Insider trading isn’t really my specialty – that’s John’s area – but everyone’s talking about SEC v. Panuwat, which means I feel like I need to weigh in.

In short: Company insider (Panuwat) obtains confidential information from his employer that the firm is to be acquired.  He immediately trades in the stock of a similar but unrelated company – recognizing, correctly, that news of the acquisition will lift the stocks of comparable firms.  Has he violated Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 by misappropriating confidential information from his employer?

First, I note that Panuwat’s trades took place on August 18, 2016 and the SEC filed its complaint on August 17, 2021.  Which, you know, tells you something about the SEC’s ambivalence and risk assessment for this case. (The statute of limitations for imposing a penalty is 5 years).

Second, this problem has been considered before.  Here’s Ian Ayres and Joe Bankman on the subject (h/t to the Twitter birdie who called this to my attention), and here’s a recent empirical paper by Mihir N. Mehta, David M. Reeb, and Wanli Zhao concluding that these kinds of trades are relatively common (discussed in this Law360 article).

There’s probably a lot that can be said about the policies regarding the prohibition on insider trading and whether they should be extended to this scenario – Ayres and Bankman cover that, and John’s recent posts are all about different justifications for prohibiting inside trading – but I actually want to make a small doctrinal analogy to something that I know more about, namely, misstatement cases under Section 10(b).

In that context, courts have occasionally addressed the issue of what to do when a false statement about one company artificially inflates the stock price of a different company.  For example, in Semerenko v. Cendant Corp., 223 F.3d 165 (3d Cir.2000), Cendant falsified its financials, and then proposed a stock-for-stock takeover of ABI.  In response, ABI’s stock price rose, only to fall when the fraud at Cendant was revealed and the merger called off.  Were statements about Cendant’s financials made in connection with ABI’s stock?  The Third Circuit said maybe, and remanded for further inquiry (offering somewhat contradictory standards as to how the inquiry would be conducted for the Cendant defendants versus the auditor defendants).

Then there’s Ontario Public Service Employees Union Pension Trust Fund v. Nortel Networks Inc., 369 F.3d 27 (2d Cir. 2004).  In that case, Nortel made false statements about its financial condition, and when the truth was revealed, the stock price of JDS Uniphase fell, because Nortel was its largest customer.  When JDS Uniphase shareholders sued Nortel, the Second Circuit said that JDS shareholders had no standing to pursue claims against Nortel.

And recently, Juul – which is a private company – made false statements about its marketing tactics – which, when the truth was revealed, ultimately caused Altria’s stock price to fall because of Altria’s 35% investment in Juul.  A district court allowed Altria’s investors to sue Juul and certain of its managers, because “the connection between JUUL’s allegedly false statements and Plaintiffs purchase of Altria’s stock lacks the remoteness found in Nortel Networks.” Klein v Altria Group, 2021 WL 955992 (E.D. Va. Mar. 12, 2021)

What does all of this have to do with SEC v. Panuwat?  I guess that’s in the eye of the beholder.

On the one hand, you could say the situations are entirely distinct.  Section 10(b) prohibits fraud in connection with a securities transaction.  And when someone makes false statements about a particular company, there are limits to whether that fraud is related to securities transactions in other companies.

When it comes to misappropriative insider trading, though, the question is whether confidential information was used (in violation of a relationship of trust and confidence) for the purpose of a securities trade.   See U.S. v. O’Hagan, 521 U.S. 642 (1997) (“The ‘misappropriation theory’ holds that a person commits fraud ‘in connection with’ a securities transaction, and thereby violates § 10(b) and Rule 10b–5, when he misappropriates confidential information for securities trading purposes, in breach of a duty owed to the source of the information. Under this theory, a fiduciary’s undisclosed, self-serving use of a principal’s information to purchase or sell securities, in breach of a duty of loyalty and confidentiality, defrauds the principal of the exclusive use of that information.”).  One might argue that, unlike in the misstatement context, there’s nothing in that standard that requires the securities trade to be of the same, or even a related, company; indeed, the whole reason we have a “misappropriation” theory of insider trading in the first place is to address what happens when an insider of one company – in O’Hagan, a fiduciary of an acquirer planning to launch a tender offer – uses confidential information to trade in the securities of a different company – in O’Hagan, the target.

