Business Law Prof Blog

New Paper: An LLC By Any Other Name Is Still Not A Corporation

It's been little while since I posted here, but long-time readers of theis blog will not be surprised by the topic.  I am happy to say that, after a lot of work with an exceptional co-author who shares my concerns, Professor Samantha Prince from Penn State Dickinson Law, we have an article documenting the problems with mislabeling LLCs and providing a variety of solutions.  I have been writing on this for nearly 15 years, and unfortunately, not a lot has changed. 

The article, An LLC By Any Other Name Is Still Not A Corporation, is now available on SSRN, here, and has been submitted for publication. In the meantime, we welcome thoughts and comments.  

Here is the abstract: 

Business entities have their own unique characteristics. Entrepreneurs and lawyers who represent them select an entity structure based on the business’s current and projected needs. The differing needs of each business span across myriad topics such as capital requirements, taxation, employee benefits, and personal liability protection. These choices present advantages and disadvantages many of which are built into the type of entity chosen.

It is critically important that people, especially lawyers, recognize the difference between entities such as corporations and limited liability companies (LLCs). It is an egregious, nearly unforgivable, error in our view to call an LLC a “limited liability corporation.” In part, this is because lawyers should try to get things right, but it is also because conflating the two entity types can lead to unpredictable outcomes. Perhaps more important, it could lead to incorrect and unjust outcomes. A prime example lies within the veil piercing context.

Lest you think that this is not a prevalent occurrence, there are nearly 9,000 references to the phrase “limited liability corporation” in court cases. Practicing attorneys are not the only people messing this up. Judges, legislators, federal and state agency officials, and media pundits are also getting it wrong. Most recently, Justice Samuel Alito scribed an op-ed that was published in the Wall Street Journal where he misused the term. Even the TV show Jeopardy! allowed as correct the answer, “What is a limited liability corporation?,” during one episode.

Enter artificial intelligence. AI relies on information it can find, and therefore AI generators, like ChatGPT, replicate the incorrect term. With a proliferation of users and programs using ChatGPT and other AI, the use of incorrect terminology will balloon and exacerbate the problem. Perhaps one day, AI can be used to correct this problem, but that cannot happen until there is widespread understanding of the distinct nature of LLCs and a commitment to precise language when talking about them.

This article informs of the looming harms of misidentifying and conflating LLCs with corporations. Additionally, it presents a warning together with ideas on how to assist with correcting the use of incorrect terminology in all contexts surrounding LLCs.

Is Your Law School Ready for Generative AI? Fifteen Questions You Should Consider

Greetings from SEALS, where I've just left a packed room of law professors grappling with some thorny issues related to ChatGPT4, Claude 2, Copilot, and other forms of generative AI. I don't have answers to the questions below and some are well above my pay grade, but I am taking them into account as I prepare to teach courses in transactional skills; compliance, corporate governance, and sustainability; and ethics and technology this Fall.

In no particular order, here are some of the questions/points raised during the three-hour session. I'll have more thoughts on using AI in the classroom in a future post.

1. AI detectors that schools rely on have high false positives for nonnative speakers and neurodivergent students and they are easy to evade. How can you reliably ensure that students aren't using AI tools such as ChatGPT if you've prohibited it?
2. If we allow the use of AI in classrooms, how do we change how we assess students?
3. If our goal is to teach the mastery of legal skills, what are the legal skills we should teach related to the use of AI? How will our students learn critical thinking skills if they can rely on generative AI?
4. How should we keep up with the rapid pace of change?
5. How will adjuncts use AI with our students if they are already integrating it into their practice? Alternatively, will adjuncts see the use of AI as cheating?
6. If students use papers as writing samples, should there be attestations indicating that they are AI free? Same question for journals/law reviews.
7. Can clinicians and others use generative AI to help with access to justice? If so, how can we ensure that the information is reliable and not a hallucination??
8. How should schools assess faculty coming up for promotion and tenure? Will junior faculty feel pressured to rely on AI to be more productive?
9. Can generative AI be helpful with students with disabilities and neurodivergent students? AI tools can help with creating study schedules, note taking (organizing by topic), time management, summarizing large articles, staying on task, academic support tool, ascertaining how long will tasks take, planning meals and more. If a policy prohibits the use of generative AI in the classroom, should its use be a reasonable accommodation?
10. Do we as faculty members have the growth mindset to deal with this change? Or will we teach the way we always do, which may do a disservice to our students. How do we prepare our students to deal with generative AI in practice?
11. Do you need a uniform policy or should each professor have their own policy? Should the default policy be that students cannot use it for work that gets academic credit unless the professor has specifically opted in?
12. Should we embrace AI especially for students who can’t write? Is using ChatGPT any different from using a calculator? Is it any different from asking a partner for a template so you don't have to start from scratch?
13. Should we use more in-class exams? Should they be closed book? Do we need more oral presentations? How might this affect space planning at exam time?
14. Should class participation count for more than it already does?
15. If you're not familiar with generative AI tools, where should you start?

How many of these questions have  you asked yourself, your colleagues, or your dean? If you have some best practices or thoughts, please share them in the comments. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stetson Law Symposium: Elon Musk and the Law

Last Friday, I had the privilege of speaking, with other colleagues, at the 2023 Stetson Law Review Symposium on "Elon Musk and the Law."  (See the flyer on the program, below.)  This symposium grew out of a discussion group I organized at the 2022 Southeastern Association of Law Schools Conference.  I posted about it here back in May of last year.

I could not have been happier with the way the symposium worked out.  The Stetson Law students, faculty, and administration were well organized, kind, and fun--a total pleasure to work with.  And I got excellent questions and feedback on my early draft paper, Representing Elon Musk, which focuses attention on the lawyer-client relationship under the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct.  I look forward to seeing the final published proceedings in two forthcoming books of the Stetson Law Review.

*               *               *

Baylor Law: Transactional Drafting & Other Legal Writing/Drafting Openings

The following came to me from Patricia Wilson, Associate Dean and Professor of Law, Chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee at Baylor Law:

Baylor Law is accepting applications for two lecturer positions in our Legal Analysis, Research and Communication (LARC) program, as described below, to begin no later than August 1, 2023.  Please share with anyone you believe may be interested.

Lecturer (Transactional Drafting)

Candidates must possess a juris doctor. You will be asked to provide a letter of interest; curriculum vitae; transcripts, a list of three references in the application process, and two writing samples demonstrating the candidate's writing style.  Salary is commensurate with experience and qualifications.

The selected individual will have responsibility for teaching in the Legal Analysis, Research & Communications (LARC) program. Responsibilities include working collaboratively with other faculty members of the Baylor Law Writing Program to create, teach and grade assignments for the LARC 4 course (Transactional Drafting) and coordinating all of the writing efforts across all three years of the curriculum to ensure consistency and best management of resources. The ideal candidate will have at least three years of transactional legal writing experience, including drafting and analyzing a variety of different contracts and business entity governing documents. For more information about the Baylor Law Legal Writing Program, please visit www.baylor.edu/law/index.php?id=933907.

