Last month, the SEC released a report on Mandatory Arbitration Among SEC-Registered Advisers.  The report tackles a basic dispute resolution problem.  For context, investors with a problem with a financial adviser will likely have to go to arbitration.  If their financial adviser is an associated person for a FINRA-registered brokerage firm, the dispute will likely go through FINRA arbitration.  While the FINRA system isn’t perfect, it’s often much better than any other alternative out there.  FINRA has made improvements to its arbitration process over the years resulting in a forum that has become fairer for investors.

But many financial advisers are not brokers.  They are registered investment advisers.  They usually charge fees on an assets under management basis.  Where do disputes against these RIA firms go?  It depends on what kind of pre-dispute arbitration agreement exists between the adviser and the investor.  The SEC report details the current options available to investors.

Here’s the short version, far too many RIAs have put in place arbitration agreements that effectively frustrate an investor’s ability to resolve a complaint.  Most of these agreements force investors to resolve their disputes through AAA–the American Arbitration Association.  Within that forum, Advisers generally elect to apply the commercial arbitration rules.  The fees for commercial arbitration can be hefty and enough to deter many investors from even filing a claim.

PIABA, the Public Investor Advocate Bar Association, recently put out its view to follow on the SEC’s report.  It allowed one investor to explain the impact of the arbitration provision on her ability to seek a recovery:

Marykay Dragovich, the conservator for her cousin Rita Berardelli, described the process of forced arbitration after their trusted RIA lost over $228,000 in principal investments, money that Berardelli had saved as a registered nurse before suffering two life-altering brain aneurisms that left her incapacitated.  When Dragovich investigated recovering the losses for her cousin, she learned it would cost up to $202,000 to pay the upfront costs of an arbitration hearing.  So even if Berardelli got all her money back, she would have to pay as much as 90% of it to the arbitrators as prescribed by the overlooked forced arbitration clause in the agreement with her RIA.

Congress or the SEC will need to act to ensure that investors, who are now locked out of courts by arbitration agreements, will not also be locked out of arbitration by excessive fees.

 

** Disclosure — I am a member of PIABA.

Two quick hits this week.

First, I posted over at FT Alphaville on the Kirschner v. JP Morgan case, pending before the Second Circuit.  The court is being asked to decide whether syndicated loans are securities, and my post addresses what’s at stake for the parties.  Help yourself.

Second, VC Zurn rejected the first attempt at a settlement of the AMC class action over the creation of the APE preferred shares.  As I’m sure any reader of this blog knows, after AMC became a meme stock, it sought to sell more shares, but it needed a charter amendment to authorize an increase.  Retail holders of AMC stock refused to vote in favor – likely because retail simply doesn’t vote at all.  AMC thought it had a clever way around that, through the issuance of a new form of preferred shares, called APEs, that could vote alongside the common and would convert into common once additional common shares were authorized.  Many APEs were publicly traded, but some were placed with a hedge fund, Antara Capital, that was contractually obligated to vote in favor of the charter amendment.  As a practical matter, then, the issuance of the APE shares assured there would be sufficient votes to pass the charter amendment authorizing additional common shares that the common shareholders had rejected.  The AMC common shareholders sued, and the parties proposed to settle by issuing new shares to the common holders, which would mitigate the dilutive effect of the APE issuance.

VC Zurn rejected the settlement because it proposed to release all claims held by the common shareholders, not only relating to any breaches of duty with respect to the common, but also with respect to any breaches of duty to the APE holders, to the extent that any common shareholders also held APEs.  I.e., if you held only APE shares, you weren’t covered by the settlement, but if you held both common and APE, the settlement purported to release any claims concerning both holdings.  VC Zurn thought the release of APE claims was a bridge too far, but her reasoning was fascinating.

As I understand it, she offered two rationales.  The first was relatively mundane, and essentially was about due process in the class action context.  The claims asserted in the action were only about breaches of duty to common shareholders, not to APE shareholders.  The class reps were not appointed as representatives of the APE shareholders, and because the settlement itself – a share issuance that was dilutive to APEs – would be adverse to APE holders, class members might be differently situated with respect to APE shares (i.e., some might hold more APEs relatively to their common shares, some might hold fewer).  Under these circumstances, she held the claims alleged in the complaint were too distant from the claims being settled.

