten minutes, I introduced the problem of global slavery; touched on the false and deceptive trade practices  litigation levied against companies; described the role of shareholder activists and socially responsible investors in pressuring companies to clean up supply chains; raised doubts about the effectiveness of some of the disclosure regimes in the US, EU, and Australia; questioned the efficacy of conscious consumerism; and mentioned blockchain as a potential tool for provenance of goods. Yes. In ten minutes. 

     During the actual hack later in the afternoon, I had a bit more time to flesh out the problem. I developed a case study around the Rana Plaza disaster in which a building collapse in Bangladesh killed over 1,000 garment workers six years ago. Students brainstormed solutions …

BeautyClipart

We hear a lot about unicorns in technology, finance, and the sharing economy.   But many of us do not realize that a number of unicorns are owned by women and a number of those focus on make-up and skin care–products geared to a female audience.  Female-owned beauty unicorns are all around us . . . .

Why should we care?  Well for one thing, female-owned businesses have historically been somewhat rare.  (In 1972, women-owned businesses accounted for only 4.6% of all firms, e.g.)  And for another, it has been noted that women often have a tough time financing their businesses. (See this 2014 U.S. Senate Committee report and other sources cited below for some details.) Also, it may be interesting to some (it is to me) that a business in such a traditional space can succeed so well in private capital markets given the competitive dominance of major conglomerates (most of which are publicly traded). Also, as I note in closing below (for those teaching in the business law area), the facts and trends in this space may be fodder for great exercises and exam questions.

Women-owned businesses are beginning to catch up in the…

I am just back from the 2019 Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) conference.  I participated in several different kinds of activities this year.  This post reports out on each.

I first served as a participant in a series of discussion groups tailored to provide information to aspiring law professors.  The attendees included newly minted fellows and VAPs, mid-to-later-career lawyers/judges looking to switch to full-time law faculty (some already adjuncts or visitors), and (in general) law practitioners testing the waters for possible engagement with the Association of American Law Schools faculty recruitment process.  SEALS has served selected prospective law professors with a specialized track of preparative programming for a number of years.  This set of discussion groups represents an extension of that type of programming, on a more general informational level, to a wider audience of folks interested in careers in law teaching.

I also presented in a discussion group, sponsors by West Academic, on “Teaching to Engage.”  Steve Friesland of Elon Law moderated the session.  I shared some of my “first class” and assessment simulations for business law doctrinal and experiential courses.  I learned from many others who shared their own ways of engaging students.

Later today, the students in my nine-week online Transactional Lawyering: Drafting and Negotiating Contracts Course will breathe a sigh of relief. They will submit their final contracts, and their work will be done. They can now start reading for their Fall classes knowing that they have completed the work for their required writing credit. My work, on the other hand, won’t end for quite a while. Although this post will discuss teaching an online course, much of my advice would work for a live, in person class as well.

If you’ve ever taught a transactional drafting course, you know that’s a lot of work. You are in a seemingly never ending cycle of developing engaging content, teaching the material, answering questions, reviewing drafts, and grading the final product. Like any writing course, you’re in constant editing and feedback mode with the students.

If you’ve ever taught an online course, you know how much work it can be. I taught asynchronously, meaning I uploaded materials and the students had a specific time within which to complete assignments, typically one week or more. Fortunately, I had help from the University of Miami’s instructional design team, otherwise, I would likely have been a …

I’m at the tail end of teaching my summer transactional lawyering course. Throughout the semester, I’ve focused my students on the importance of representations, warranties, covenants, conditions, materiality, and knowledge qualifiers. Today I came across an article from Practical Law Company that discussed the use of #MeToo representations in mergers and acquisitions agreements, and I plan to use it as a teaching tool next semester. According to the article, which is behind a firewall so I can’t link to it, thirty-nine public merger agreements this year have had such clauses. This doesn’t surprise me. Last year I spoke on a webinar regarding #MeToo and touched on the the corporate governance implications and the rise of these so-called “Harvey Weinstein” clauses. 

Generally, according to Practical Law Company, target companies in these agreements represent that: 1) no allegations of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct have been made against a group or class of employees at certain seniority levels; 2) no allegations have been made against  independent contractors; and 3) the company has not entered into any settlement agreements related to these kinds of allegations. The target would list exceptions on a disclosure schedule, presumably redacting the name of the accuser to preserve…

I have been a dean for two days.  So, obviously, I have it all figured out.  (That’s very much a joke). 

My sample size is small, but it seemed like a good time for me to take a shot at comparing what it’s like to be a new dean versus what it’s like to be a new professor. Admittedly, I am working hard to remember what it was like to be a professor in his first two days. I have the benefit of hindsight with that, while my life as dean is very much real time.  But hey, it’s a blog, so I will give it a try. 

  • As a new professor, I was worried (very worried) that I did not know everything about the subject matter and that it would be obvious. As a new dean, I expect that others don’t expect me to know everything, and if they do, I know they’re wrong.    
  • As a new professor, I wanted everyone to like me.  As a new dean, I’d still appreciate that.  But I don’t need it, and I don’t expect it, and I know it is impossible. (It’s impossible as a professor, too, by the way,

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I don’t have enough material for another focused post on advice for new business law professors (see posts I, II, III, and IV).  However, I do have a smattering of additional thoughts that I wanted to share in hopes that new professors, and potentially others, might find them helpful.  So, in no particular order:

  • As in much of life, less is generally more. Specifically, in prepping a new class, in your excitement, you might initially want to try to cover almost all of the casebook.  Just say no!  For example, given my research interests, I always wanted to cover derivatives etc. in my Banking and Financial Institutions Law course.  However, I finally learned that in a three-hour course without prerequisites, I only had time to cover how banks (and some bank-like financial institutions) were structured, regulated, and handled when in trouble. 
  • I think it’s helpful to add syllabus language (and note it to students) along the lines of the following: “In practice, the learning experience of each course is unique. I reserve the right to modify the scheduled readings or material to be covered to promote the best educational experience for students.” I certainly don’t

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