Plus, I mean, as a practical matter, courts don’t like securities plaintiffs, but they also don’t like employees who trade on confidential information, so you can anticipate outcomes through that realist lens.

But!  I think there’s another wrinkle here.  When the Nortel court rejected the plaintiffs’ claim, it explicitly expressed concern about a slippery slope. Everything in markets affects everything else; that’s why quants develop whole strategies based on minute market correlations.  If traders could sue for losses experienced by one company due to statements by a different company, that could dramatically expand 10(b) liability – which, many argue, already should not extend as far as it does.  It would mean, for example, that if a drug company lies about the efficacy of a new treatment, traders who short its competitors could sue.  If a company lowballs its earnings (not uncommon when they’re trying to cram through a merger), traders who go long on its competitors could sue.  And on and on.

You could argue that these concerns are not present when we’re talking about insider trading, because there’s a limiting principle: The trader must have misappropriated inside information.  If that’s proved, then we may be less concerned about which securities he or she traded.

But is that true, though?

Because here’s the thing.  There’s a longstanding debate within insider trading doctrine about whether liability turns on the trader using the confidential information to trade, or whether liability is triggered whenever someone trades while in possession of confidential information, or whether – splitting the baby – trading while in possession gives rise to an inference of “use” which can then be rebutted.  See, e.g., footnote 2 of Zachary Gubler’s A Unified Theory of Insider Trading Law.  The SEC’s longstanding position is that trading in possession is sufficient to trigger liability in most circumstances.  See Rule 10b5-1 (“a purchase or sale of a security of an issuer is ‘on the basis of’ material nonpublic information about that security or issuer if the person making the purchase or sale was aware of the material nonpublic information when the person made the purchase or sale”).  And the proposed Insider Trading Prohibition Act that recently passed the House also prohibits trading “while aware of material, nonpublic information relating to such security …or any nonpublic information, from whatever source, that has, or would reasonably be expected to have, a material effect on the market price of any such security.”

So now imagine an employee who has confidential information about his or her employer.  Under the SEC’s rule, trading in any public company stock that might be affected by the information is prohibited under 10b-5 – regardless of whether the employee used the information, or not.  The door is blown wide open.

Now, in the complaint against Panuwat, the SEC doesn’t merely rest on a “trading while in possession” theory.  Instead, the SEC explicitly alleges that Panuwat used the confidential information he acquired from his employer:

within minutes of receiving the Medivation CEO’s email on August 18, 2016, and while knowing or being reckless in not knowing that such entrusted information was material and nonpublic, Panuwat used this information concerning the Medivation acquisition to trade. Specifically, Panuwat logged on to his personal brokerage account from his work computer and purchased 578 Incyte call option contracts with strike prices of $80, $82.50, and $85 per share—significantly above Incyte’s stock price of $76 to $77 per share at the time—and the soonest possible expiration date, September 16, 2016. Panuwat was aware that Incyte was not expected to make any significant announcement, such as issuing a quarterly earnings report, before the options expiration date. Rather, Panuwat anticipated that Incyte’s stock price would jump within less than a month on public disclosure of the upcoming Medivation acquisition announcement. Panuwat had never traded Incyte stock or options before.

(emphasis added)

Which may cover this case specifically but unless the SEC is planning to tweak its own rules on this more generally, I think here’s where the problem arises.

As Congress and the SEC continue to contemplate reforms to the U.S. insider-trading enforcement regime, I suggested in my last post that it is important for us all to explore our intuitions about what we think insider trading is, why it is wrong, who is harmed by it, and the nature and extent of the harm. If we are going to rethink how we impose criminal and civil penalties for insider trading, we should have some confidence that the proscribed conduct is wrongful and why. One way to do this is to place ourselves in the shoes of traders and ask, “What would I do?” or “What do I think about that?” To this end, I have developed some scenarios designed to test our attitudes regarding trading scenarios that distinguish the four historical insider trading regimes (laissez faire, fiduciary-fraud, equal access, and parity of information).

In the last post, I offered a scenario that would result in liability under a parity-of-information regime, but not under the other three. Those of you who were not convinced that the trading in that scenario was wrongful may favor one of the less restrictive models.