Lecturer (Persuasive Writing; Litigation Drafting)

Candidates must possess a juris doctor. You will be asked to provide a letter of interest; curriculum vitae; transcripts, a list of three references in the application process, and two writing samples demonstrating the candidate's writing style.  Salary is commensurate with experience and qualifications.

The candidate should have substantial experience in persuasive writing and litigation drafting, including drafting appellate briefs and a variety of different pleadings, trial motions, and similar work product.  The selected individual will have responsibility for teaching in the Legal Analysis, Research & Communications (LARC) program, specifically LARC 3, our required persuasive writing course, and LARC 5, our litigation drafting course. He or she will teach several sections of both courses each year.  He or she will be one of several LARC 3 instructors. With respect to the LARC 5 course, the candidate will be expected to collaborate and coordinate project planning with instructors for the LARC 4 (transactional drafting). Thus, the ideal candidate will also have experience in analyzing and drafting a variety of contracts. The candidate will share additional responsibilities as well, such as periodically serving as a judge in the Practice Court program and collaborating with other legal writing faculty members to create problems for writing competitions. For more information about the Baylor Law Legal Writing Program, please visit www.baylor.edu/law/index.php?id=933907.

General Information

Both positions entail renewable one-year contracts, with the possibility of promotion to senior lecturer status after seven years.

We are especially interested in candidates who will enhance the diversity of our faculty.  Our search includes both entry-level and junior lateral candidates.  

Additional information for these two positions and other open positions at Baylor Law is available at: www.baylor.edu/law/facultystaff/index.php?id=980341

Ethics of Legal Astuteness and Banking on the Cloud

I wanted to share with BLPB readers that two of my articles that I've mentioned in previous posts (here and here) have now been published.  I've posted them to SSRN.  Comments welcome!

An abstract for Ethics of Legal Astuteness: Barring Class Actions Through Arbitration Clauses, written with Daniel T. Ostas and published in the Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal is below, and the article is here.

Recent Supreme Court cases empower firms to effectively bar class
action lawsuits through mandatory arbitration clauses included in
consumer adhesion and employment contracts. This article reviews
these legal changes and argues for economic self-restraint among
both corporate executives and corporate lawyers who advise them.
Arbitration has many virtues as it promises to reduce transaction costs
and to streamline economic exchange. Yet, the ethics of implementing
a legal strategy often requires self-restraint when one is in a position
of power, and always requires respect for due process when issues of
human health, safety, and dignity are in play.

An abstract for Banking on the Cloud, written with David Fratto and Lee Reiners, and published in Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law is below, and the article is here.

Cloud computing is fast becoming a ubiquitous part of today’s
economy for both businesses and individuals. Banks and financial
institutions are no exception. While it has many benefits, cloud
computing also has costs and introduces risks. Significant cloud
providers are single points of failure and, as such, are an important
new source of systemic risk in financial markets. Given this reality,
this article argues that such institutions should be considered critical
infrastructures and designated as systemically important financial
market utilities under Dodd-Frank’s Title VIII

 

 

SEALS Tidbits - 2019

I am just back from the 2019 Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) conference.  I participated in several different kinds of activities this year.  This post reports out on each.

I first served as a participant in a series of discussion groups tailored to provide information to aspiring law professors.  The attendees included newly minted fellows and VAPs, mid-to-later-career lawyers/judges looking to switch to full-time law faculty (some already adjuncts or visitors), and (in general) law practitioners testing the waters for possible engagement with the Association of American Law Schools faculty recruitment process.  SEALS has served selected prospective law professors with a specialized track of preparative programming for a number of years.  This set of discussion groups represents an extension of that type of programming, on a more general informational level, to a wider audience of folks interested in careers in law teaching.

I also presented in a discussion group, sponsors by West Academic, on "Teaching to Engage."  Steve Friesland of Elon Law moderated the session.  I shared some of my "first class" and assessment simulations for business law doctrinal and experiential courses.  I learned from many others who shared their own ways of engaging students.  It was a rich discussion.

The anual SEALS "Supreme Court and Legislative Update: Business and Regulatory Issues" featured a presentation from me on a few cases and things to watch for from a legislative viewpoint.  I was joined on the panel by several super-fun business and administrative law colleagues.  One of them, Lou Virelli, posted a summary of the session on the SEALS Blog.  You can find it here.

Michigan State law prof Carla Reyes's "New Scholar" presentation of her draft paper currently entitled "Autonomous Business Reality," was fascinating.  I was proud to serve as her assigned mentor for this session.  I hope I lived up to that role, considering she is a leader in law-and-technology research and I already cite to her work on blockchain technology!  Humbling to be a mentor under those circumstances, for sure.

As part of the Free Speech Workshop, I related the history and current status of student free speech issues involving registered student organizations at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, based on my experience as a faculty advisor to a controversial student organization on our campus.  That presentation was part of a larger discussion group on campus free speech issues.  My UT Law colleague David Wolitz was a co-discussant. Howard Wasserman of FIU Law summarized the session here.

Last--but certainly not least--I co-moderated/moderated two substantive law SEALS discussion groups.  

First, John Anderson of Mississippi College Law (with only a bit of help from me) organized and moderated a session entitled "Insider Trading Stories," in which participants focused on the narratives underlying insider trading cases--known and unknown.  This proved to be an incredibly robust and diverse discussion, highlighting issues in insider trading theory, policy, and doctrine.  Longer versions of some of the discussion group offerings will be presented at a symposium at UT Law in the fall, sponsored by the Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy (TJLP).  The TJLP will publish the edited papers in a forthcoming volume.  I was pleased to see BLPB co-blogger Marcia Narine Weldon in the room!

Second, I moderated a discussion group entitled "Benefit Corporation (or Not)? Establishing and Maintaining Social Impact Business Firms."  The program description of the session follows:

As the benefit corporation form nears the end of its first decade of "life" as a legally recognized form of business association, it seems important to reflect on whether it has fulfilled its promise as a matter of legislative intent and public responsibility and service. This discussion group is designed to take on the challenge of engaging in that reflective process. The participating scholars include doctrinal and clinical faculty members who both favor and tend to recommend the benefit corporation form for social enterprises and those who disfavor or hesitate to recommend it.

The final group pf participants included researchers/writers from the United Kingdom and Canada as well as the United States.  BLPB co-blogger (and newly minted dean) Josh Fershee was among the group, and BLPB co-blogger Marcia Narine Weldon was again in attendance. The discussion was spirited and there were more than a few "aha" moments for me.

All-in-all, a busy--but enlightening--week's work.

It soon will be time to propose programs for the 2020 SEALS annual meeting, to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The date of the conference is likely to be moved up to start on July 30 to accommodate the very early (and getting earlier) starts for schools in the Southeastern United States (and probably elsewhere, too). If you have business law program ideas or would like to moderate or participate in a business law program, please contact me by email. I find that this conference (especially the discussion groups) helps to energize my teaching and scholarship in meaningful ways. Perhaps you also would find this a great place to jumpstart the academic year.

New Paper: Business Entities as Skeleton Keys

Christopher G. Bradley at University of Kentucky College of Law has posted his paper, Business Entities as Skeleton Keys.  The paper was also selected for the 2019 AALS Section on Agency, Partnership, LLCs and Unincorporated Associations program, Respecting the Entity: The LLC Grows Up.  

