Organizations Law Commons^™

Adolf Berle’S Corporate Conscience, Elizabeth Sepper, James D. Nelson

Seattle University Law Review

In this contribution to the symposium on “Corporate Capitalism and the City of God,” we bring Adolf Berle’s distinctive views of morality in corporate life into contemporary conversations about corporate religion. Today’s debates over corporate religious exemptions tend to gravitate toward an entity view of conscience focused on the moral integrity of institutions or an associational view keyed to shareholders’ deep commitments. The foremost corporate law scholar of his day, Berle instead conceived of corporate conscience as a “public consensus” guiding and bounding managerial decision-making. Although he would have sympathized with efforts to integrate faith and business, he would have …

Spirit Of The Corporation, Russell Powell

Seattle University Law Review

This Article provides a contemporary theoretical framework for Berle’s insight as a basis for considering its legal and ethical implications for corporate governance. Part II attempts to unpack contemporary understandings of spirit in order to provide a helpful working definition. Part III considers the origins and essential traits of the modern business corporation in the United States. The question posed by Berle—whether corporations can or ought to have a sort of moral orientation—is discussed in Part IV, while Part V ponders potential policy shifts that might tilt the orientation of the “spirit of the corporation” toward the common good. Part …

The Virginia Company To Chick-Fil-A: Christian Business In America, 1600–2000, Joseph P. Slaughter

Seattle University Law Review

This Article argues that the proprietors of what the author terms “Christian Business Enterprises” (CBEs) would strenuously disagree with Justice Ginsburg and assert that their express mission is to earn a profit while propagating their religious values. As such, they operate businesses “infused with religion,” where Christian values are interwoven into the very fabric of the company and how the firm relates to its stakeholders, employees, customers, suppliers, and communities.

This Article further demonstrates the rich heritage of religious for-profit businesses throughout American history by focusing on a series of Protestant CBEs that led to today’s CBE giants: Chick-fil-A and …

Sacred Corporate Law, Giancarlo Anello, Mohamed Arafa, Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci

Seattle University Law Review

This Article investigates the sacred origins of the corporate form. It sheds light on the sacred rituals performed to establish Ancient Roman cities as legal entities. It discusses the role of the Roman Catholic Church in developing the corporate form and in giving birth to a systemized set of rules regulating corporations, which we commonly call corporate law. It analyzes the limitations to the use of the corporate form in Islamic law as well as the streams of Islamic law jurisprudence that recognize legal capacity to specific entities with religious, social, or charitable purposes. It surveys the characteristics of two …

The Virginia Company To Chick-Fil-A: Christian Business In America, 1600–2000, Joseph P. Slaughter

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. is one of its most controversial in recent history. Burwell’s narrow 5–4 ruling states that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 applies to closely held, for-profit corporations seeking religious exemptions to the Affordable Care Act. As a result, the Burwell decision thrust Hobby Lobby, the national craft chain established by the conservative evangelical Green family of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, onto the national stage. Firms like Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A, however, reject the conventional wisdom Justice Ginsburg explained in Burwell and instead embrace an approach to business with …

Accountability For Employers Or Independence For Contractors? Accomplishing Ab5’S Labor Classification Goals In The Gig Economy, Chelsea Rauch

Seattle University Law Review

U.S. employment law traditionally classifies workers as either employees or independent contractors; each worker under this traditional legal rubric can only be classified as one or the other—there can be no ambiguity or overlap. An employee is generally defined as “a person hired for a regular, continuous period to perform work for an employer who maintains control over both the service details and the final product.” In contrast, an independent contractor is generally defined as “a worker who performs services for others, usually under contract, while at the same time retaining economic independence and complete control over both the method …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents and Special Thanks.

Shareholder Meetings And Freedom Rides: The Story Of Peck V. Greyhound, Harwell Wells

Seattle University Law Review

In 1947, civil rights pioneers James Peck and Bayard Rustin, members of the radical religious group, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and its offshoot, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), prepared to embark on the Journey of Reconciliation, an interracial protest against segregated busing in the American South. But first, they did something else radical: they bought shares in a corporation. A year later, after their travels in the South had led to terror, death threats, beatings, and in Rustin’s case, a term on a chain gang, they brought their civil rights activism to a new site of protest—the shareholder meeting …

The Corporation As Trinity, David Skeel

Seattle University Law Review

This Symposium Article takes Adolf Berle's cue in several respects. Most importantly, it will look to Augustine for guidance in developing insights into the nature of the corporation—in particular, corporate personhood. Where Berle drew inspiration from The City of God, this Article looks to a different Augustinian masterpiece, The Trinity, which has played a pivotal role in Christians’ understanding of who God is. Christian theology, as brilliantly explicated in The Trinity, states that God consists of three different persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—but is a single divine being. This Article argues that corporate personhood has similar qualities …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Spirit Of The Corporation, Russell Powell