In this post, I offer the following scenario to test our attitudes regarding trading under an equal-access model. An equal-access regime precludes trading by those who have acquired information advantages by virtue of their privileged access to sources that are structurally closed to other market participants (regardless of whether such trading violates a duty of trust and confidence). An equal access model is narrower in scope than the parity-of-information model, but broader than the laissez-faire and fiduciary-fraud models. Consider these facts:

A senior VP at BIG Corp (a publicly traded company) took the lead in closing a big deal to merge BIG Corp with XYZ Corp (another publicly traded company). The shares of both BIG Corp and XYZ Corp will skyrocket when the deal is announced to the public in seven days. The senior VP asks the CEO and board of Big Corp if, instead of receiving the usual cash bonus that would be his due for leading such a deal, he can purchase shares of XYZ Corp for his personal account in advance of the announcement. The CEO and board approve the VP’s trading—deciding that the BIG Corp shareholders will save money from this arrangement. The VP buys XYZ Corp shares in advance of the announcement and he makes huge profits when the deal is announced.

Was the senior VP’s trading wrong or harmful? If you do not think the senior VP or Big Corp has done anything wrong or harmful in this scenario, then you will probably not favor the equal-access model for insider trading regulation—which would render this conduct illegal. You will likely favor some version of the less restrictive laissez-faire or fiduciary-fraud model instead. My next post will offer a scenario to test our intuitions about the fiduciary-fraud model (the third most restrictive regime).

Again, the hope is that walking through these scenarios will help bring some clarity to our shared understanding of when trading on material nonpublic information is wrong and harmful—and (given our answers to these questions) the nature and extent to which it should be regulated. Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

A few days ago, NYU’s Robert Jackson and Yale’s John Morley filed a lawsuit contending that the world’s largest SPAC was actually an investment company and thus subject to the Investment Company Act of 1940.  A copy of the complaint is available here.  The case has also been covered by the D&O Diary and the N.Y. Times.

A few days after the suit was filed, Bill Ackman, the SPAC’s sponsor, announced an intention to return investor funds.  He also took the opportunity to take a swipe at Jackson and Morley:

Why you might ask, would a PSTH shareholder bring such a meritless lawsuit when any shareholder would understand that the mere filing of the lawsuit, and the delays inherent in its resolution, would impair PSTH’s ability to create shareholder and warrant holder value within its remaining term, by interfering with the process of consummating a merger transaction?

While the lawsuit is brought on behalf of a purported shareholder of PSTH, this individual is simply an unwitting prop to enable the academics, and the plaintiff law firms with whom they have partnered, to bring the lawsuit. The two law professors who concocted the legal theory behind the complaint conceded to the press that their motivation in bringing the lawsuit was “to reform” the entire SPAC industry.

As the largest SPAC ever, PSTH is an attractive target in that its scale and visibility maximize media attention for the lawsuit’s claims and the professors’ proposed efforts at reform. . . .

Notably, one of the professors who is leading the suit, Robert Jackson, served as an SEC Commissioner between January 2018 and February 2020. During his more than two-year term as Commissioner, the SEC reviewed and declared effective more than 100 SPAC IPO registration statements, and oversaw dozens of de-SPAC merger transactions. If Mr. Jackson is so sure that SPACs are in fact illegal investment companies, why didn’t he take steps to shut them down while he was an SEC Commissioner

Still, as William Birdthistle has pointed out, the SPAC had largely just held securities for a year after its IPO, making it seem like it operated as . . . an investment company.  Jackson and Morley make this point on the first page of the Complaint:

Under the ICA, an Investment Company is an entity whose primary business is investing in securities. And investing in securities is basically the only thing that PSTH has ever done. From the time of its formation, PSTH has invested all of its assets in securities. And it has spent nearly all of its time negotiating a transaction that would have invested those assets in still more securities.

The Complaint explains that the SPAC compensated its investment manager in a way that would have been impermissible under the Investment Company Act and Investment Advisers Act:

Defendants’ decision to avoid registering the Company as an investment company has allowed them to use their positions of control to extract compensation from PSTH in forms and amounts that violate federal law. Rather than pay reasonable fees and structure them in the standardized and transparent ways required by the ICA and IAA, the Company has paid its investment advisers indirectly, in the form of complex securities of the Company that were never offered for purchase by the Company’s public investors.

It will be interesting to continue to watch the SPAC space to see how things continue to develop.  For now, I’d call this a $4 billion win for Jackson and Morley.