Chris notes the use of business entities to accomplish goals not attainable previously and the use of entities "to accomplish customized transactions and evade legal restrictions that would otherwise prevent them."  His observations and insights are good ones, and his paper is definitely worth the read.  I can't help but think that some of this is occurring more because of an increasing comfort with entities and a willingness to engage in creative transactions. We're seeing in beyond the use of entities, too, with the rise of derivatives over the last 20 or so years, not to mention cryptocurrencies.  Anyway,  it's a good paper and I recommend it. 

Here's the abstract:

This Article identifies the increasingly important phenomenon of what I term “skeleton key business entities” and discusses the ramifications of their rise. Modern business entities, such as LLCs, are increasingly created and deployed to accomplish customized transactions and evade legal restrictions that would otherwise prevent them. Rather than acting as traditional businesses, such entities are tools, or “skeleton keys,” used to open “locked doors” presented by existing bodies of law, including contract, property, bankruptcy, copyright, tax, national security, and even election law.

The Article centers on the example of the “Artist’s Contract,” a fascinating 1971 project, in which artists sought to retain rights in artworks they sold—to obtain a percentage of future appreciation in value, to exhibit the work upon request, and so on. As prior scholarship has noted, the transaction contemplated by the Artist’s Contract could not have been accomplished in regular contract form due to rules concerning privity, servitudes on chattels, and the first sale doctrine, among other things. But this no longer remains true. The emergence of modern business entity law provides the tools—i.e., skeleton key business entities—to “solve” all of these legal problems and allow for bespoke transactions such as those desired by the artists.

The rise of skeleton key business entities may unsettle numerous other bodies of law. They may bring efficiencies but may undermine important policies. After providing a range of examples, I suggest that scholars—including those outside the business and commercial law realm—should turn renewed attention to the remarkable capacities of these flexible, inexpensive, and surprisingly potent transactional tools. We should consider if it makes sense to force parties pursuing newly enabled forms of commerce to bear the costs of filtering transactions through business entities; or alternatively, which traditional doctrines should bind modern entities just as they bind parties outside of those forms.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS- Blockchain Technology, Cryptoassets, and the Law

I have been told there may be some flexibility on the March 1 deadline.

The UMKC Law Review is pleased to announce a call for submissions relating to the law surrounding distributed ledger ("blockchain") technology. Selected papers will be published in the Special Topics Symposium, Summer 2019 edition of the UMKC Law Review. This symposium invites proposals for papers that explore the legal and regulatory issues involved in blockchain technology. Today, blockchain technology is used to build tools and infrastructure that help lawyers draft contracts, record commercial transactions, and verify legal documents. In general, investments in blockchain technology has surged over the past year, inviting both legitimate businesses and modern-day scammers. To date, regulatory agencies have yet to determine a consistent approach to the technology that protects the public while not stifling innovation. Issue 1 of UMKC Law Review’s 88th Volume will explore these and related topics with the goal of advancing awareness of blockchain technology and cryptoassets. Articles and essays of all lengths and papers by single authors or multiple authors are invited. Preference will be given to works between 5,000 and 25,000 words. To be accepted for publication in UMKC Law Review, articles must not have been previously published. Papers are due March 1, 2019.

Authors will have the opportunity to immediately publish submitted drafts to UMKC Law Review’s Special Topics Symposium webpage during the editing process. Proposals for papers should be submitted to the attention of

Ashley Crisafulli ([email protected]); and

Prof. Del Wright ([email protected]).

Proposals should include the following information:

Name

Contact information

CV

Proposed title of paper

Anticipated length as either an article or essay

Abstract or brief description of the topic

Questions may be addressed to Ashley Crisafulli ([email protected])

Why Lawyers, Law Professors, and Judges Should Care About Blockchain

We’re a month away from our second annual Business Law Professor Blog CLE, hosted at the University of Tennessee on Friday, September 14, 2018. We’ll discuss our latest research and receive comments from UT faculty and students. I’ve entitled my talk Beyond Bitcoin: Leveraging Blockchain for Corporate Governance, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Enterprise Risk Management, and will blog more about that after I finish the article. This is a really long post, but it’s chock full of helpful links for novices and experts alike and highlights some really interesting work from our colleagues at other law schools.

Two weeks ago, I posted some resources to help familiarize you with blockchain. Here’s a relatively simple definition from John Giordani at Forbes:

Blockchain is a public register in which transactions between two users belonging to the same network are stored in a secure, verifiable and permanent way. The data relating to the exchanges are saved inside cryptographic blocks, connected in a hierarchical manner to each other. This creates an endless chain of data blocks -- hence the name blockchain -- that allows you to trace and verify all the transactions you have ever made. The primary function of a blockchain is, therefore, to certify transactions between people. In the case of Bitcoin, the blockchain serves to verify the exchange of cryptocurrency between two users, but it is only one of the many possible uses of this technological structure. In other sectors, the blockchain can certify the exchange of shares and stocks, operate as if it were a notary and "validate" a contract or make the votes cast in online voting secure and impossible to alter. One of the greatest advantages of the blockchain is the high degree of security it guarantees. In fact, once a transaction is certified and saved within one of the chain blocks, it can no longer be modified or tampered with. Each block consists of a pointer that connects it to the previous block, a timestamp that certifies the time at which the event actually took place and the transaction data.

These three elements ensure that each element of the blockchain is unique and immutable -- any request to modify the timestamp or the content of the block would change all subsequent blocks. This is because the pointer is created based on the data in the previous block, triggering a real chain reaction. In order for any alterations to happen, it would be necessary for the 50%-plus-one of the network to approve the change: a possible but hardly feasible operation since the blockchain is distributed worldwide between millions of users.

In case that wasn’t clear enough, here are links to a few of my favorite videos for novices. These will help you understand the rest of this blog post.

• Blockchain Expert Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty
• 19 Industries That Blockchain Will Disrupt
• How Blockchain is Changing Money and Business

To help prepare for my own talk in Tennessee, I attended a fascinating discussion at SEALS on Thursday moderated by Dean Jon Garon of Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law called Blockchain Technology and the Law.

For those of you who don’t know how blockchain technology can relate to your practice or teaching, I thought I would provide a few questions raised by some of the speakers. I’ve inserted some (oversimplified)links for definitions. The speakers did not include these links, so if I have used one that you believe is incomplete or inaccurate, do not attribute it to them.

Professor Del Wright, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law;

Del started the session by talking about the legal issues in blockchain consensus models. He described consensus models as the backbones for users because they: 1) allow users to interact with each other in a trustless manner; 2) ensure the integrity of the ledger in both normal and adversarial situations; and 3) create a “novel variety of networks with extraordinary potential” if implemented correctly. He discussed both permissioned (e.g. Ripple) and permissionless (Bitcoin) systems and how they differ. He then explained Proof of Work blockchains supported by miners (who solve problems to add blocks to the blockchain) and masternodes (who provide the backbone support to the blockchain). He pointed out how blockchains can reduce agency costs and problems of asymmetrical information and then focused on their utility in financial markets, securities regulation, and corporate governance. Del compared the issues related to off-chain governance, where decisionmaking first takes place on a social level and is then actively encoded into the protocol by the developers (used by Bitcoin and Ethereum) to on-chain governance, where developers broadcast their improvement protocols on-chain and then, once approved, those improvements are implemented into the code. He closed by listing a number of “big unanswered issues” related to regulatory guidance, liability for the performance of the technology and choice of consensus, global issues, and GDPR and other data privacy issues.

