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Conflicted Counselors: Retaliation Protections For Attorney-Whistleblowers In An Inconsistent Regulatory Regime, Jennifer M. Pacella
Conflicted Counselors: Retaliation Protections For Attorney-Whistleblowers In An Inconsistent Regulatory Regime, Jennifer M. Pacella
Jennifer M. Pacella, Esq.
Attorneys, especially in-house counsel, are subject to retaliation by employers in much the same way as traditional whistleblowers, often experiencing retaliation and loss of livelihood for reporting instances of wrongdoing about their clients. Although attorney-whistleblowing undoubtedly invokes ethical concerns, attorneys who “appear and practice” before the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) are required by federal law to act as internal whistleblowers under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX”) and report evidence of material violations of the law within the organizations that they represent. An attorney’s failure to comply with these obligations will result in SEC-imposed civil penalties and disciplinary action. Recent federal …
Book Review: The Three And A Half Minute Transaction: What Sticky Boilerplate Reveals About Contract Law And Practice, Andrea J. Boyack
Book Review: The Three And A Half Minute Transaction: What Sticky Boilerplate Reveals About Contract Law And Practice, Andrea J. Boyack
Andrea J Boyack
This review situates Gulati & Scott’s findings with respect to sovereign debt instruments and the contracting process in the context of a legal profession on the brink of change. Gulati and Scott’s book addresses the inexplicable failure of lawyers to respond to a sovereign debt litigation outcome by clarifying a boilerplate provision after an adverse judicial interpretation. Their fascinating study of boilerplate in sophisticated transactional legal practice is timely and compelling both in terms of the specific story it tells, namely the persistence of the pari passu clause in sovereign debt instruments, as well as its broader implications: Structural flaws …
Will Law Firms Go Public?, Roberta S. Karmel
Will Law Firms Go Public?, Roberta S. Karmel
Roberta S. Karmel
Law in the United States is a big business and big law firms are a global business. Currently, under rules of the American Bar Association (ABA) and most states law, firms are not allowed either to include non-lawyers as partners or accept equity investments from non-lawyers. This Article will argue that (even if law firms retain the form of partnerships) they eventually will accept investments from third parties, and possibly even go public, but this development could lead to a loss of professionalism, as it has with other industries, and could also lead to the end of self-regulation. Among the …