One thing that distinguishes excellent lawyers (or excellent academics, for that matter) is the ability to see more than one side of a legal question—to marshal all the arguments for and against a position, and weigh their relative strengths.

A lawyer drafting a contract needs to foresee the various ways a contract might be interpreted and try to minimize the ambiguities. A lawyer advising a client about regulatory compliance needs to understand the different ways the applicable statutes and regulations might be read. A lawyer litigating a case needs to anticipate her opponent’s best arguments and the weaknesses in her own arguments to be an effective advocate.

But how does one teach open-mindedness to law students? It’s a problem on exams. Students often fixate on one view and ignore any arguments against their chosen positions.

It’s also a problem in the classroom. Once some students have taken a public position, it’s very hard to get them to concede that any argument against that position has validity. And some students come to class having already formulated a position about a particular case or policy issue, making the task even harder.

I have been teaching for over 25 years, and I’m still not sure how to deal with that problem. I tell them they need to deal with both sides of every issue, but it’s one thing to know that intellectually and another thing entirely to do it well. I assign them positions to argue, but that often doesn’t help. If the assigned position is contrary to what they already thought, their assigned argument is usually weaker than it should be. If they didn’t have a position before, once I assign them a position, they’re unwilling to concede the legitimacy of the other side’s argument.

I just don’t know how to teach open-mindedness. Many students get it, but I don’t seem to have much effect on the others. And that frustrates me, because I know how important open-mindedness is to being a good lawyer.

Since Delaware decisions like Boilermakers Local 154 Ret. Fund v. Chevron Corp., 73 A.3d 934 (Del. Ch. 2013) and ATP Tour, Inc. v. Deutscher Tennis Bund, 91 A.3d 554 (Del. 2014), there have been renewed calls for corporations to amend their charters and/or bylaws to require that shareholder lawsuits – including securities lawsuits – be subject to individualized arbitration.

This is actually a big interest of mine – I’m currently working on a paper concerning the enforceability of arbitration clauses in corporate governance documents.  Critically, I do not believe these decisions support the notion that arbitration provisions can control securities claims – at best, they suggest that arbitration provisions in corporate governance documents can control governance claims (i.e., Delaware litigation – concerning directors’ powers and fiduciary duties).

[More under the cut]

Continue Reading Mandating Arbitration of Securities Claims via Corporate Governance Documents?

Last Monday, at Vanderbilt Law School, I attended a presentation by Jesse Fried (Harvard Law) on his new article, The Uneasy Case for Favoring Long-Term Shareholders (Yale Law Journal, forthcoming). 

The paper’s abstract describes the thought-provoking thesis:

This paper challenges a persistent and pervasive view in corporate law and corporate governance: that a firm’s managers should favor long-term shareholders over short-term shareholders, and maximize long-term shareholders’ returns rather than the short-term stock price. Underlying this view is a strongly-held intuition that taking steps to increase long-term shareholder returns will generate a larger economic pie over time. But this intuition, I show, is flawed. Long-term shareholders, like short-term shareholders, can benefit from managers destroying value — even when the firm’s only residual claimants are its shareholders. Indeed, managers serving long-term shareholders may well destroy more value than managers serving short-term shareholders. Favoring the interests of long-term shareholders could thus reduce, rather than increase, the value generated by a firm over time.

I provide more information about the paper and offer a few thoughts after the break.

Continue Reading Fried on The Uneasy Case for Favoring Long-Term Shareholders

I have been an interviewee and an interviewer dozens upon dozens of times in my legal career. As a professor, drawing on my interviewing experience from both sides of the interview table, I spend a fair amount of time giving my students comments on their resumes and giving them advice before they go on interviews. Below are some of the comments that I find myself making consistently.

Generally, I think employers want to know three basics things about you as an interviewee: (1) are you capable?; (2) are you likeable? and (3) are you dedicated? (For the purposes of this post, I am going to assume you haven’t given the employer any reason to question your intergrity, but, obviously, integrity is also extremely important.)

I describe each category in greater detail, and provide advice, after the break.

Continue Reading Resumes and Interviews

Behemoth proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services has released its 2015 Policy Survey.  I have listed some of the questions below:

Which of the following statements best reflects your organization’s view about the relationship between goal­setting and award values?

 Is there a threshold at which you consider that the magnitude of a CEO’scompensation should warrant concern even if the company’s absolute and relative performance have been positive, for example, outperforming the peer group?

With respect to evaluating the say­ on ­pay advisory vote, how does your organization view disclosed positive changes to the pay program that will be implemented in the succeeding year(s) when a company demonstrates pay­ for ­performance misalignment or other concerns based on the year in review?

If you chose either the first or second answer in the question above, should shareholders expect disclosure of specific details of such future positive changes (e.g., metrics, performance goals, award values, effective dates) in order for the changes to be considered as a potential mitigator for pay ­for ­performance or other concerns for the year in review?

Where a board adopts without shareholder approval a material bylaw amendment that diminishes shareholders’ rights, what approach should be used when evaluating board accountability?

Should directors be held accountable if shareholder ­unfriendly provisions were adopted prior to the company’s IPO?

In general, how does your organization consider gender diversity when evaluating boards?

As a general matter, what weight (relative out of 100%) would you view as appropriate for each of the categories indicated below (notwithstanding that some factors, such as repricing without shareholder approval, may be 100% unacceptable)?

How significant are the following factors when evaluating the board’s role in risk oversight in your voting decision on directors (very significant, somewhat significant, not significant)?

