Abolishing corporate personhood: still stupid
Doug Mataconis criticizes efforts in Congress to overrule Citizens United by abolishing corporate personhood (HT Bainbridge). I’ve already addressed this issue, noting among other things that “the loss of personhood would not have the slightest effect under Citizens United” because that case reasoned that the speaker’s identity is irrelevant. In any event, I pointed out ... Abolishing corporate personhood: still stupid
The EU and jurisdictional competition for hedge fund regulation
The NYT reports: When he rejected a new European accord on Friday that would bind the continent ever closer, Prime Minister David Cameron seemingly sacrificed Britain’s place in Europe to preserve the pre-eminence of the City, London’s financial district. The question now is whether his stance will someday seem justified, even prescient. Mr. Cameron refused ... The EU and jurisdictional competition for hedge fund regulation
Hot off the press: Law’s Information Revolution
You’ve seen the blog posts (e.g., here) and the working paper. Now you can get the published article here. Let me know if you want a reprint.
Delawyering the Corporation
My paper from Wisconsin’s in-house counsel symposium (symposium discussed here, paper previewed here) is now available on SSRN. The paper is Delawyering the Corporation. Here’s the abstract: This article shows how in-house lawyers’ role has evolved to address the high cost of legal services and the traditional information asymmetry between lawyers and clients. The first ... Delawyering the Corporation
Sex and the business association
Should domestic relationships be modeled on corporations, partnerships or other business associations? This idea may seem attractive. As I have argued, both business and family relationships can be viewed as standard forms, which are useful for filling gaps in long-term contractual relationships. Borrowing contract-type thinking from business associations also could help break through the norm-driven ... Sex and the business association
Big Law as LPO reseller
Yesterday’s Law Blog notes a Fronterion report that legal outsourcers are facing more competition from “insourcers” setting up centers inside the U.S. The reasons include rising wages in India and falling wages in the U.S. and the U.K. so The glut of new law school graduates in 2012 will likely put offshore legal services ... Big Law as LPO reseller
Krugman on private equity
Paul Krugman, writing in Thursday’s NYT, sees Romney as a real life version of Oliver Stone’s Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street. He characterizes Romney and his private equity ilk as job-destroyers, and argues that they should be taxed (and presumably also regulated) accordingly. He contrasts this with the supposed position of the GOP ... Krugman on private equity
Should there be default fiduciary duties in Delaware LLCs and LPs?
A recently published on-line symposium calls needed attention to Delaware Chief Justice Myron Steele’s remarkable article, Freedom of Contract and Default Contractual Duties in the Delaware Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies, 46 Am. Bus. L.J. 221 (2009) (no free link available). The Chief Justice makes an argument that is guaranteed to shock traditional business ... Should there be default fiduciary duties in Delaware LLCs and LPs?
The ABA creeps sideways on non-lawyer ownership
The ABA is considering loosening the bar on non-lawyer ownership of law firms (HT Law Blog). Here’s the discussion paper. For those who are thinking that this move is meaningful, forget about it. The ABA proposal (which would still have to be approved by the ABA and then by individual states) would permit non-lawyer ownership ... The ABA creeps sideways on non-lawyer ownership
Lawyers as responsible business advisors
Katherine Franke argues that lawyers are partly responsible for the financial misdeeds protested by OWS (HT Leiter): Implicit in the OWS protests is a condemnation of an approach to lawyering that regards all legal rules simply as the price of misconduct discounted by the probability of enforcement* * * In recent years we have seen ... Lawyers as responsible business advisors
Decriminalizing agency costs
The WSJ reports on comments by former FBI official David Cardona’s on why there haven’t been more prosecutions of financial executives as a result of the recent financial crisis: “There’s been a realization and a more deliberate targeting by the Department of Justice before we launch criminally on some of these cases” * * * ... Decriminalizing agency costs
Let Congress trade!
I have previously discussed here and here the policy arguments against a broad ban on Congressional insider trading (this is apart from Steve Bainbridge’s serious problems with the proposed legislation). Now Todd Henderson and I have weighed in on Politico with more on why we should let Congress trade (while imposing strong disclosure duties). ... Let Congress trade!
