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As we continue to move through the Fall 2020 semester in “pandemic mode” (whatever that may be for you), the investments of colleagues in their teaching continues to amaze me.  The number of teaching webinars and conference panels has been truly awesome, starting in the spring and continuing through the present.  Social media posts on Facebook and Twitter offer individualized tips and the opportunity for innovators to build from them and post their responsive comments and additional advice.  My friend Jessica Erickson (Richmond Law) wrote an excellent series of Prawfsblog posts at the end of the summer, the last of which can be found here (with links to the earlier posts in the series).  Law faculties (including my own) are checking in with each other on challenges and victories on a regular basis.  Although the experiences of others may be different, I have felt supported (and very much like I am part of a team) the whole way along.

Among the more stimulating–and daunting–parts of pandemic teaching presentations and conversations are those relating to the introduction of new teaching technologies.  We have all dealt with this part of COVID-19 teaching in some respects and in our own ways.  Some of…

I think that the GCs at Big Pharma have hacked into my Zoom account. First, some background. Earlier this week, I asked my students in UM’s Lawyering in a Pandemic course to imagine that they were the compliance officers or GCs at the drug companies involved in Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership formed to find a vaccine for COVID-19 in months, rather than years. I asked the students what they would do if they thought that the scientists were cutting corners to meet the government’s deadlines. Some indicated that they would report it internally and then externally, if necessary.

I hated to burst their bubbles, but I explained that the current administration hasn’t been too welcoming to whistleblowers. I had served on a non-partisan, multi-stakeholder Department of Labor Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee when President Trump came into office, which was disbanded shortly thereafter. For over a year after that, I received calls from concerned scientists asking where they could lodge complaints. With that background, I wanted my students to think about how company executives could reasonably would report on cutting corners to the government that was requiring the “warp speed” results in the first place. We didn’t even…

Drake University invites applications from entry level and lateral candidates for a tenure-track Assistant/Associate Professor of Law position beginning in the 2021-22 academic year.  We are interested in candidates with demonstrated interest or experience in Technology Law. Applicants must hold a J.D. degree (or the equivalent) and should have a record of academic excellence, substantial academic or practice experience, and a passion for teaching. Appointment rank will be determined commensurate with the candidate’s qualifications and experience.

In addition to service and scholarship, this position involves teaching courses such as Legal/Ethical Issues in Technology, Technology Law, Privacy Law, and related areas in both the Law School and the College of Arts & Sciences as well as advising law and undergraduate students and serving as a University resource on technology legal issues.

Drake University sustains a vibrant intellectual culture, and Des Moines has been recognized as the Best Place to Live (US News), the Best Place for Young Professionals (Forbes), and as the #1 Best U.S. City for Business (MarketWatch).

Drake University is an equal opportunity employer and actively seeks applicants who reflect the nation’s diversity.  No applicant shall be discriminated against on the basis of…

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel of Black entrepreneurs sponsored by the Miami Finance Forum, a group of finance, investment management, banking, capital markets, private equity, venture capital, legal, accounting and related professionals. When every company and law firm was posting about Black Lives Matter and donating to various causes, my colleague Richard Montes de Oca, an MFF board member, decided that he wanted to do more than post a generic message. He and the MFF board decided to launch a series of webinars on Black entrepreneurship. The first panel featured Jamarlin Martin, who runs a digital media company and has a podcast; Brian Brackeen, GP of Lightship Capital and founder of Kairos, a facial recognition tech company;  and Raoul Thomas, CEO of CGI Merchant Group, a real estate private equity group.

These panelists aren’t the typical Black entrepreneurs. Here are some sobering statistics:

  • Black-owned business get their initial financing through 44% cash; 15% family and friends; 9% line of credit; 7% unsecured loans; and 3% SBA loans;
  • Between February and April 2020, 41% of Black-owned businesses, 33% of Latinx businesses, and 26% of Asian-owned businesses closed while 17% of White-owned business closed;
  • As of 2019,

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Greetings from Miami, Florida, COVID19 hotspot. Yesterday, 33% of those tested had a positive result. Although my university still plans to have some residential instruction as of the time of this writing, most of us are preparing to go fully online at some point. In Part I,   Part II, and Part III, I provided perspectives from experts in learning. I’m still gathering that information.