In making informed voting decisions on the ratification of the outside auditor and the reelection of members of audit committees, how important (very important/somewhat important/not important) would the following disclosures be to you?

In your view, when is it appropriate for a company to utilize quantitative E&S (environmental and social) performance goals?

As someone who studies and consults on corporate governance issues, I look forward to seeing the results of this survey. However, the US Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Market Competitiveness, which has argued that ISS and other proxy advisory firms have conflicts of interest and lack transparency, has issued a response to ISS because:

The CCMC is concerned that the development of the Survey lacks a foundation based on empirical facts and creates a one-size-fits-all system that failure to take into account the different unique needs of companies and their investors. We believe that these flaws with the Survey can adversely affect advisory recommendations negatively impacting the decision making process for the clients of proxy advisory firms. The CCMC is also troubled that certain issues presented in the Survey, such as Pay for Performance, will be the subject of Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) rulemakings in the near future. While we have provided commentary to those portions of the Survey, we believe that their inclusion in the survey is premature pending the completion of those rulemakings….It is both surprising and very troublesome that the Survey does not contain a single reference to the paramount concern of investors and portfolio managers—public company efforts to maintain and enhance shareholder value—and seeks to elicit only abstract philosophies and opinions, completely eschewing any pretense of an interest in obtaining hard facts and empirically-significant data. This confirmation—that ISS’ policies and recommendations are based solely on a miniscule sampling of philosophical preferences, rather than empirical data—is itself a matter that requires, but does not yet receive, appropriate disclosure and disclaimers on ISS research reports.

The CCMC’s letter details concerns with each of ISS’ questions.  Both the complete survey and the CCMC response are worth a read. 

(Note:  This is a cross-posted multiple part series from WVU Law Prof. Josh Fershee from the Business Law Prof Blog and Prof. Elaine Waterhouse Wilson from the Nonprofit Law Prof Blog, who combined forces to evaluate benefit corporations from both the nonprofit and the for-profit sides.  The previous installment can be found here (NLPB) and here (BLPB).)

What It Is:   So now that we’ve told you (in Part I) what the benefit corporation isn’t, we should probably tell you what it is.  The West Virginia statute is based on Model Benefit Corporation Legislation, which (according to B Lab’s website) was drafted originally by Bill Clark from Drinker, Biddle, & Reath LLP.  The statute, a copy of which can be found, not surprisingly, at B Lab’s website, “has evolved based on comments from corporate attorneys in the states in which the legislation has been passed or introduced.”  B Lab specifically states that part of its mission is to pass legislation, such as benefit corporation statutes.

As stated by the drafter’s “White Paper, The Need and Rationale for the Benefit Corporation: Why It is the Legal Form that Best Addresses the Needs of Social Entrepreneurs, Investors, and, Ultimately, the Public” (PDF here), the benefit corporation was designed to be “a new type of corporate legal entity.”  Despite this claim, it’s likely that the entity should be looked at as a modified version of traditional corporation rather than at a new entity. 

To read the rest of the post, please click below. 

Continue Reading The March of the Benefit Corporation: Next Up, West Virginia (PART II)

Last week, news of the proposed Burger King & Tim Horton’s merger fueled the already raging fire on corporate inversions as the Miami-based burger chain announced plans, through the merger, to possibly relocate to Canada.  As I have written about on this blog, here and here and in the Huffington Post, inversions may offer US companies tax savings.

Stephen E. Shay, a professor of practice at Harvard Law School, provides a short article (12 pages) describing the tax issues in corporate inversions and possible regulatory fixes.  This article is very helpful in taking the debate from the headlines into a more complex legal analysis illuminating the tax consequences and offering a better understanding of the legal remedies available.  Worth the read.

-Anne Tucker

At the New York Times Dealbook, Andrew Ross Sorkin notes that public pension funds have been lately silent on the issue of corporate inversions. (See co-blogger Anne Tucker on inversions here and here.) Sorkin writes, “Public pension funds may be so meek on the issue of inversions because they are conflicted.”

Maybe I am reading too much into his choice of words, but “meek” implies more to me than “moderate” or “mild” and instead conveys a value judgment that fund managers have an obligation to speak out. I am not pretty sure that’s not true.

I definitely don’t like companies heading offshore for mild gains, and I don’t think I would support such a choice, but as a director, I’d sure analyze the option before deciding. Fund managers, too, have obligations to look out for their stakeholders, and unless I had a clear charge on this front or thought the inverting company was clearly wrong, I’d probably stay quiet, too.

Although the meek may inherit the earth, at least at this point, I might substitute “meek” with “cautious” or even “prudent.”  But that’s just me.

Larry Cunningham has a further post on his forthcoming book, Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values, over at Concurring Opinions.  The post includes an excerpt from Chapter 8 of the book, Autonomy, and links to the full text of the chapter, available on SSRN for free (!) download.  Larry’s and my earlier posts on the book here on the BLPB can be found here, here, here, and here.

Here’s a slice of the excerpt included in the Concurring Opinions post:

. . . Berkshire corporate policy strikes a balance between autonomy and authority. Buffett issues written instructions every two years that reflect the balance. The missive states the mandates Berkshire places on subsidiary CEOs: (1) guard Berkshire’s reputation; (2) report bad news early; (3) confer about post-retirement benefit changes and large capital expenditures (including acquisitions, which are encouraged); (4) adopt a fifty-year time horizon; (5) refer any opportunities for a Berkshire acquisition to Omaha; and (6) submit written successor recommendations. Otherwise, Berkshire stresses that managers were chosen because of their excellence and are urged to act on that excellence. 

Cool stuff . . . .