AALS 2018 Wrap-Up

Last week, I had the privilege of attending and participating in the 2018 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (#aals2018).  I saw many of you there.  It was a full four days for me.  The conference concluded on Saturday with the program captured in the photo above--four of us BLPB co-bloggers (Stefan, me, Josh, and Ann) jawing about shareholder proposals--as among ourselves and with our engaged audience members (who provided excellent questions and insights).  Thanks to Stefan for organizing the session and inspiring our work with his article, The Inclusive Capitalism Shareholder Proposal.  I learned a lot in preparing for and participating in this part of the program.

Earlier that day, BLPB co-blogger Anne Tucker and I co-moderated (really, Anne did the lion's share of the work) a discussion group entitled "A New Era for Business Regulation?" on current and future regulatory and de-regulatory initiatives.  In some part, this session stemmed from posts that Anne and I wrote for the BLPB here, here, and here.  I earlier posted a call for participation in this session.  The conversation was wide-ranging and fascinating.  I took notes for two essays I am writing this year.  A photo is included below.  Regrettably, it does not capture everyone.  But you get the idea . . . .

 
In between, I had the honor of introducing Tamar Frankel, this year's recipient of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award, at the Section for Women in Legal Education luncheon.  Unfortunately, the Boston storm activity conspired to keep Tamar at home.  But she did deliver remarks by video.  A photo (props to Hari Osofsky for getting this shot--I hope she doesn't mind me using it here) of Tamar's video remarks is included below.

Tamar has been a great mentor to me and so many others.  She plans to continue writing after her retirement at the end of the semester.  I plan to post more on her at a later time.

On Friday, I was recognized by the Section on Business Associations for my mentoring activities.  On Thursday, I had the opportunity to comment (with Jeff Schwartz) on Summer Kim's draft paper on South Korean private equity fund regulation.  And on Wednesday, I started the conference with a discussion group entitled "What is Fraud Anyway?," co-moderated by John Anderson and David Kwok.  My short paper for that discussion group focused on the importance of remembering the requirement of manipulative or deceptive conduct if/as we continue to regulate securities fraud in major part under Section 10(b) of, and Rule 10b-5 under, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

That summary does not, of course, include the sessions at which I was merely in the audience.  Many of the business law sessions were on Friday and Saturday.  They were all quite good.  But I already am likely overstaying my welcome for the day.  Stay tuned here for any BLPB-reated sessions for next year's conference.  And in between, there's Law and Society, National Business Law Scholars, and SEALS, all of which will have robust business law programs.

Good luck in starting the new semester.  Some of you, I know, are already back in the classroom.  I will be Wednesday morning.  I know it will be a busy 14 weeks of teaching!