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Buying Teams, Andres Sawicki

Seattle University Law Review

The Sixth Annual Berle Symposium reflects on Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout’s classic article: A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law. Blair and Stout recast the modern law of public corporations through the lens of the team production theory of the firm. Here, I apply Blair and Stout’s insights—emphasizing the value of team production, independent monitors, and intellectual property rights—to a novel corporate transaction structure: the acqui-hire. In an acqui-hire, a publicly owned technology firm wants to add a start-up’s engineers. Instead of simply hiring them, though, it buys the start-up, discards most of its assets, and retains the start-up’s …

With The Emergence Of Public Benefit Corporations, Directors Of Traditional For-Profit Companies Should Tread Cautiously, But Welcome The Opportunity To Invest In Social Enterprise, Mckenzie Holden Granum

Seattle University Law Review

Social entrepreneurship has become the popular term used to describe business forms that aim to produce profits while also seeking to significantly advance one or more social or environmental goals. In response to an increase in social entrepreneurship across sectors—from progressive industries like organic farming to conservative industries such as insurance and banking—several states have adopted new corporate governance structures. Such legislation allows incorporating businesses to choose an off-the-shelf formation type that embeds a social mission into its legal structure. The bulk of the newly implemented statutory forms provide not only a new framework for social entrepreneurs to work within, …

Team Production Theory And Private Company Boards, Elizabeth Pollman

Seattle University Law Review

In their path-breaking article, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout provided a new theory of the board of directors in a corporation. Drawing on the economic theory of team production, Blair and Stout argued that the board of directors serves as a mediating hierarchy for the firm as a whole, encouraging firm-specific investments from team members and reducing shirking and opportunistic behavior. While Blair and Stout provided a dramatically different view of the corporation from the conventional principal-agent account, they also delineated limitations to their proposed theory. Most importantly, they suggested that the …

Testing The Normative Desirability Of The Mediating Hierarch, Zachary J. Gubler

Seattle University Law Review

In their influential article, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Professors Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout explained how corporate law might be viewed as an attempt at solving what is known as the team production problem. At its core, this problem has to do with the opportunistic behavior that arises when multiple economic actors make investments—whether of labor, capital, or otherwise—in a business venture where these investments are said to be “firm specific” because they cannot be easily withdrawn and redeployed in other projects. The problem is how to construct a governance regime that will create incentives for the …

Team Production And Securities Laws, Urska Velikonja

Seattle University Law Review

In the seminal paper that this symposium celebrates, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout made two related points. First, that Delaware law does not require shareholder primacy in public corporations. Rather, the broad deference afforded to the decisions of predominantly independent corporate boards of directors is consistent with a contrary theory, that of team production, or, as they call it, “the mediating hierarch” theory. The fundamental role of the board of directors is to mediate between the interests of various stakeholders that contribute to the corporation’s output. As a result, Delaware courts have repeatedly …

Reforming The Law Of Reputation, Frank Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Salt Equalizer, Vol. 2015, Issue 2, Society Of American Law Teachers

SALT Equalizer

Contents of This Issue:

2016 SALT Annual Dinner, at 1.

2016 SALT Annual Dinner Sponsors, at 2.

Olympia Duhart & Ruben Garcia, Co-Presidents’ Column, at 2.

SALT Membership: Reduced Rates, Online Renewal, at 3.

SALT Files Amicus Brief Supporting University Diversity Efforts, at 4.

B.A. to J.D. Pipeline Event, at 5.

Junior Faculty Development Workshop, at 5.

Professor Justin Hansford Receives SALT Junior Faculty Award, at 6.

SALT Announces Co-Presidents Elect, Incoming Board of Governors, at 6.

SALT Comments on Revised Pay As You Earn Regulation, at 6.

Upcoming Events, at 7.

