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Full-Text Articles in Legal Profession

The Corporate Conspiracy Vacuum (Formerly "Corporate Conspiracy: How Not Calling A Conspiracy A Conspiracy Is Warping The Law On Corporate Wrongdoing"), J.S. Nelson Sep 2015

The Corporate Conspiracy Vacuum (Formerly "Corporate Conspiracy: How Not Calling A Conspiracy A Conspiracy Is Warping The Law On Corporate Wrongdoing"), J.S. Nelson

J.S. Nelson

The intracorporate conspiracy doctrine immunizes an enterprise and its agents from conspiracy prosecution based on the legal fiction that an enterprise and its agents are a single actor incapable of the meeting of two minds to form a conspiracy. The doctrine, however, misplaces incentives in contravention of agency law, criminal law, tort law, and public policy. As a result of this absence of accountability, harmful behavior is ordered and performed without consequences, and the victims of the behavior suffer without appropriate remedy.
This vacuum at the center of American conspiracy law has now warped the doctrines around it. Especially in …


High Drama And Hindsight: The Llp Shield Post-Anderson, Susan Saab Fortney Jul 2015

High Drama And Hindsight: The Llp Shield Post-Anderson, Susan Saab Fortney

Susan S. Fortney

This article explores several disadvantages associated with limited liability partnerships (LLPs) in the wake of the Anderson-Enron debacle. The article explains how conversion to LLP from a traditional partnership may undercut the incentive for partners to devote time and resources to monitoring and risk management activities. Additionally, the article notes that conflicts may arise regarding the payment of debts when a firm, without sufficient malpractice insurance, converts to an LLP. The article delves into the exodus problem caused by the lack of partners’ commitment to the firm. The article also describes the tension between partners over malpractice insurance decisions that …


Tales Of Two Regimes For Regulating Limited Liability Law Firms In The Us And Australia: Client Protection And Risk Management Lessons, Susan Saab Fortney Jul 2015

Tales Of Two Regimes For Regulating Limited Liability Law Firms In The Us And Australia: Client Protection And Risk Management Lessons, Susan Saab Fortney

Susan S. Fortney

This essay contrasts the regimes that allow limited liability partnerships in the US and fully incorporated legal practices in Australia. The essay argues that Australia has taken advantage of an opportunity to develop innovative and necessary regulation of law firm ethical infrastructure with the introduction of incorporated legal practices, but the United States has not yet adequately addressed the consumer and ethical risks of limited liability partnerships. This essay raises the issue of whether Australia’s requirement that incorporated law firms should implement “appropriate management systems” to ensure ethical conduct is a model that could fruitfully be applied to all law …


Foreword, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. I (2006), Debra Pogrund Stark Jun 2015

Foreword, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. I (2006), Debra Pogrund Stark

Debra Pogrund Stark

No abstract provided.


On The Rise Of Shareholder Primacy, Signs Of Its Fall, And The Return Of Managerialism (In The Closet), Lynn Stout Feb 2015

On The Rise Of Shareholder Primacy, Signs Of Its Fall, And The Return Of Managerialism (In The Closet), Lynn Stout

Lynn A. Stout

In their 1932 opus "The Modern Corporation and Public Property," Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means famously documented the evolution of a new economic entity—the public corporation. What made the public corporation “public,” of course, was that it had thousands or even hundreds of thousands of shareholders, none of whom owned more than a small fraction of outstanding shares. As a result, the public firm’s shareholders had little individual incentive to pay close attention to what was going on inside the firm, or even to vote. Dispersed shareholders were rationally apathetic. If they voted at all, they usually voted to approve …