Law Commons^™

An Approach To The Regulation Of Spanish Banking Foundations, Miguel Martínez

Miguel Martínez

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the legal framework governing banking foundations as they have been regulated by Spanish Act 26/2013, of December 27th, on savings banks and banking foundations. Title 2 of this regulation addresses a construct that is groundbreaking for the Spanish legal system, still of paramount importance for the entire financial system insofar as these foundations become the leading players behind certain banking institutions given the high interest that foundations hold in the share capital of such institutions.

Through The Looking Glass: Series Llcs In 2015, Allen Sparkman

Allen Sparkman

This Article examines the development of Series LLCs, reviews the existing series LLC legislation, discusses possible uses of Series LLCS, analyzes areas of uncertainty with respect to Series LLCs, and makes recommendation for the future development of the Series LLC concept.

The Associational Hoax: Corporate Personhood & Shareholder Rights After Hobby Lobby And Citizens United, Jaimie K. Mcfarlin

Jaimie K. McFarlin

No abstract provided.

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 …

Tactics, Strategies & Battles—Oh My!: Perseverance Of The Perpetual Problem Regarding Preaching To Public School Pupils & Why It Persists, Casey S. Mckay

Casey Scott McKay

After reviewing the history of the religious war on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, my article, “Tactics, Strategies & Battles—Oh My!: Perseverance of the Perpetual Problem Regarding Preaching to Public School Pupils & Why it Persists,“ examines why such a seemingly well-settled issue survives and, to some extent, succeeds.

First, by exploiting common misconceptions among the American public, lawmakers are able to take advantage of ignorance driven by strong emotions. Next, religious special interests groups, with seemingly unlimited funds, thrust propaganda supported by worldwide media reinforcement on an already vulnerable American public. Thus, irresponsible state legislators, caught between a rock and …

Damning Dictum: The Default Duty Debate In Delaware, Mohsen Manesh

Mohsen Manesh

Bizarrely, today even the most sophisticated business lawyer cannot answer a seemingly simple question: whether, in the absence of an express agreement to the contrary, the manager of a Delaware limited liability company (LLC) owes traditional fiduciary duties to its members as a default matter? This was not always the case. Until recently, this question was settled—settled at least in the Delaware Court of Chancery. But in November 2012, the Delaware Supreme Court cast doubt on a long line of chancery court precedent in Gatz Properties v. Auriga Capital. Given the broad freedom of contract available under LLC law, it …

Political Risk Allocation In Egyptian Ppp Projects, Yousef Mohamed Al Amly Llm

Yousef Mohamed Al Amly LLM

Egypt has been recently suffering from several political changes since the revolution of the 25th of January and that has been jeopardizing the political stability required to encourage Investors to invest in financing infrastructures that is deemed to be crucial to help in the prosperity and welfare of the Egyptians. Therefore defining the types of political risks and efficiently allocating them is considered as one of the main keys to encourage more Investors to bid for the future coming PPP projects.

Challenging Traditional Thought: No Default Fiduciary Duties In Delaware Limited Liability Companies After Auriga, Peter I. Tsoflias, Ann E. Conaway

Peter I. Tsoflias

We agree with Chief Justice Myron T. Steele in his article, Freedom of Contract and Default Contractual Duties in Delaware Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies, that the proper default rule for Delaware limited liability companies (“LLCs”) formed under the Delaware Limited Liability Company Act (“DLLCA” or “Act”) is the contractual duty of good faith and fair dealing. In this article we invite each reader to set aside bias, pre-conceived legal opinions, and rote legal training and to listen. Hearing each legal argument and searching for – not assuming – the most appropriate answer to the question of default duties …

The Overlap Of Tax And Financial Aspects Of Real Estate Ventures, Bradley T. Borden

Bradley T. Borden

This article examines the effect partnership tax law has on financial aspects of real estate ventures. It introduces the relevance of the aggregate and entity views of tax partnerships (i.e., LLCs, LPs, and other partnerships) and demonstrates how those views can greatly affect financial projections for each of the members of a real estate venture. It also demonstrates how financial calculations can vary significantly depending upon how closely analysts track a tax partnership’s allocation method. Finally, the article serves as a primer for tax practitioners who are unfamiliar with the financial tools that are so prevalent in real estate analysis, …

From Allocations To Series Llcs: 2011'S Partnership Tax Articles, Bradley T. Borden

Bradley T. Borden

This article reviews the partnership tax articles published in student-edited journals in 2011. The articles comprise a rich output on timely topics and demonstrate that partnership tax is primed for even more scholarly attention.