The second rationale was more interesting.  Here is what she said:

APE direct claims require not only proof of different facts than the claims asserted on behalf of the class of common stockholders: APE direct claims are appurtenant to a different security than common stock. APE direct claims can be brought only by APE unitholders. The class of common stockholders cannot release APE claims.

Under Delaware law, direct claims for violating voting rights associated with stock ownership are appurtenant to the share of stock that carries the voting power; they are not personal rights belonging to the stockholder who happens to own the shares….Any direct claims arising out of the rights appurtenant to the APE units are property rights associated with the APE units. They are not personal rights of the unitholder…

Get it? The rights attach to the shares.  The fact that a particular investor at a particular time may be holding those shares does not make them the investor’s rights; the rights are share rights.  The investor is the human avatar for the real object of interest, the shares.  Therefore, a class action of common shareholders can release claims associated with those shares, but not claims associated with another security, even if held by the same investors, because that other security is not in fact before the court.  It has not made an appearance, through its human host, in the courtroom.

That idea – where the rights of the shares are abstracted away from the actual for real investors who hold them, to the point where the desires of the human investors have no role to play – has been a sub rosa theme in corporate case law for a while.  In Revlon, for example, the directors were deemed to have violated their fiduciary duties to the common stockholders by seeking a sale that would protect the value of corporate notes – even though, as Daniel Greenwood has pointed out, many of the noteholders were in fact stockholders and very possibly would have wanted a sale that balanced the value of those two securities.  But, I think more recently, Delaware’s rhetoric on this has become more overt – which, by the way, is something I talk about in my paper, Every Billionaire is a Policy Failure, addressing with Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.  (See what I did there? With the plug?). 

Anyway, none of that bodes particularly well for the claims in McRitchie v. Zuckerberg, which is a putative class action in which Meta shareholders claim that the Board violated its fiduciary duties by maximizing Facebook’s wealth while externalizing costs on to the rest of society, to the detriment of diversified holders of Meta stock. But we’ll see what VC Laster has to say. 

POSITION NOTICE

FACULTY POSITIONS
THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEGE OF LAW

THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEGE OF LAW invites applications from both entry-level and lateral candidates for up to three full-time, tenure-track faculty positions to begin at the start of the 2024-25 academic year. The College is primarily interested in candidates with scholarly aptitude and experience in one or more of the following curricular areas: criminal law (both substantive and procedural), environmental law (including energy law), and health law. Secondary interests include business law (including bankruptcy, real estate, or secured transactions) and estate planning (including tax-related courses).

All positions require a J.D. or equivalent law degree. Successful applicants should have an impressive academic background. Candidates also must have a strong commitment to excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service. Significant professional experience is desirable.

In furtherance of the University’s and the College’s fundamental commitment to diversity, we strongly encourage applications from people of color, women, individuals with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, veterans, and others whose background, life experiences, viewpoints, or philosophy would contribute to the diversity of our faculty, curriculum, and programs.

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is an R1, land-grant university located in Knoxville, Tennessee. The City of Knoxville is a hidden gem with a beautiful and walkable downtown, varied nightlife, active neighborhoods, and eclectic shopping and restaurants. UT is located within easy driving distance to Asheville, Nashville, Atlanta, and the Great Smoky Mountains. Applications must be submitted through https://apply.interfolio.com/127752.

Applicants should submit a letter of interest, including the subjects the candidate is interested in teaching, a CV, and the names and contact information for three references. While applications will be considered on a rolling basis, applicants should submit their materials no later than August 18, 2023 for best consideration. For questions, please contact Professor Zack Buck, Chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee, at zbuck@tennessee.edu.

All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment and admission without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, and parental status, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law. In accordance with the requirements of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the University of Tennessee affirmatively states that it does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, or disability in its education programs and activities, and this policy extends to employment by the university. Inquiries and charges of violation of Title VI (race, color, and national origin), Title IX (sex), Section 504 (disability), the ADA (disability), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (age), sexual orientation, or veteran status should be directed to the Office of Equity and Diversity, 1840 Melrose Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37996-3560, telephone 865-974-2498. Requests for accommodation of a disability should be directed to the ADA Coordinator at the Office of Equity and Diversity.