Professor Catherine Christopher, Texas Tech University School of Law;

Catherine wants to help judges think about smart contracts. She asked, among other things, how judges should address remedies, what counts as substantial performance, and how smart contract audits would work. She questioned whether judges should use a consumer protection approach or instead follow a draconian approach by embracing automation and enforcing smart contracts as drafted to discourage their adoption by those who are not sophisticated enough to understand how they work.

Professor Tonya Evans, University of New Hampshire School of Law (follow her on Twitter; see her blog on blockchain here);

Tonya focuses on blockchain and intellectual property. Her talked raised the issues of non-fungible tokens generated through smart contracts and the internet of value. She used the example of cryptokitties, where players have the chance to collect and breed digital cats. She also raised the question of what kind of technology can avoid infringement. For more on how blockchain can disrupt copyright law, read her post here.

Professor Rebecca Bratspies, CUNY School of Law;

In case you didn’t have enough trust issues with blockchain and cryptocurrency, Rebecca’s presentation focused on the “halo of immutability” and asked a few central questions: 1) why should we trust the miners not to collude for a 51% attack 2) why should we trust wallets, which aren’t as secure as people think; and 3) why should we trust the consensus mechanism? In response, some members of the audience noted that blockchain appeals to a libertarian element because of the removal of the government from the conversation.

Professor Carla Reyes, Michigan State University College of Law- follow her on Twitter at Carla Reyes (@Prof_CarlaReyes);

Carla talked about crypto corporate governance and the potential fiduciary duties that come out of thinking of blockchains as public trusts or corporations. She explained that governance happens on and off of the blockchain mechanisms through social media outlets such as Redditt. She further noted that many of those who call themselves “passive economic participants” are actually involved in governance because they comment on improvement processes. She also noted the paradox that off chain governance doesn’t always work very well because participants don’t always agree, but when they do agree, it often leads to controversial results like hard forks. Her upcoming article will outline potential fiduciaries (miner and masternode operators for example), their duties, and when they apply. She also asked the provocative question of whether a hard fork is like a Revlon event.

Professor Charlotte Tschider, William Mitchell College of Law (follow her on Twitter);

As a former chief privacy officer, I have to confess a bias toward Charlotte’s presentation. She talked about blockchain in healthcare focusing on these questions: will gains in cybersecurity protection outweigh specific issues for privacy or other legal issues (data ownership); what are the practical implications of implementing a private blockchain (consortium, patient-initiated, regulatory-approved); can this apply to other needed uses, including medical device applications; how might this technology work over geographically diverse regulatory structures; and are there better applications for this technology (e.g. connected health devices)? She posited that blockchain could work in healthcare because it is decentralized, has increased security, improves access controls, is more impervious to unauthorized change, could support availability goals for ransomware attacks and other issues, is potentially interoperable, could be less expensive, and could be controlled by regulatory branch, consortium, and the patient. She closed by raising potential legal issues related to broad data sharing, unanswered questions about private implementations, privacy requirements relating to the obligation of data deletion and correction (GDPR in the EU, China’s cybersecurity law, etc); and questions of data ownership in a contract.

Professor Eric Chason, William & Mary Marshall-Wythe School of Law;

Eric closed by discussing the potential tax issue for hard forks. He explained that after a hard fork, a new coin is created, and asked whether that creates income because the owner had one entitlement and now has two pieces of ownership. He then asked whether hard forks are more like corporate reorganizations or spinoffs (which already have statutory taxation provisions) or rather analogous to a change of wealth. Finally, he asked whether we should think about these transactions like a contingent right to do something in the future and how that should be valued.

Stay tuned for more on these and other projects related to blockchain. I will be sure to post them when they are done. But, ignore blockchain at your peril. There’s a reason that IBM, Microsoft, and the State Department are spending money on this technology. If you come to UT on September 15^th, I’ll explain how other companies, the UN, NASDAQ, and nation states are using blockchain beyond the cryptocurrency arena.

 

Call for Papers: Respecting the Entity: The LLC Grows Up (AALS 2019)

Call for Papers for

Section on Agency, Partnership, LLCs and Unincorporated Associations on

Respecting the Entity: The LLC Grows Up

at the 2019 AALS Annual Meeting

The AALS Section on Agency, Partnership, LLCs and Unincorporated Associations is pleased to announce a Call for Papers from which up to two additional presenters will be selected for the section’s program to be held during the AALS 2019 Annual Meeting in New Orleans on Respecting the Entity: The LLC Grows Up.  The program will explore the evolution of the limited liability company (LLC), including subjects such as the LLCs rise to prominence as a leading entity choice (including public LLCs and PLLCs), the role and impact of series LLCs, and differences in various LLC state law rights and obligations. The program will also consider ethics and professional responsibility and governance raised by the LLC. The Section is particularly seeking papers that discuss the role of the LLC as a unique entity (or why it is not).

The program is tentatively scheduled to feature:

• Beth Miller, M. Stephen and Alyce A. Beard Professor of Business and Transactional Law, Baylor Law
• Tom Rutledge, Member, Stoll Keenon Ogden PLLC, Louisville, KY

Our Section is proud to partner with the following co-sponsoring sections:

• AALS Section on Business Associations
• AALS Section on Transactional Law and Skills

Submission Information:

Please submit an abstract or draft of an unpublished paper to Joshua Fershee,[email protected] on or before August 1, 2018. Please remove the author’s name and identifying information from the paper that is submitted. Please include the author’s name and contact information in the submission email.

Papers will be selected after review by members of the Executive Committee of the Section. Authors of selected papers will be notified by August 25, 2018. The Call for Paper presenters will be responsible for paying their registration fee, hotel, and travel expenses.

Any inquiries about the Call for Papers should be submitted to: Joshua Fershee, West Virginia University College of Law, [email protected] or (304) 293-2868.

Does Every Law Student Need to Learn Transactional Lawyering Skills?

Greetings from Atlanta, Georgia, site of the Emory Transactional Law & Skills Conference. After only a few hours of presentations, I'm already inspired to make some changes in my new transactional lawyering class. I will write about some of the lessons learned next week. Today, I want to share some of Tina Stark's remarks from the conference dinner that ended moments ago. Although she initially teased the audience by stating that she would make "subversive" statements, nothing that she said would scandalize most law students or surprise practicing lawyers.

Her "radical" proposal entailed having transactional skills education be a part of every law student's curriculum. In support, she cited ABA Standard 301(a), which states:

OBJECTIVES OF PROGRAM OF LEGAL EDUCATION (a) A law school shall maintain a rigorous program of legal education that prepares its students, upon graduation, for admission to the bar and for effective, ethical, and responsible participation as members of the legal profession.