SALT Mourns the Loss of Former Board Members, …

Say The Magic Word: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Contract Drafting Choices, Lori D. Johnson

Scholarly Works

Drafters of complex contracts often face a thorny dilemma – determining whether to retain “magic words” included in form documents, especially when considering the advice of current contract style scholars advocating for the removal of all traditional contract prose. But the drafter need not remove all terms that serve as elegant shorthand for more convoluted legal concepts, particularly where the inclusion of the term advances client interests. The application of rhetorical criticism – the analysis of methods of communicating ideas – to drafters’ use of the term “time is of the essence” sheds light on the dominant motivations of drafters …

Empowering Law Students To Overcome Extreme Public Speaking Anxiety: Why "Just Be It" Works And "Just Do It" Doesn't, Heidi K. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Work Made For Hire – Analyzing The Multifactor Balancing Test, Ryan G. Vacca

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Authorship, and hence, initial ownership of copyrighted works is oftentimes controlled by the 1976 Copyright Act’s work made for hire doctrine. This doctrine states that works created by employees within the scope of their employment result in the employer owning the copyright. One key determination in this analysis is whether the hired party is an employee or independent contractor. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court, in CCNV v. Reid, answered the question of how employees are distinguished from independent contractors by setting forth a list of factors courts should consider. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not give further guidance on …

The Incipient Stages Of A Nation Recognizing Same-Sex Marriages And The Battles Their Children Face, Gina I. Thomas

Child and Family Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Executioners‘ Dilemmas, Eric Berger

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

When people learn that I study lethal injection, they are usual-ly curious to know more (or at least they are polite enough to ask questions). Interestingly, the question that arises most often—from lawyers, law students, and laypeople—is why states behave as they do. In the wake of botched executions and ample evidence of lethal injection‘s dangers, why do states fail to address their execution procedures‘ systemic risks? Similarly, why do states so vigorously resist requests to disclose their execution procedures‘ details? This symposium essay takes a stab at answering these ques-tions. In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit …

2015 California's Five-Year Infrastructure Plan, Office Of The Governor

California Agencies

No abstract provided.

People Of The Book: Judaism’S Influence On American Legal Scholarship, My Journey From Judaism To Jewish Law, Donna Litman

Faculty Scholarship

My personal study of the Torah and the Talmud as an adult has enhanced my legal scholarship and helped shape my current thinking on legal theory. At the same time, my professional legal training and experience as a law professor has shaped my understanding of Judaism and provided a legal terminology and a lens by which to view the array of Jewish laws. A confluence of events helped shape my personal and professional journey.

Restating Environmental Law, Joel A. Mintz

Faculty Scholarship

Although environmental law springs from deep roots in centuries of common law, during the last forty years in particular it has grown into a well-established and important legal field in the United States with enormous practical consequences. Maturity, however, has also made it notoriously complex, and environmental law’s overlapping statutory schemes and inconsistent federal and state programs have sparked recurring conflict, controversy, and criticism.

Publisher

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Common Law Right To Information, Joe Regalia

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

A once-thriving doctrine, today the common law right to information has been largely forgotten by U.S. courts at both the state and federal level. But courts have not paused to question whether the common law right still has a role to play in modern litigation. One reason may be the dearth of case law explaining the common law right's operation. Another may be that courts believe this doctrine has been eradicated by the advent of freedom of information laws. This article first brings together the disparate authority on the common law right in an attempt to pin down the precise …

Richmond Law Magazine: Winter 2015

Richmond Law Magazine

Features:

Traces of Ourselves

A Librarian and His Muse

The Long Game

E-Museletter: January 2015, Suzanne Corriell

Museletter

This Issue:

Law Library Alerts: Library Opening Earlier

Additional Cameras Installed in the Law Library

Spring 2015 Regular Library Hours

Saying Farewell to Familiar Faces and Welcome to Some New Ones!

E-Resource of the Month: Making of Modern Law

VPN Setup

Tribute To Gail Zwirner, Paul Birch

Law Faculty Publications

A tribute to professional law librarian Gail Zwirner on her retirement from the University of Richmond Muse Law Library.