In previous blogs (here and here), I’ve highlighted the wonderful negotiation materials that George Siedel, Professor Emeritus of Business Law at the University of Michigan, has created and generously made available free of charge (here).  I’ll be using his House on Elm Street negotiation once again this fall in my MBA course! 

Today, I wanted to call BLPB readers’ attention to his new book: Seven Essentials for Business Success: Lessons from Legendary Professors.  I’m really excited to read it, especially because my dissertation advisor, G. Richard Shell, the Thomas Gerrity Professor, Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics and Management at Wharton, is one of the seven award-winning professors profiled!  Without doubt, Richard is a truly legendary professor from whom I’ve already learned so much.  I look forward to learning more from him and from the additional six professors highlighted in the book.  Once I finish reading it, I’ll be sure to share some of my favorite takeaways.   

Here’s Amazon’s description:

Successful leaders are great teachers, and successful teachers serve as models of leadership. This book enables both leaders and teachers to understand and use the best practices developed by award-winning professors, each of whom teaches one of the seven areas that are essential for business success.

These professors candidly discuss their successes and failures in the classroom, the mentors who inspired them, how they developed their teaching methods, and their rigorous preparation for class. Through descriptions of the professors in action, readers will gain an insider’s perspective on their teaching skills, and witness how they teach the seven essentials for success in a variety of settings—MBA, Executive MBA, and executive education courses. The chapters also describe the daily lives (professional and personal) of the professors, and the impact they have beyond the classroom in improving organizations and society.

If you are a leader or teacher—or if you are interested in the content of a business school education—this book provides an insider’s perspective on the best practices used by legendary professors when teaching the seven essentials that represent the core body of knowledge for business success.　

At UT Law, our orientation period for the new academic year began on Friday.  I am back in the classroom today teaching a two-session introductory period course on case briefing and legal analysis.  Regular classes begin on Wednesday.  

The struggle I had in creating my syllabi this year was real.  Under current prescriptions and proscriptions, we are teaching in person, with no physical distancing, masked.  But masks are not required throughout the building.  Moreover, while vaccination is encouraged, it is not required for faculty, staff, or students, and we are prohibited from asking faculty and staff colleagues and students about vaccination status.  There have been more student accommodation requests than usual in my large-section course.  In general, COVID-19, the political divide, and social (especially racial) unrest–which overlap to create a veritable triple pandemic–are seemingly collectively conspiring against us in so many ways, including in the educational setting.  I am feeling the weight of it all.

But undaunted, I move forward in my law teaching!  I have addressed some key concerns in my syllabi this semester.  I include two sections from my syllabi below that may be of interest.  Feel free to dismiss or use these as you will.  Most of the substance of the “COVID-19;community heatlh” piece is from language provided to campus faculty by our Provost’s office, through our Teaching & Learning Innovation group (part of our Division of Faculty Affairs).  The rest comes from CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidance.

COVID-19; community health:  The campus administration has advised us that, with the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, students, faculty, and staff will be required to wear masks in classrooms, labs, and for indoor academic events required for students such as orientation. This requirement will remain in place until conditions improve and the university communicates new instructions.

The university strongly recommends that all members of the campus community be vaccinated for their own protection, to prevent disruption to the semester, and to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Vaccination information and appointment signups are available at tiny.utk.edu/vaccine. The Student Health Center medical staff is available to students to answer questions or discuss concerns about vaccines, and the center provides vaccines free of charge for anyone 18 years or older who would like one.

If you think you are sick or have been exposed to COVID-19, you should contact the Student Health Center or your preferred health care provider. You can also contact the university’s COVID-19 support team for guidance by filling out the COVID-19 self-isolation form at covidform.utk.edu.

You must not attend class if you have tested positive for COVID-19 and are in the isolation period, if you have COVID-19 symptoms and have not been cleared by a medical provider, or if you are an unvaccinated close contact in the quarantine period.

If you need to miss class for illness, please contact me by telephone at 865-974-3813 or by electronic mail at jheminwa@tennessee.edu.

Over the course of the semester, you can find more information and updates at utk.edu/coronavirus.

We also are advised that following other simple practices also promotes good health in and outside the classroom.  These include:

    • maintaining physical distance from others when possible;
    • avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces;
    • frequent and thorough hand-washing;
    • covering coughs and sneezes;
    • cleaning and disinfecting high-touch surfaces; and
    • monitoring your personal health daily.