She argued that for the academy to meet this standard, schools must go beyond a narrow reading of ABA rules and provide every student with the foundation to practice transactional law, particularly because half of graduates will practice in that area even if they don't know it while they are in law school. She also referenced ABA Standard 302, which states in part:

LEARNING OUTCOMES A law school shall establish learning outcomes that shall, at a minimum, include competency in the following: (a) Knowledge and understanding of substantive and procedural law; (b) Legal analysis and reasoning, legal research, problem-solving, and written and oral communication in the legal context.

Stark correctly observed that notwithstanding the litigation focus in law school, lawyers write more than predictive memos and briefs. She emphasized that competency in oral and communication skills is particularly important for deal lawyers.

If she came even close to being "radical," (and I don't think she did), it's because she went beyond calling on more schools to offer, much less require drafting courses. Instead, she recommended that schools add at least one credit to the first year contracts course so that students can learn the structure of contracts and build a foundation for more advanced work. She likened law students failing to learn the parts of a contract to medical students studying anatomy without doing dissections. 

She anticipated the argument that schools do not have enough time to add an extra credit to the basic contracts course by countering that another first year course could be moved to the second year. This would allow professors to spend the first part of the semester teaching 1Ls to read and analyze a contract so that they can understand business drivers when reading cases in contracts and property class. 

Although some in the academy might resist the proposal, I believe that members of the bar and business community would applaud this move. If the long waiting list for my transactional lawyering course and similar ones around the country are any indication, law students would appreciate more balance in the curriculum as well. 

 

 

Does CSR Really Exist in Latin America? Should Corporations be Treated as Persecutors Under Asylum Law? Is Labor an Extractive Industry? Buy This Book and Find Out

In 2015, I and several academics and other experts traveled to Guatemala as part of the Lat-Crit study space. The main goal of the program was to examine the effect of the extractive industries on indigenous peoples and the environment. During our visit, we met with indigenous peoples, government ministers, the chamber of commerce, labor leaders, activists (some who had received multiple death threats), and village elders.

Our labor of love, From Extraction to Emancipation Development Reimagined, edited by Raquel Aldana and Steve Bender, was released this week. My chapter "Corporate Social Responsibility in Latin America: Fact or Fiction" introduces the book. I first blogged about CSR in the region in 2015 in the context of a number of companies that had touted their records but in fact, had been implicated in environmental degradation and even murder. Over the past few years, one of the companies I blogged about, Tahoe Resources, has been sued in Canada for human rights violations, the Norwegian pension fund has divested, and shareholders have filed a class action based on allegations re: the rights of indigenous people.

Although the whole book should be of interest to business law professors and practitioners, chapters of particular interest include a discussion of the environment and financial institutions, the Central American experience with investor protections under CAFTA, whether corporations should be treated as persecutors under asylum law, climate adaptation and climate justice, the impact of mining on self-determination, environmental impact assessments, and labor as an extractive industry.

Other chapters that don't tie directly to business also deserve mention including my mentor Lauren Gilbert's closing chapter on gender violence, state actions, and power and control in the Northern Triangle, and other chapters on the right to water and sanitation in Central America, community-based biomonitoring, and managing deforestation.

We encourage you to buy the book and to invite the chapter authors to your institutions to present (shameless plug for panels, but we would love to share what we have learned). 

 

Call for Proposals: Organizing, Deploying & Regulating Capital in the U.S.

From our friend and BLPB colleague, Anne Tucker, following is nice workshop opportunity for your consideration: 

Dear Colleagues,

We (Rob Weber & Anne Tucker) are submitting a funding proposal to host a works-in-progress workshop for 4-8 scholars at Georgia State University College of Law, in Atlanta, Georgia in spring 2018 [between April 16^th and May 8^th].  Workshop participants will submit a 10-15 page treatment and read all participant papers prior to attending the workshop.  If our proposal is accepted, we will have funding to sponsor travel and provide meals for participants. Interested parties should email [email protected] on or before November 15^th with a short abstract (no more than 500 words) of your proposed contribution that is responsive to the description below. Please include your name, school, and whether you will require airfare, miles reimbursement and/or hotel. We will notify interested parties in late December regarding the funding of the workshop and acceptance of proposals.  Please direct all inquiries to Rob Weber (mailto:[email protected]) or Anne Tucker ([email protected]).

Call for Proposals: Organizing, Deploying & Regulating Capital in the U.S.

Our topic description is intentionally broad reflecting our different areas of focus, and hoping to draw a diverse group of participants.  Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• The idea of financial intermediation: regulation of market failures, the continued relevance of the idea of financial intermediation as a framework for thinking about the financial system, and the legitimating role that the intermediation theme-frame plays in the political economy of financial regulation.
• Examining institutional investors as a vehicle for individual investments, block shareholders in the economy, a source of efficiency or inefficiency, an evolving industry with the rise of index funds and ETFs, and targets of SEC liquidity regulations.
• The role and regulation of private equity and hedge funds in U.S. capital markets looking at regulatory efforts, shadow banking concerns, influences in M&A trends, and other sector trends.

This workshop targets works-in-progress and is intended to jump-start your thinking and writing for the 2018 summer.  Our goal is to provide comments, direction, and connections early in the writing and research phase rather than polishing completed or nearly completed pieces.  Bring your early ideas and your next phase projects.  We ask for a 10-15 page treatment of your thesis (three weeks before the workshop) and initial ideas to facilitate feedback, collaboration, and direction from participating in the workshop. Interested parties should email [email protected] on or before November 15th with a short abstract (no more than 500 words) of your proposed contribution that is responsive to the description below. Please include your name, school, and whether you will require airfare, miles reimbursement and/or hotel. We will notify interested parties in late December regarding the funding of the workshop and acceptance of proposals.  Please direct all inquiries to Rob Weber ([email protected]) or Anne Tucker ([email protected]).

Thank you!

Anne & Rob

Recent Law Review Experiences - Fewer Nightmares

From time to time, we at the BLPB offer our views on publishing with law reviews.  The excellent, the good, the bad, the ugly--apparently, we have seen it all (or at least close to it).  See, e.g., Marcia's post from last year that includes links to many of these prior posts.  This post carries forward that tradition.  

Two-and-a-half years ago, I published a post entitled Nightmare in Law Review Land . . . . That post included the two standard instructions that I routinely give to law reviews when I submit stack-check drafts.

The first is to leave in the automatic footnote cross-referencing that I have used in the draft until we finalize the article.  The second is to notify me if the staff believes that new footnote citations or citation parentheticals need to be added (specifically noting that I will handle those additions myself).

For the most part, this has worked well for me.  Recently, however, I received the following response to the second instruction:

Thank you for your notes. As part of our editing process, we add any needed citations and parentheticals. We build in time to do this and tend to be fairly thorough. If there are questions regarding sources or an individual has trouble finding sources, our Lead Article Editor (who will serve as your main contact) will reach out to ask you for assistance. As a general rule, our journal does tend to add a large number of parentheticals. I only mention this because it has sometimes caught Authors off guard in the past and I thought it would be worth mentioning on the front end. You will have two opportunites to review the parentheticals and added citations over the next few months to ensure they are consistent with your work.