John Malone and Gregory Maffei are repeat players before the Delaware courts.  They often occupy complementary positions within Delaware companies, and are frequently accused of abusing their combined positions to muscle through interested transactions.  Here’s a footnote from the complaint in Atallah v. Malone, which is the subject of today’s blog post:

Malone and Maffei have been sued numerous other times for engaging in self-dealing to the detriment of public stockholders. See, e.g., New Orleans Empls. Ret. Sys. v. The DIRECTV Group, Inc., C.A. No. 4606-VCP (Del. Ch. 2009) (Malone accused of orchestrating transaction, with Maffei’s approval, to obtain supervoting shares dilutive to the minority stockholders and receiving disproportionate tax benefits); Blackthorn Partners LP vs John C Malone, et al., C.A. No. 5260-CS (Del. Ch. 2010) (Malone accused of receiving premium for high-vote shares, with Maffei’s approval, that public shareholders did not receive, with class ultimately receiving $10 million settlement); In re Sirius XM S’holder Litig., Consol. C.A. No. 7800-CS (Del. Ch. 2012) (Maffei and rest of Board accused of failing to employ anti-takeover measures thus allowing Malone affiliate to improperly obtain majority control); In re Starz S’holder Litig., C.A. No. 12584-VCG (Del. Ch. 2016) (Malone accused of structuring transaction, with Maffei’s approval, such that he received different and more valuable consideration than public stockholders regardless of stockholder vote); Tornetta vs. Gregory B. Maffei, et al., C.A. No. 2019-0649-KSJM (Del. Ch.) (Board of directors including Maffei accused of ignoring standstill agreements and relying on Malone-affiliated banker to steer sale of company to Malone affiliate rather than sell at higher value to third party); Vladimir Fishel v. Liberty Media Corp., et al., Docket No. 2021-0820-KSJM (Del. Ch.) (Board of directors including Maffei accused of using company coffers to help Malone affiliate squeeze out minority stockholders).

Not included on this list, I don’t think, is Sciabacucchi v. Liberty Broadband, 2023 WL 4157103 (Del. Ch. June 22, 2023), in which Malone and Maffei settled claims involving related party transactions at Charter Communications,

Maffei has been the subject of so many shareholder lawsuits that he’s now seeking to reincorporate two of his companies from Delaware to Nevada, apparently for the explicit purpose of engaging in interested transactions with less oversight – which reincorporation is itself the subject of another shareholder lawsuit.

So that’s the background for Atallah v. Malone, where VC Glasscock found that derivative claims were properly pled against Malone and Maffei for a conflicted transaction, and refused to dismiss the complaint.

The set up: Qurate is a publicly traded company, of which Malone held high vote shares.  These were not by themselves enough to confer hard control at the 50% level, but were controlling enough that he had – and was compensated for – a call right held by Qurate.  If a third party were to offer for his high vote shares, and he was willing to accept, Qurate could call the shares for the lower of the third party offer, or a price equal to a 10% premium over the common, publicly traded shares.

Maffei was Executive Chair at Qurate, and also had an employment agreement to the effect that if Qurate changed control, he’d be entitled to resign from Qurate and win change in control benefits.

Given the close relationship between Malone and Maffei, then, as Matt Levine might put it, there was an opportunity for a Good Trade.

Maffei could “offer” to buy Malone’s shares; that would trigger the call right by Qurate, which would buy Malone’s shares at a premium above market.  Once Malone no longer held high vote shares, that would trigger a change in control at Qurate, which would entitle Maffei to severance.

And so that’s exactly what they did.  Except, of course, neither wanted to really leave Qurate, so Malone accepted for his high vote shares payment in common stock instead of cash, at a 10% premium to market price.

Meanwhile, Maffei said, “Yes, I could resign and take my severance, but I would be willing to stay on for a renegotiated compensation package” – which Qurate did, which included granting him high vote shares.

I haven’t done the math regarding the exact number of shares involved, but in many ways, the transaction appears to be designed to transfer Malone’s high vote shares to Maffei, while simultaneously giving Malone a premium and possibly Maffei a bit of a premium in stock awards, all out of Qurate’s pocket.