Codifying Bankruptcy Law's Fastpass: New Value And The Absolute Priority Rule, David P. Hamm Jr

David P Hamm Jr

The notion behind the absolute priority rule is not novel to any of us. We all learned at a very young age that if someone is in front of you in line—they get served first. This basic notion of fairness affects our lives in several everyday contexts—including bankruptcy. The people in the “bankruptcy” line are the holders of interests in the debtor. If the interest held by party A is “senior” to that of party B, then party A is in front of party B in line. The absolute priority rule essentially provides that the party A must be paid …

Gender And Partner Compensation At America's Largest Firms, Marina Angel

Marina Angel

Abstract

This study compiled the largest research sample on the gender gap in compensation at the 200 largest law firms by combining two large databases to examine the compensation disparities between men and women partners. The analysis elucidates the question of whether the difference is because women are less productive than men partners or because they are women. The Am Law 100 and 200 studies include gross revenue, profits, number of equity and non-equity partners, and the total number of lawyers at each firm. The Vault/MCCA Law Firm Diversity Programs study (Vault/MCCA) includes the gender ratios at each Am Law …

The Allure And Illusion Of Partners' Interests In A Partnership, Bradley T. Borden

Bradley T. Borden

Favorable tax treatment and management flexibility make tax partnerships very popular. For starters, tax partnerships, unlike tax corporations, are not subject to entity-level taxes. Partnership taxable income flows through to the partners, and the partners report their shares of partnership taxable income on their individual tax returns. Partnership tax allocation rules determine the partners’ shares of partnership taxable income. Those rules rely upon the alluring concept of partners’ interests in a partnership. It seems intuitive that partners would know their interests in a partnership and be able to allocate partnership taxable income accordingly. This Article illustrates, however, that the concept …

Statistical Evidence On The Gender Gap In Law Firm Partner Compensation, Marina Angel, Eun Young Whang, Rajiv Banker, Joseph F. Lopez

Marina Angel

Our study compiled the largest research sample on the gender gap in compensation at the 200 largest law firms by combining two large databases to examine why women partners are compensated less: because they are less productive than men partners or because they are women. The AmLaw 100 and 200 studies include gross revenue, profits, number of equity and non-equity partners, and the total number of lawyers at each firm. The Vault/MCCA Law Firm Diversity Programs study (Vault/MCCA) includes the gender ratios at each AmLaw 200 firm. Our study covers the years 2002 to 2007.

The ratio of women equity …

Big But Brittle: Economic Perspectives On The Future Of The Law Firm In The New Economy, Bernard A. Burk, David Mcgowan

Bernard A Burk

This Article addresses the deceptively simple questions why, up to the onset of the recent recession, law firms continued to grow at the rapid rate and in the unusual configuration that they have exhibited for over 40 years; and whether lawyers, clients, law students and law schools should expect familiar trends to reassert themselves as the economy improves. We show that the copious academic theorizing addressing these questions (focusing on such notions as diversification, asset specificity, “tournament” theory, and reputational and agency-cost concerns at the level of the firm as a whole) has proved ineffective at explaining or predicting actual …

The Death Of Big Law, Larry E. Ribstein

Larry E. Ribstein

Large law firms face unprecedented stress. Many have dissolved, gone bankrupt or significantly downsized in recent years. This paper provides an economic analysis of the forces driving the downsizing of Big Law. It shows that this downsizing reflects a basically precarious business model rather than just a shrinking economy. Because large law firms do not own durable, firm-specific property, a set of strict conditions must exist to bind the firm together. Several pressures have pushed the unraveling of these conditions, including increased global competition and the rise of in-house counsel. The large law firm’s business model therefore requires fundamental restructuring. …

Pip Factors: Examine With Low Expectations, Brad Borden

Bradley T. Borden

This article takes a critical look at the factors the income tax regulations use to define partners' intererests in a partnership. The article concludes that the factors do little to help determine partners' interests in the partnership.