I should have pushed back.  I didn't.  The result?  I got back a draft with a bunch of new, bungled footnote citations and parentheticals.  It took me hours to run down the new sources cited and consider  them.  I responded with significant edits in the draft and the following comments in my cover message, in pertinent part (edited to omit a few typos):

[F]ootnote citations were frequently inserted in places (especially in the introduction and other areas in which I have provided a “roadmap”—a summary of where the text will go next) where I do not believe they are needed. I have left specific comments in each place, although I fear they may not be well enough developed. But ask questions where you have them.

Relatedly, the citations inserted for a number of these new footnotes supported principles other than those in the cited sentence. . . .  In each case, I tried to go find the material being referenced in the cited source and evaluate whether it supported the stated principle. Then, if I found a disconnect, I suggested in the margin an alternative footnote. . . .  [I]f you decide under your editorial guidelines that a citation is required, please use the alternative I provided. . . .

Also, parentheticals were added in places where they are not required, e.g., in general citations to cases . . . .  I took them out. If you require parenthetical in these places, please just ask and I will supply them. The parentheticals that were added were either so general that they were unhelpful or included inapposite information.

I am not sure my tone was right on the message.  But I admit that I was frustrated and disappointed--maybe more with myself than with the law review students who worked on editing the article--when I wrote the message.  My time in cross-checking all those faulty citations and parentheticals was entirely wasted.  I could easily have added some footnotes and parentheticals where I had missed including them in the draft I submitted, as necessary or desired.  It would have taken a lot less time (more like ten, instead of thirty, hours).

Have any of you had this same issue with law review editors?  I originally experienced this years ago, which led to my standard instruction.  But it seems the problem persists.  So, it must have something to do with the way law review editors are instructed--or instruct each other.  Perhaps that instruction requires more thought . . . .

At any rate, since I started issuing my two standard instructions, I have had fewer dissatisfying experiences.  I plan to continue with the practice of including them when I submit draft articles for review.  And I guess next time a law review insists in response on supplying new footnotes and parentheticals, I will send the editors a link to this post . . . .

Q&A with the Managing Editor of the Peer-Reviewed Atlantic Law Journal

Professor Keith Diener of Stockton University School of Business, who is a former law school classmate of mine and the current managing editor of the Atlantic Law Journal, agreed to answer some questions related to the journal.  

The flagship journals for the Academy of Legal Studies in Business ("ALSB") are the American Business Law Journal (ABLJ) and the Journal of Legal Studies Education (JLSE, primarily pedagogy articles and teaching cases). In addition to these two journals, each regional association is generally responsibly for at least one journal with the Atlantic Law Journal coming out of the Mid-Atlantic region.

As Keith explains below, these journals are open to a wide range of scholars, including professors from law schools. I would encourage legal scholars who have not published in a traditional peer reviewed journal to consider submitting to one of the ALSB journals. I have published in both the ABLJ and the JLSE, and I have had good experiences in both cases.

---------- 

Please provide us a brief overview of the Atlantic Law Journal and the MAALSB.

The Mid-Atlantic Academy for Legal Studies in Business (MAALSB) is an association of teachers and scholars primarily in the fields of business law, legal environment, and law-related courses outside of professional law schools with members from the Mid-Atlantic states, including Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia & West Virginia.  Residence in those states is not required for membership in the MAALSB, and many of our members come from different regions and states. In addition to sponsoring the Atlantic Law Journal, MAALSB holds an annual conference for our region usually in April of each year, where our members meet, present papers, and exchange ideas. The MAALSB is one of the regional branches of the national Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB).

For over a decade, the Atlantic Law Journal was tied to the MAALSB annual conference. Presentation at the conference provided an opportunity for publication in the journal. A few years ago, the journal restructured and began accepting articles on a rolling basis, year-round. We welcome submissions from law professors, whether in law schools or not, but generally do not accept student-authored articles. We are soon entering our twentieth year as a viable legal publication.

What is your current role with the journal and what roles do other faculty members play?

The Atlantic Law Journal has a dedicated team of editors who, depending on classification, perform different roles within the journal.

Our Editor-and-Chief, Professor Cynthia Gentile, leads the journal, manages its website, publishes the annual volume, manages its listings in Cabell’s and Washington and Lee’s Journal Rankings, and coordinates indexing and archiving on Westlaw. As Editor-and-Chief, Professor Gentile is primarily responsible for journal outreach, growth, and sustainability.

I currently serve the journal as the Managing Editor. In this capacity, I receive all submissions to the journal, sanitize them for double, blind peer review, send the sanitized articles to our staff editors for review, receive their recommendation and feedback forms, and notify authors of publication decisions.

We currently have two Articles Editors, Professors Laura Dove and Evan Peterson, who work with the accepted authors to prepare their manuscripts for publication, by editing the articles and making suggestions for improvement even after acceptance.

We also have a team of roughly 30-40 professors from around the country who serve the journal as Staff Editors. Without our Staff Editors, our journal would not function. They are responsible for peer-reviewing the submitted articles, and making recommendations for (i) acceptance, (ii) conditional acceptance, (iii) revision and resubmission, or (iv) rejection of the submitted articles.

What details can you provide about the submission process, including contact information, desired word-count range, typical article topics, etc.?

We generally publish annually, usually in July or August. September through January are typically the best months to submit if you are seeking to be published in the following summer. Spring semester submissions are also welcome, but are often more competitive. Although there are no per se word ranges, article lengths typically span 7,500 to 15,000 words. We publish a wide range of articles, but to be published in the Atlantic Law Journal, the article must have a nexus to business law theory or pedagogy, broadly construed.

The acceptance rate remains at or below 25%. This means that for every article we accept, at least three are initially turned down (although some are given the opportunity to resubmit).

You can submit by emailing the Managing Editor a complete copy and a blind copy, with Bluebook formatted footnotes, in accordance with the instructions and contact information found on our website.

What details can you provide about the review process and editing process?

Upon submission, you will receive a response, typically within a few days, confirming receipt of your article. From there, soon after, the article is typically sent to Staff Editors for peer review.   To the extent possible, we match article content with the expertise of our Staff Editors to ensure a fair and professional review. We also find that the feedback provided by Staff Editors to authors is most helpful when they have expertise related to the article.   Once appropriate and available Staff Editors are identified, they then review the article and return their recommendations to the Managing Editor. The Managing Editor then notifies the author of the publication decision. If an article is accepted, then the author is introduced to one of our Articles Editors for finalization of the essay.

We strive to inform authors of publication decisions within eight (8) weeks of submission.

In your opinion, what are the advantages and disadvantages of publishing with the Atlantic Law Journal?

In my opinion, there are many advantages to publishing with the Atlantic Law Journal.

The first advantage is that (unlike many law reviews today), if you submit to the Atlantic Law Journal, someone will respond to you when you submit it. Yet, not only will you receive a response, but you will also have your article read and reviewed by professional academics in the field of business law (who are also lawyers). We do not utilize law students in our publication process, and all our editors are professional academics.

Second, the Atlantic Law Journal is listed in Cabell’s, ranked by Washington and Lee, and available on Westlaw. This means that articles appear not only in our volumes linked on our website, but are also indexed, searchable, and fully archived on Westlaw. This produces the potential for a broad impact and increased author visibility.