So of course, shareholders sued, claiming this entire series of transactions was undertaken by a controlling shareholder group – Malone and Maffei coordinating – to benefit them both.

What’s interesting here?

[More under the cut]

Continue Reading The One Where They Castrated Calves Together

The Nevada Supreme Court recently delivered an opinion on Series LLCs.  These entities are relatively new and not much caselaw on them currently exists so it’s good to get some more guidance about how to deal with them.

The case, Federal Housing Finance Agency v. Saticoy Bay LLC, reached the Nevada Supreme Court on a certified question from the Ninth Circuit about how to obtain jurisdiction over series LLC entities.  In short, the question the Ninth Circuit wanted answered was whether a court obtained jurisdiction over series entities by naming the master LLC itself or whether the individual series must be sued in its own name to establish jurisdiction over it?  Nevada’s Supreme Court answered that naming the individual series LLC at issue was not an “optional” matter.  To establish jurisdiction over a series entity, the entity itself must be sued.  It found that the “plain language of NRS 86.296(2) does not allow a party to sue a master LLC in lieu of a series LLC at the party’s discretion.”

 

Just a reminder that applications are open for the permanent directorship of the Institute for Professional Leadership at The University of Tennessee College of Law.  As many of you know, I have been the Interim Director of this important academic program at UT Law for three years.  It has been a great joy for me to serve, but we are ready now to find a new permanent director for the program.  Applications are being accepted here.  Additional information also is available at the same link.  And here is the general job description:

The University of Tennessee College of Law invites applications for the position of Director of the Institute for Professional Leadership. The Institute for Professional Leadership (IPL) is a unique academic program that focuses on guiding students in identifying and developing their leadership skills and professional values, in conjunction with constructing a successful career plan. The IPL offers a rich selection of courses and programs designed to prepare students to be lawyer leaders within the profession and beyond, promotes active community engagement through pro bono opportunities, and serves as a platform for research and scholarly debate in the leadership field. The Director will provide vision and oversight for the IPL’s existing programs and activities and will be responsible for expanding and enhancing the IPL’s reach and stature. The Director will be an important part of the College of Law’s administrative leadership. The position will report directly to the Dean and work more broadly with the College of Law administration to support high-quality instruction, programming, engagement, and professional leadership development. Additionally, the Director will be a member of the College of Law faculty; the nature of the appointment will depend upon the chosen candidate’s academic and professional experience and credentials.

Of course, let me know if you have questions!  I know the job well . . . .  Please pass this on to others who may be interested.

Dear BLPB Readers:

“The University of Alabama School of Law seeks to fill up to five tenure-track positions for the 2024-25 academic year.

JOB QUALIFICATIONS: Candidates must have outstanding academic credentials, including a J.D. from an accredited law school or an equivalent degree (such as a Ph.D. in a related field). Entry-level candidates should demonstrate potential for strong teaching and scholarship. Qualified applicants in any of the following areas will be considered: civil procedure, criminal law, torts, property, environmental, business (all sub-fields), antitrust, healthcare, intellectual property, legal ethics, evidence, election law, employment/labor, state & local law, and law & economics. We welcome applications from candidates who approach scholarship from a variety of perspectives and methods. The University embraces diversity in its faculty, students, and staff, and we welcome applications from those who would add to the diversity of our academic community.

APPLICATIONS/FURTHER INFORMATION: Salary, benefits, and research support will be nationally competitive. All applications are confidential to the extent permitted by state and federal law. These positions will remain open until filled. Questions should be directed to Benjamin McMichael, Chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee (facappts@law.ua.edu). Interested candidates can apply online at https://careers.ua.edu/jobs/search/law

Visit UA’s employment website at https://careers.ua.edu/home for more information. The University of Alabama is an equal-opportunity employer (EOE), including an EOE of protected vets and individuals with disabilities.”

Mississippi College School of Law invites applications from entry-level candidates for multiple tenure-track faculty positions expected to begin in July 2024. Our search will focus primarily on candidates with an interest in teaching one or more of the following subject areas: Civil Procedure, Business/Commercial Law, Contracts, Cyber Law/Law & Technology, International Law, and Sports/Entertainment Law. We seek candidates with a distinguished academic background (having earned a J.D. and/or Ph.D.), a commitment to excellence in teaching, and a demonstrated commitment to scholarly research and publication. We particularly encourage applications from candidates who will enrich the diversity of our faculty. We will consider candidates listed in the AALS-distributed FAR, as well as those who apply directly. Applications should include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, a scholarly research agenda, the names and contact information of three references, and teaching evaluations (if available). Applications should be sent in a single PDF to Professor Donald Campbell, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee, via email at dcampbe@mc.edu.