A Crumbling Pyramid: How The Evolving Jurisprudence Defining “Employee” Under The Adea Threatens The Basic Structure Of The Modern Large Law Firm, Jessica Fink

Jessica Fink

Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, as well as other federal antidiscrimination laws, only “employees” as defined by the statute are permitted to sue. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts have provided guidance regarding when partners in large law firms might be deemed “employees” protected by these laws. What has emerged from the courts’ decisions in these cases is a test that places significant emphasis on the amount of power and control that a partner has within a firm: Partners deemed to lack a sufficient amount of power and control within their firms may be …

Too Close For Comfort: Application Of Shareholder’S Derivative Actions To Disputes Involving Closely Held Corporations, Melanie S. Williams, Allan B. Cooper

Melanie S. Williams

Should traditional shareholder’s derivative rules apply to close corporation disputes? The ALI has proposed that closely-held corporations may be treated as partnerships in the context of internal disputes. The rationale for shareholder derivative suit requirements – to protect creditors, to benefit all shareholders proportionate to their ownership interests, to discourage strike suits, and to permit the corporation to manage the suit and its resolution under court supervision – are less powerful in the context of closely held corporations. In fact, adhering to the requirements of shareholder’s derivative actions can increase the cost and complexity of suit, shift the expense of …

Taxing Shared Economies Of Scale, Brad Borden

Bradley T. Borden

Economies of scale exist if long-run average costs decline as output rises. All else being equal, the decline in average costs should lead to greater profitability, making economies of scale attractive to businesses. Nobel laureate George Stigler recognized that economies of scale should help determine the optimum size of a firm. To obtain economies of scale and optimum firm size, parties may integrate resources or grant access to resources without integrating. Such arrangements create shared economies of scale. Tax law must consider the effects of shared economies of scale and address them. In particular, the varying degrees of scale-sharing raise …

A Win-Win Proposal For Analyzing Profits-Only Partnership Interests, Brad Borden

Bradley T. Borden

The proper tax treatment of profits-only partnership interests is an unsolved aspect of tax law. The problem has manifested itself recently in the debate over the proper tax treatment of carried interests, a subset of profits-only partnership interests. Current law taxes holders of profits-only partnership interests based upon the character of income determined at the partnership level. Therefore, a partner who contributes only services to a partnership may be taxed at favorable long-term capital gains rates. One group of commentators recognizes such treatment as inequitable and recommends that at least a portion of partnership income allocated to holders of profits-only …

Why Do Venture Capital Funds Burn Research And Development Deductions?, Calvin H. Johnson

Calvin H. Johnson

Venture capital funds form a separate corporation for each venture that they support, within their portfolio of diverse ventures. The separate incorporation reduces the tax value that could be achieved from deducting research and development costs. The resulting taxes are draconian, sometimes confiscatory. If R&D deductions were used optimally, taxable investors could achieve a tax regime that does not reduce their pretax return, and taxable investors would drive tax-exempt investors out of the funds. If capital must come from tax-exempt investors, the funds should still be trying to use the R&D deductions against taxable income of the successful ventures. Tax …

Taxing Blackstone, Victor Fleischer

Victor Fleischer

No abstract provided.

Virtual World Taxation: Theories Of Income Taxation Applied To The Second Life Virtual Economy, Timothy J. Miano

Timothy J Miano

A virtual world is a computer simulated environment in which users interact with each other via graphical representations of themselves. Second Life is one such virtual world released by Linden Lab in 2003. One of the most important and interesting aspects of virtual worlds is the depth and sophistication of the economies that develop among the users. In fact, some virtual worlds, including Second Life, have currency exchanges where users can trade real-world currencies for virtual-world currency and vice versa. This means that the currency, goods, and services within the virtual-world marketplace have a corresponding real-world monetary value. The implication …