Third, while there appears to be a trend towards some law reviews accepting shorter articles, the Atlantic Law Journal already accepts shorter pieces (circa 7500 words). Let’s face it, sometimes there’s just not 50,000 words to say about certain topics. If you have a shorter piece that might not be long enough for a law review, the Atlantic Law Journal may be interested in it.

Fourth, unlike many law reviews, the Atlantic Law Journal is interested in articles, not only as to theoretical and scholastic topics, but also topics related to business law pedagogy. If you’ve tried something new in the classroom, had good results, and desire to share it with others, the Atlantic Law Journal may be interested. Our primary readership includes business law professors, who are always looking for new and innovative pedagogical techniques. We also welcome scholarly and theoretical articles, and try to include a mix of both scholarly and pedagogical articles in each edition.

Finally, all articles are double, blind peer reviewed. If your article is not accepted, we endeavor to provide high quality feedback that will allow you to improve your article as you continue your work on it. Our blind review is a genuine process. As Managing Editor of the journal, I am committed to ensuring the journal’s integrity by sanitizing all submissions (removing all meta-data) prior to sending the articles for review.

For more on the MAALSB and the Atlantic Law Journal, see our website.

• Dr. Keith William Diener

                                                                                                                               

Appraisal Standard Intellectual "Cage Match": DFC Global Corp Amici Briefs

Prominent corporate governance, corporate finance and economics professors face off in opposing amici briefs filed in DFC Global Corp. v.  Muirfield Value Partners LP, appeal pending before the Delaware Supreme Court.   The Chancery Daily newsletter, described it, in perhaps my favorite phrasing of legal language ever:  "By WWE standards it may be a cage match of flyweight proportions, but by Delaware corporate law standards, a can of cerebral whoopass is now deemed open."   

Point #1: Master Class in Persuasive Legal Writing: Framing the Issue

Reversal Framing: "This appeal raises the question whether, in appraisal litigation challenging the acquisition price of a company, the Court of Chancery should defer to the transaction price when it was reached as a result of an arm’s-length auction process."

vs.

Affirmance Framing: "This appeal raises the question whether, in a judicial appraisal determining the fair value of dissenting stock, the Court of Chancery must automatically award the merger price where the transaction appeared to involve an arm’s length buyer in a public sale."

Point #2:  Summary of Brief Supporting Fair Market Valuation:  Why the Court of Chancery should defer to the deal price in an arm's length auction

• It would reduce litigation and simply the process.
• The Chancery Court Judges are ill-equipped for the sophisticated cash-flow analysis (ouch, that's a rough point to make).
• Appraisal does not properly incentivize the use of arm's length auctions if they are not sufficiently protected/respected.
• Appraisal seeks the false promise of THE right price, when price in this kind of market (low competition, unique goods) can best be thought of as a range.  The inquiry should be whether the transaction price is within the range of a fair price.  A subset of this argument (and the point of the whole brief) is that the auction process is the best evidence of fair price.
• Appraisal process is flawed because the court discounted the market price in its final valuation.  The argument is that if the transaction price is not THE right price, then it should not be a factor in coming up with THE right price.
• Appraisal process is flawed because the final valuation relies upon expert opinions that are created in a litigation vacuum, sealed-off from market pressure of "real" valuations.
• The volatility in the appraisal market—the outcome of the litigation and the final price—distorts the auction process.  Evidence of this is the creation of appraisal closing conditions.

Point #3: Summary of Brief Supporting Appraisal Actions:  Why the Court of Chancery should reject a rule that the transaction price—in an arm's length auction—is conclusive evidence of fair price in appraisal proceedings.

• Statutory interpretation requires the result.  Delaware Section 262 states that judges will "take into account all factors" in determining appraisal action prices.  To require the deal price to be the "fair" price, eviscerates the statutory language and renders it null.  
  • The Delaware Legislature had an opportunity to revise Section 262—and did so in 2015, narrowing the scope of eligible appraisal transactions and remedies—but left intact the "all factors" language.
• The statutory appraisal remedy is separate from the common law/fiduciary obligations of directors in transactions so a transaction without a conflict of interest and even cured by shareholder vote could still contain fact-specific conditions that would make an appraisal remedy appropriate.
• There are appropriate judicial resources to handle the appraisal actions because of the expertise of the Court of Chancery, which is buttressed by the ability to appoint a neutral economic expert to assist with valuations and to adopt procedures and standards for expert valuations in appraisal cases.
• The threat of the appraisal action creates a powerful ex ante benefit to transaction price because it helps bolster and ensure that the transaction price is fair and without challenge.
• Appraisal actions serve as a proxy for setting a credible reserve in the auction price, which buyers and sellers may be prohibited from doing as a result of their fiduciary duties.
• Any distortion of the THE market by appraisal actions is a feature, not a bug.  All legal institutions operate along side markets and exert influences, situations that are acceptable with fraud and torts.  Any affect that appraisal actions create have social benefits and are an intended benefit.
• Let corporations organized/formed in Delaware enjoy the benefits of being a Delaware corporation by giving them full access to the process and expertise of the Delaware judiciary.

Conclusions:

My thinking in the area more closely aligns with the "keep appraisal action full review" camp on the theory--both policy and economic.  Also the language in the supporting/affirmance brief is excellent (they describe the transaction price argument as a judicial straight jacket!).  I must admit, however, that I am sympathetic to the resources and procedural criticisms raised by the reversal brief. That there is no way for some corporate transactions, ex ante, to prevent a full scale appraisal action litigation—a process that is costly and time consuming—is a hard pill to swallow.  I can imagine the frustration of the lawyers explaining to a BOD that there may be no way to foreclose this outcome.  Although I hesitate to put it in these terms, my ultimate conclusion would require more thinking about whether the benefits of appraisal actions outlined in the affirmance brief outweigh the costs to the judiciary and to the parties as outlined in the reversal brief.  These are all points that I invite readers to weigh in on the comments--especially those with experience litigating these cases.

I also want to note the rather nuanced observation in the affirmance brief about the distinction between statutory standards and common law/fiduciary duty.  This important intellectual distinction about the source of the power and its intent is helpful in appraisal actions, but also in conflict of interest/safe harbor under Delaware law evaluations.

For the professors out there, if anyone covers appraisal actions in an upper-level course or has students writing on the topic-- these two briefs distill the relevant case law and competing theories with considerable force.  

-Anne Tucker

The Importance of the Business Judgment Rule

Bernard Sharfman, a prolific author on corporate governance, has written his fourth article on the business judgment rule. The piece provides a thought-provoking look at a subject that all business law professors teach. He also received feedback from Myron Steele, former Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, and William Chandler III, former Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery during the drafting process. I don’t think I will assign the article to my students, but I may take some of the insight when I get to this critical topic this semester. Sharfman has stated that he aims to change the way professors teach the BJR.

The abstract is below:

Anyone who has had the opportunity to teach corporate law understands how difficult it is to provide a compelling explanation of why the business judgment rule (Rule) is so important. To provide a better explanation of why this is so, this Article takes the approach that the Aronson formulation of the Rule is not the proper starting place. Instead, this Article begins by starting with a close read of two cases that initiated the application of the Rule under Delaware law, the Chancery and Supreme Court opinions in Bodell v. General Gas & Elec. By taking this approach, the following insights into the Rule were discovered that may not have been so readily apparent if the starting point was Aronson.