Thanks to Ann for her great “So, Ripple” post last week.  I have been waiting for a case like this—one that engages a court in the details of how the Howey test applies to the way different types of  cryptoassets work.  I was especially interested in how the court in the SEC v. Ripple Labs opinion would handle the different ways in which cryptoassets are sold and traded.  Well, now we have an opinion to work with.

I especially appreciate Ann setting the stage so well with the doctrinal legal background of the case.  Well done, friend!  Like Ann, I teach Securities Regulation every year.  Unlike Ann, I am gleeful about teaching definitional content in the federal securities laws, including the definition of the term “security.”  It is amazing how, as financial investment instruments have evolved, significant numbers of practitioners and their clients have paid insufficient attention to the niceties of that definition and the definition of the embedded term “investment contract.”

Like Ann, I am comfortable that a single financial instrument can be a security in some contexts and not in others.  And, like Ann, I have questions about the court’s analysis in Ripple.  Specifically, I am disappointed in the way the Ripple court fails to take on the profit expectations element of the Howey test head-on—especially as to the “Programmatic Sales” made by Ripple—sales made into the XRP market after Ripple’s initial “Institutional Sales” were made.  Instead, the court’s opinion joins the concept profit expectations to the efforts of others in its analysis in ways that I find perplexing.  Undertaking an analysis of the profit expectations piece of the Howey test independently may be hard work.  But it may have been worth the court’s while to dig in more on whether the purchasers of XRP expect profits before assessing whether those profits are generated through the efforts of others.

For this profit expectations part of the Howey analysis, I reflect on the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in United Housing Foundation v. Forman.  Leaving aside the fact that Forman was really a case about whether stock—not an investment contract—is a security, the Forman Court defines financial instrument profits in three distinct ways:

  • “capital appreciation resulting from the development of the initial investment” (421 U.S. at 852)
  • “a participation in earnings resulting from the use of investors’ funds” (421 U.S. at 852)
  • the ability to resell at a price that exceeds the cost of purchase (421 U.S. at 854)

The Ripple opinion somewhat addresses each of these potential types of profit, but not always directly, distinctly, or completely.  The court focuses significantly on the first of the three, noting that “the Institutional Buyers reasonably expected that Ripple would use the capital it received from its sales to improve the XRP ecosystem and thereby increase the price of XRP,” but that “Programmatic Buyers could not reasonably expect the same.” (And I am not sure about that latter piece, by the way.)

Considerations relating to the third profit type, however, may be the most interesting—and challenging in application.  After reading the court’s analysis, I still had many questions about whether those who bought the XRP that Ripple was selling in the Programmatic Sales were buying because of anticipated market appreciation—appreciation that may be generated in part by the activities of Ripple in establishing and promoting (not to mention selling) XRP—or for more instrumental reasons.  The court finds that “each Institutional Buyer’s ability to profit was tied to Ripple’s fortunes and the fortunes of other Institutional Buyers because all Institutional Buyers received the same fungible XRP.”  Yet, those who purchased XRP in Programmatic Sales also receive that same fungible XRP.  In general, I wonder how the Programmatic Sales made by Ripple are different from sales of stock made by, e.g., a founder into a preexisting trading market—an analogy worth considering.

The Ripple court’s analysis of profit expectations under Howey in its opinion is, however, combined with its inquiry as to the “efforts of others.”  In my teaching, I separate Howey into five prongs: (1) contract, transaction, or scheme; (2) investment of money; (3) common enterprise; (4) expectation of profits; (5) efforts of others.  Overall in my work (as exemplified in this article, in which I apply the Howey test to early crowdfunding interests), I have found it helpful to engage each of these five prongs of Howey independently, then follow with a synthesis that looks at the overall context in which the security determination is being made (including the related “economic realities” of the instrument in the circumstances).  That analysis of context is, of course, invited by the lead-in to Section 2(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “1933 Act”), which qualifies the definitions offered in Section 2(a) by an assessment of whether “the context otherwise requires.”