More information on observing solid general health practices in the current environment is available here. 

I know this is not where we all wanted to be right now in terms of public health risks in our activities together.  It remains a lot for us to deal with mentally and emotionally, as well as physically.  We remain committed to the safety and health of everyone in our community—a professional education community within a larger university campus.  As service professionals, we are counseled in the Preamble to the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct to “demonstrate respect for the legal system and for those who serve it.”  And those of you who consider yourselves to be VFLs (Vols for Life) likely know that the Volunteer Creed—the heart of our campus values—similarly reminds us that we bear the torch in order to give light to others. As aspiring legal professionals and Tennessee Volunteers (a/k/a Law Vols), we therefore commit to caring for one another and for the members of the communities in which we live, work, and learn. It is important that we demonstrate professionalism and the Volunteer spirit by following health requirements and guidance as the same becomes available to us.

Civil, inclusive, professional environment:  Our classroom and course website are professional education and work settings within our overall College of Law community.  As such, they are places for open, frank, and sometimes difficult conversations and debates.  Respect, inclusion, reflection, and tolerance are values inherent to this environment.  Each class member is responsible for upholding these values in communications and other conduct.  I note also in this regard the campus principles of civility and community, which can be found at http://civility.utk.edu.  (I make a cameo appearance in the video on the principles that is found here.)  These principles are at the core of what we do.

Please help me in creating a welcoming environment for our class community.  If you use a name or pronouns other than what is represented in the course roll or might expect, please email me with your preferred name or pronouns.  Also, please offer me help in pronouncing your name correctly—either in advance or through critical feedback if I err.

There obviously is a lot of customization in this language.  But I hope that there are a few nuggets in these paragraphs that are useful to some of you.  For the sake of completeness, I should note that I am using this text in a master course syllabus and have a separate reading syllabus for each course that only includes the assignments and related instructions.

I wish all well as we begin another semester and year.

New York Law School seeks to add to the tenured and tenure-track faculty and invites applications from both entry-level and junior lateral candidates.  We are particularly interested in candidates whose scholarly work and teaching involve core curricular subjects, including constitutional law, as well as business law (e.g. corporations and financial markets).

NYLS is deeply committed to fostering an inclusive community. The School is an equal opportunity employer. We warmly welcome applications from women, members of underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups, persons with disabilities, LGBTQI+ individuals, veterans, and all other candidates whose backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints would contribute to the diversity of our school. To view NYLS’s Strategic Plan, visit www.nyls.edu/strategy, and for information on the School’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, see www.nyls.edu/diversity.

Salary

Highly competitive

How to Apply

Please submit a detailed curriculum vitae listing relevant legal practice and law school experience, a cover letter expressing your interest and describing your qualifications, and a list of references, to William P. LaPiana, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, at associate.dean@nyls.edu.

About New York Law School

Founded in 1891, New York Law School (NYLS) is an independent law school located in Tribeca, the heart of New York City’s legal, government, financial, and emerging tech centers. Known as “New York’s law school,” NYLS embraces the city as its classroom by complementing a rigorous legal education with an innovative and diverse set of “uniquely New York” experiential learning opportunities. Since opening its doors, NYLS has produced graduates who have gone on to hold high elected and appointed office in the city, lead large and small firms, and gain broad recognition as captains of business and industry. Its renowned faculty of prolific scholars has built the School’s strength in key areas of the law, including business and financial services, intellectual property and privacy, and government and public interest law. NYLS has more than 18,000 graduates and currently enrolls around 1,100 students in its full-time and part-time J.D. programs. The School also offers an advanced-degree program leading to the LL.M in Taxation degree.

A plaintiff alleging claims under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act must show that the defendant acted with “scienter,” which usually means either an intent to mislead investors, or reckless indifference to whether investors would be misled.

Since corporations, as well as natural persons, can be Section 10(b) defendants, there is often a question as to how a corporation’s “state of mind” can be determined for Section 10(b) purposes.  For example, the Third Circuit brushed up against this issue in Pamcah-UA Local 675 Pension Fund v. BT Group PLC, 2021 WL 3415060 (Aug. 5, 2021), and in In re Cognizant Tech. Solutions Corp. Securities Litigation, 2020 WL 3026564 (D.N.J. June 5, 2020), the court tried to develop a Section 10(b) corporate-scienter taxonomy.  My very first article, Slouching Towards Monell: The Disappearance of Vicarious Liability Under Section 10(b), was about how courts identify corporate scienter.  But I’m still finding that a lot of judicial opinions demonstrate confusion on this subject, which inspires me to post about it now.  To be sure, this is not an issue unique to 10(b) actions – it comes up in other areas of law – but Section 10(b) has some specific challenges, so I’m focusing on 10(b) here.