First, without the Rule, the raw power of equity could conceivably require all challenged Board decisions to undergo an entire fairness review. The Rule is the tool used by a court to restrain itself from implementing such a review. This is the most important function of the Rule. Second, as a result of equity needing to be restrained, there is no room in the Rule formulation for fairness; fairness and fiduciary duties must be mutually exclusive. Third, there are three policy drivers that underlie the use of the Rule. Protecting the Board’s statutory authority to run the company without the fear of its members being held liable for honest mistakes of judgment; respect for the private ordering of corporate governance arrangements which almost always grants extensive authority to the Board to make decisions on behalf of the corporation; and the recognition by the courts that they are not business experts, making deference to Board authority a necessity. Fourth, the Rule is an abstention doctrine not just in terms of precluding duty of care claims, but also by requiring the courts to abstain from an entire fairness review if there is no evidence of a breach in fiduciary duties or taint surrounding a Board decision. Fifth, stockholder wealth maximization (SWM) is the legal obligation of the Board and the Rule serves to support that purpose. The requirement of SWM enters into corporate law through a Board’s fiduciary duties as applied under the Rule, not statutory law. In essence, SWM is an equitable concept.

 

 

Why Lawyers Should Resolve to Blog in 2017

At the end of every semester I resolve to give less work to my students so that I don't have so much to grade. This upcoming semester I may actually keep that resolution, but I do plan to keep my blogging assignment. In each class, I provide an extra credit or required post or series of posts of between 200-500 words so that students can learn a fundamental legal skill—communicating clearly, correctly, and concisely.

If you are reading this post, then you are already a fan of legal blogs. Academics blog to get their ideas out quickly rather than waiting for the lengthy law review cycle to publicize their thoughts. Academics can also refine ideas they are incubating by blogging and receiving real time feedback from readers. Practicing lawyers blog (or should) for a slightly different reason. Blogging can enhance a lawyer’s reputation and visibility and ultimately lead to more business.

Yesterday, I met with an attorney who will speak to the students in my new course on Legal Issues for Startups, Entrepreneurs, and Small Businesses. I mentioned to him that I found his blog posts enlightening and that they filled a gap in my knowledge base. Although I practiced for almost twenty years before entering academia and had a wide range of responsibility as a deputy general counsel, I delegated a number of areas to my colleagues or outside counsel. That attorney is now part of a growing trend. In 2011, when I left practice, lawyers rarely blogged and few utilized social media. Now, many recognize that lawyers must read legal blogs to keep up on breaking developments relevant to their practice. However, most lawyers understandably complain that they do not have the time to get new clients, retain their existing clients, do the actual legal work, and also blog.

Leaving blogging to the wayside is a mistake, particularly for small or newer firms. A 2016 Pew Research Center Study revealed that only 20% of people get their news from newspapers yet almost 40% rely on social media, which often provides summaries of the news curated to the consumer’s interests. The potential client base’s changing appetite for instant information in a shorter format makes blogging almost a necessity for some lawyers. Indeed, consumers believe that hiring a new lawyer is so overwhelming that some clients are now crowdsourcing. But when they receive multiple “offers” to represent them, how do/should consumers choose? Perhaps they will pick the firm with a social media presence, including a blog that highlights the firm’s expertise.

I read several blogs a day. Admittedly, I have a much longer attention span than many of our students and the lay public. I also get paid to read. Nonetheless, I consider reading blogs an essential part of my work as an academic. In prepping for my new course, I have found posts on startups and entrepreneurship particularly helpful in providing legal information as well as insight into the mindset of entrepreneurs. If I were a busy founder running a new startup, I would likely try to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible online about certain topics prior to retaining a lawyer. Some lawyers, however, don’t really know how to speak to clients without talking down to them, much less write anything “short” and free of jargon. A lawyer/blogger who wrote in a way that I could understand, without all of the legalese, would be more likely to get my business.

Thus, even though I want to grade fewer papers, I also want my students to leave my class with the critical skill of communicating complex topics to the public in digestible chunks (and in line with state bar rules on social media). Over the years, I have advised students to volunteer to update or start a blog for their internship employers.  Many have told me that they enjoyed these projects and that their employers have found value in this work. This blogging practice also puts students in the position to start to blog after graduation.

I’ll end this post with a plug for my blogging colleagues who will attend AALS next week in San Francisco. I encourage you to attend some of the socioeconomic panels highlighted here. Please introduce yourself if you attend the panel next Wednesday morning at 9:50 on whistleblowers with me, Professor Bill Black of UMKC; Professor June Carbone of Minnesota; and Professor Ben Edwards of Barry. If you have an interest in the intersection between ethics and business, please swing by next Friday at 1:30 and see me and co-panelists Christopher Dillon from Gibson Dunn; Mina Kim, GC of Sunrun; Professor Eric Orts of Wharton; Professor Joseph Yockey of Iowa; Professor Brian Quinn of Boston College; Dean Gordon Smith of BYU; Professor Lori Johnson of UNLV; and Professor Anne Choike of Michigan.

If you have legal blogs you want to recommend and/or will be speaking at AALS and want to call attention to your session, feel free to comment below. Happy New Year and happy blogging.

ICI 2016 Factbook

Do you love charts? Do you need/want a break from grading/procrastinating/writing frantically on a deadline real or self-imposed?  All of these things at once?  Welcome to the month of December-- the time of year that should be a break from our schedules, but which always (and I mean ALWAYS) is my busiest time when I try to fit 6 weeks of work into 2.  

My December gift to you?  The Investment Company Factbook.  The Investment Company Institute (ICI), is an association of regulated funds that collects and distributes data from its members.  The full text of the Factbook (an annual publication) is available here, and the charts (and underlying data) are available here.  I wept when I first discovered this source while writing years ago.  ICI information is widely used in legal research.  A quick search produced 3,265 law reviews and journal articles.  For critiques of ICI's information and framing, see John C. Bogle, Mutual Funds at the Millennium: Fund Directors and Fund Myths, at http://www.vanguard.com/bogle_site/may152000.html (May 15, 2000); John P. Freeman & Stewart L. Brown, Mutual Fund Advisory Fees: The Cost of Conflicts of Interest, 26 J. Corp. L. 609, 625/26 (2001); and yours truly in  Anne M. Tucker, Locked in: The Competitive Disadvantage of Citizen Shareholders, 125 Yale L.J. Forum 163 (2015).

Now back to writing/grading/procrastinating!

-Anne Tucker

 

Research and Writing Question of the Day . . . .

Assume a state trial court issues an opinion in a particular case and the case is not appealed.  Should a legal scholar using the opinion to support or refute a key point (in the text of a written work) characterize the weight or status of the opinion (e.g., noting that it is a trial court opinion and that is has not been appealed)?  Justify your answer.

If the trial court at issue is the Delaware Chancery Court and the opinion addresses matters under the Delaware General Corporation Law, does that alter your answer?  Why?  Why not?

I am having fun considering these issues today in connection with my work on a symposium paper.  I have not yet decided how to handle the specific matter that raises the questions.  Accordingly, it seemed like a good idea at this juncture to share my questions and seek collaboration in answering them . . . .