The Ripple court’s failure to keep the two prongs—expectation of profits and efforts of others—analytically separate handicaps the court from addressing the Forman Court’s core argument relating to the connection between the investment of money prong and the expectation of profits prong: that an instrument may represent a consumption or other interest, rather than an investment or profit-making interest.  Those who invest do so with the goal of achieving financial gain or another element of value.  The Forman Court’s reasoning as applied in Ripple logically would result in a judicial determination of the nature of the XRP interest purchased by those acquiring XRP in the Programmatic Sales, which may well be different from the nature of the XRP interest acquired in the Institutional Sales.  Why were purchasers of XRP acquiring it at the time Ripple was selling in the Programmatic Sales?  What was at the heart of their acquisitions of XRP? The Ripple court fails to grapple with these questions.

The Ripple court does acknowledge in its opinion that some of those purchasers may have acquired XRP because they expected profits—even profits generated through Ripple’s efforts.  The court offers: “Of course, some Programmatic Buyers may have purchased XRP with the expectation of profits to be derived from Ripple’s efforts.”  But it discounts this rationale without offering an alternative.  Instead, the court points out that Ripple never made any promises to the purchasers of XRP who bought in Programmatic Sales.  Yet, explicit promises between a seller and a buyer are not the only conduct that can lead purchasers of financial instruments to expect profits . . . .

In that regard, the Ripple opinion somewhat conflates its Howey analysis of the “efforts of others” with an assessment of whether (and if so, how) Ripple offered to sell XRP to those who bought it (which may be irrelevant since Ripple did sell XRP into the market).  Section 5 of the 1933 Act—the legal provision that the Securities and Exchange Commission asserts Ripple violated—only applies to offers and sales of securities.  Consequently, it would seem logical to determine first whether what was offered or sold is a security and only then to address whether that security was offered or sold by the defendant.

Instead, in analyzing whether there was an expectation of profits (and whether Ripple’s efforts were sufficiently connected with profit generation) under the Howey test, the Ripple court focuses on whether the XRP purchasers knew from whom they were buying and where their money was going, alluding to a privity or tracing requirement of sorts.  Specifically, the Ripple opinion avers that “with respect to Programmatic Sales, Ripple did not make any promises or offers because Ripple did not know who was buying the XRP, and the purchasers did not know who was selling it,” noting that “a Programmatic Buyer stood in the same shoes as a secondary market purchaser who did not know to whom or what it was paying its money.”  These considerations are more applicable to a determination of whether Ripple was offering or selling securities to a particular purchaser—a consideration relevant in a private action under Section 12(a)(1) of the 1933 Act—than to the determination of whether XRP is a security when it is sold by Ripple into a pre-existing market.

There’s more I could say on all of this, but this post already has gotten quite long.  So, I will leave it here.  Suffice it to say, in addition to the profit expectations analysis in the Ripple opinion, I have questions about the Ripple court’s analysis of the investment of money and expectation of others prongs of the Howey test.  Perhaps some of that will be a good topic for another post . . . .

I am a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Leadership.  This year, members of the  have been hosting a series of Zoom forums on teaching.  The remaining forums (although more may be scheduled) are set forth below.

Wednesday, July 19, 2023 – 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. EST – Joan Heminway, Interim Director, Institute for Professional Leadership and Rick Rose Distinguished Professor of Law, The University of Tennessee College of Law ,and Martin Brinkley, Dean and Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina School of Law

Monday, September 25, 2023 – 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST – Lee Fisher, Dean, Cleveland State University College of Law

Wednesday, October 18, 2023 – 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST – Kellye Testy, President and CEO, LSAC, and Hillary Sale, Associate Dean for Strategy, Georgetown University

You can register for a session by clicking on the link for that session.  As you can see, I am cohosting Wednesday’s forum, which will feature two adjunct professors who have worked with full-time faculty to design and implement law school leadership courses.

Business law and leadership are naturally related.  The Section on Leadership may be something you are interested in following.  If so (and you are a law professor at an AALS member school), you can register to be a member of the section here after logging into your AALS account.