This week, however, I spoke to the real experts — students. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to hear from students studying business and human rights from all over the world courtesy of the Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum. I’ve also been talking to research assistants and other current and former students. Here’s a summary of their conclusions:

  • We know that Spring was hard for everyone and that everyone is still learning how to teach online. Do not be worried about making mistakes. 
  • Don’t assume that we are all digital natives. Some of us are older students or not used to the technology that you have decided to use. Make sure that the interface is intuitive and use tech in fun and interesting ways. (One professor used Jeopardy online and students

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Thanks to all of our readers who were able to come to the National Business Law Scholars Conference (NBLSC) last Thursday and Friday.  It was lovely to see so many of you there, even though it was somewhat sad that we could not be with each other in person.  The conference enjoyed record participation, and we have received a lot of useful informal feedback about our virtual format from folks who attended.

I was the beneficiary of many “teaching moments” in hosting and participating in the NBLSC this year.  I later will post on some of the outtakes from the NBLSC teaching panel (to which co-blogger Marcia Narine Weldon–who blogged about teaching on Friday–contributed meaningfully).  Today, however, I am focusing my post on a few new things my fellow UT Law conference hosts and I learned about Zoom in the process of hosting the conference.  A list follows.  

  • Although meeting participants should mute themselves on entering a meeting, it is best for a meeting host to set up the meeting so that all participants will be muted on entry, especially for large meetings.  It can be challenging to track down and mute participants who join a meeting and bring

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If you’re like me, you’re wondering how you can improve your teaching after last Spring’s foray into online learning. I wasn’t nearly as traumatized as many of my colleagues because I had already taught Transactional Drafting online asynchronously for several semesters. This summer, I’m teaching two courses — Transactional Drafting asynchronously and a hybrid course on Regulatory Compliance, Corporate Governance, and Sustainability. I’m making a list of tips based on my experience and will post about that in the future. In the meantime, I’ve started to think about how I can improve next semester when I will be teaching all of my courses online. Since I know that so many students had a mediocre to poor experience with emergency online teaching, I’ve spent a lot of time on webinars learning how to do better. This will be the first in a series of posts on what I’m learning on course design, learning styles, and best practices. But let’s start with the basic questions to ask yourself as you’re preparing for next semester.

First, think about whether you want to teach synchronously or not. If you’re looking for maximum flexibility for both you and the students, then asynchronous teaching makes sense.

After finishing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, I devoured Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. Published in 1985, Postman’s thesis is that Huxley in Brave New World, not George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984, more accurately predicted life in the modern United States. In the forward to his book, Postman writes:

Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history, As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth

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In two earlier posts (here and here), I addressed a number of issues and tips related to the emergency remote online teaching that became the norm for most of us in the law academy back in March.  I finished my “classroom teaching” for the semester two weeks ago.  My online timed exam was given last week.  My take-home project in another class is due this week.  I survived; the students survived.  That may be the best I can say for all that. 

However, a larger, long-term issue looms in the background relating to the online teaching we did–and may continue to do–as a result of COVID-19.  That issue?  Whether our current remote teaching will catalyze a movement in higher education, including legal education, to teach more classes online.  If university and law school budgets continue to contract, administrators may see cost-savings in moving more courses online.

This issue has engendered much debate among educators generally.  I bring it to the fore here for consideration in the business law teaching context.  I have mixed feelings about moving clinical, simulation, and standard doctrinal business law courses online. The reasons vary from course to course.  And there is no doubt much…

This post comes to us from friend-of-the BLPB Nadia B. Ahmad.  Many thanks to her for this contribution.  Her post follows nicely on the spirit of my “Teaching through the Pandemic” posts, which can be found here and here.  My favorite part may be the bit on “Troubleshooting Life and Expectations.”

image from cdnimages.barry.edu

As I begin this post on Sunday, March 29, 2020, there are currently 674,466 confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19). Immunology and infectious disease researchers are working round the clock with their heads down for a cure and a vaccine, but we have nothing in the near term for an end to this situation. The markets have been a tumbling since January 2020 and spiraling downward since March 2020. Even Brexit and the deceleration of China’s economy could not have expected this downturn in the market.  

On March 12, 2020, I taught my last in person Business Organizations class for the semester. For the first half of the class, I had the students complete a practice essay in Canvas on the business judgment rule. The remainder of the time, I had them join via WebEx on their laptops. In that class, approximately 40 percent of the students

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