[More under the jump]

Continue Reading Let’s Talk About Corporate Scienter

Please note that Southern Illinois is looking for candidates in business law to apply for the position described below, even though the possible “first year or upper-level doctrinal or skills courses” are unspecified in its position description.

*     *     *

Assistant Professor

SIU School of Law

Position Summary:  The School of Law at Southern Illinois University Carbondale seeks applicants for an Assistant Professor position. This is a 9-month, continuing, tenure-track, Assistant Professor position beginning January 1, 2022.

Duties and Responsibilities:  The Assistant Professor will teach Lawyering Skills I and II, which is a required first-year course for all law students, as well as first year or upper-level doctrinal or skills courses depending on the needs of the School of Law and on the successful candidate’s area of expertise.  The selected individual will also participate in research/scholarly activity and other duties as assigned by the Dean.

Minimum Qualifications:  A Juris Doctor (JD) degree and a minimum of five years of legal practice.

Preferred Qualifications:  Law teaching experience; prior experience in teaching legal writing;

and an outstanding professional record.

General Information:  Southern Illinois University School of Law is an outstanding, small public law school that provides its students with an optimal mix of theoretical and experiential educational opportunities in a student-centered environment in order to prepare them for a changing legal profession in a global environment.

Deadline to Apply: 8/26/21 or until filled

Please use the following link to apply  https://jobs.siu.edu/job-details?jobid=12367

SIU Carbondale, member of the SIU System, is an anti-racist community that opposes racism, discrimination and inequity in any form, and embraces diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice for all people.

SIU Carbondale is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer of individuals with disabilities and protected veterans that strives to enhance its ability to develop a diverse faculty and staff and to increase its potential to serve a diverse student population. All applications are welcomed and encouraged and will receive consideration.

Recent news reports indicate that Senator Rand Paul failed to timely disclose his family’s securities transactions.  The Washington Post reported that Senator Paul’s wife purchased stock in Gilead Sciences in February 2020, before the World Health Organization classified Covid-19 as a global pandemic.  The disclosure “came 16 months after the 45-day reporting deadline set forth in the Stock Act, which is designed to combat insider trading.”  Given the reporting at the time about other Senators’ trades, it’s remarkable that Senator Paul’s office did not identify the omission before now.

Functionally, the current system for managing congressional securities trading does not seem to function particularly well.  As I wrote in Salon, “active trading by senators undermines confidence in government and markets.”  I continue to believe that the best approach is one suggested by Greg Shill, simply requiring members of Congress to submit trading plans much like the system for managing securities trading by corporate executives.

Given the apparent disregard some Senators appear to have for the Stock Act, it might be worth, at the very least, amending it to require Congressional Staff to forfeit any gains from purchases or sales which are not timely disclosed.  As it stands, the disclosure provisions appear entirely toothless.  

Michigan State University College of Law invites candidates with a record of excellence in teaching and scholarship to apply for full-time faculty positions. We seek to hire four entry level tenure system faculty members in (1) trust and estates with a preference for a candidate who can teach trusts and estates and tax issues in trust and estate law; (2) law, technology and information; (3) health law including equity issues; and (4) one of the following areas: torts, corporations, contracts, or public international law including human rights and regional and international institutions. We also seek to hire two non-tenure system hires on a 405(c) track: (1) a Director of our Housing Clinic and (2) a Director of our (new) Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurial Clinic.

Michigan State University is the nation’s premier land-grant university, established in 1855. MSU Law’s history dates to 1891. More information about the Law College can be found at www.law.msu.edu.

MSU is committed to achieving excellence through cultural diversity. The University actively encourages applications from and nominations of people from diverse backgrounds including women, persons of color, people with diverse gender identities and sexual orientations, veterans, and persons with disabilities.

Please submit application materials to:

Professor David Blankfein-Tabachnick
Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee
MSU College of Law
dbt@law.msu.edu