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Full-Text Articles in Law
Mitigating Financial Risk For Small Business Entrepreneurs, Michelle M. Harner
Mitigating Financial Risk For Small Business Entrepreneurs, Michelle M. Harner
Michelle M. Harner
Financial distress by definition threatens a company’s viability. Entrepreneurial and start-up entities are particularly vulnerable to this threat. Yet, much of the discussion following the recent recession focuses almost exclusively on financial institutions and “too-big-to-fail” entities. This essay re-examines lessons gleaned from the recession in the context of smaller, entrepreneurial entities. Specifically, it analyzes how small business entrepreneurs might invoke principles of enterprise risk management to mitigate the long-term impact of financial distress on their business models. It also considers related refinements to extant small business regulations, including the U.S. bankruptcy laws. The essay’s primary objective is to help policymakers, …
Activist Distressed Debtholders: The New Barbarians At The Gate?, Michelle M. Harner
Activist Distressed Debtholders: The New Barbarians At The Gate?, Michelle M. Harner
Michelle M. Harner
The term “corporate raiders” previously struck fear in the hearts of corporate boards and management teams. It generally refers to investors who target undervalued, cash-flush or mismanaged companies and initiate a hostile takeover of the company. Corporate raiders earned their name in part because of their focus on value extraction, which could entail dismantling a company and selling off its crown jewels. Today, the term often conjures up images of Michael Milken, Henry Kravis or the movie character Gordon Gekko, but the alleged threat posed to companies by corporate raiders is less prevalent—at least with respect to the traditional use …
The Moral Responsibility Of The Corporate Lawyer, Judith A. Mcmorrow, Luke M. Scheuer
The Moral Responsibility Of The Corporate Lawyer, Judith A. Mcmorrow, Luke M. Scheuer
Luke M Scheuer
Lawyers traditionally claim that they are not morally accountable for the goals or activities of their clients that are within the bounds of the law. This essay explores this concept of non-accountability in the context of corporate transactional representation. We argue that corporate lawyers, whose practice is forward looking, undertaken on behalf of corporate clients who have legally impaired ability to engage in independent moral reasoning, and who function in a world of relatively minimal legal oversight (i.e. whose work is furthest from the model of the adversary system) cannot persuasively claim that they are not morally responsible for the …