Seattle University Law Review

Christian theologians have analyzed the productive and destructive qualities of institutions, sometimes attributing to them human virtues and vices. In City of God, Saint Augustine describes a utopian vision of human community within a Christian context as an alternative to the flawed “City of Man.” Contemporary theologians and sociologists have described collective structures of human behavior in institutions as having a kind of “spirit” analogous to the individual human “spirit.” Institutions are then assumed to take on an existence separate from the individuals within them, and in fact, the “spirit” of an institution influences the behavior of individuals. In The …

Religious Roots Of Corporate Organization, Amanda Porterfield

Seattle University Law Review

Religion and corporate organization have developed side-by-side in Western culture, from antiquity to the present day. This Essay begins with the realignment of religion and secularity in seventeenth-century America, then looks to the religious antecedents of corporate organization in ancient Rome and medieval Europe, and then looks forward to the modern history of corporate organization. This Essay describes the long history behind the entanglement of business and religion in the United States today. It also shows how an understanding of both religion and business can be expanded by looking at the economic aspects of religion and the religious aspects of …

Investors As International Law Intermediaries: Using Shareholder Proposals To Enforce Human Rights, Kishanthi Parella

Seattle University Law Review

One of the biggest challenges with international law remains its enforcement. This challenge grows when it comes to enforcing international law norms against corporations and other business organizations. The United Nations Guiding Principles recognizes the “corporate responsibility to respect human rights,” which includes human rights due diligence practices that are adequate for “assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how impacts are addressed.” Unfortunately, many corporations around the world are failing to implement adequate human rights due diligence practices in their supply chains. This inattention leads to significant harms for …

A Brief Reflection On Spirit Of The Corporation, Russell Powell

Seattle University Law Review

The author's goal in writing Spirit of the Corporation, which was initially published in 44 SEATTLE U. L. REV. 371 and is reprinted in this issue, was to reflect on the question that Adolf A. Berle, Jr. posed in his essay Corporate Capitalism and "The City of God": whether corporate managers should consider the common good while discharging their duty to act in the best interest of the corporation. The author hoped to use his interdisciplinary corporate law and religion expertise to add a theological perspective to the conversation. In this essay, the author intends to respond to those comments …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Tiptoeing Through The Landmines: The Evolution Of States’ Legal Ethics Authority Regarding Representing Cannabis Clients, Karen E. Boxx

Seattle University Law Review

Despite the continued federal classification of cannabis as an illegal drug, states have legalized the possession, use, production, and sale of cannabis. In order to do so, the states have created complex regulatory schemes to control and monitor the cannabis industry and satisfy the federal government concerns, such as use by minors and organized crime involvement. First, this Article presents the ethical dilemma of cannabis lawyering. Second, this Article describes the history, evolution, and current status of the various states’ pronouncements on a lawyer’s ethical duties with respect to the business and use of cannabis that may be legal under …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Collected Lectures And Talks On Corporate Law, Legal Theory, History, Finance, And Governance, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

A collection of eighteen speeches and lectures, from 2003 to 2018, discussing and expanding on the writings and theories of Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means.

The Rise And Fall (?) Of The Berle–Means Corporation, Brian R. Cheffins

Seattle University Law Review

This Article forms part of the proceedings of the 10th Annual Berle Symposium (2018), which focused on Adolf Berle and the world he influenced. He and Gardiner Means documented in The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932) what they said was a separation of ownership and control in major American business enterprises. Berle and Means became sufficiently closely associated with the separation of ownership and control pattern for the large American public firm to be christened subsequently the “Berle–Means corporation.” This Article focuses on the “rise” of the Berle–Means corporation, considering in so doing why ownership became divorced from control …

The ‘Berle And Means Corporation’ In Historical Perspective, Eric Hilt

Seattle University Law Review

This Article presents new evidence on the evolution of the business corporation in America and on the emergence of what is commonly termed the “Berle and Means corporation.” Drawing on a wide range of sources, I investigate three major historical claims of The Modern Corporation: that large corporations had displaced small ones by the early twentieth century; that the quasi-public corporations of the 1930s were much larger than the public corporations of the nineteenth century; and that ownership was separated from control to a much greater extent in the 1930s compared to the nineteenth century. I address each of these …

On The Origins Of The Modern Corporation And Private Property, Bernard C. Beaudreau

Seattle University Law Review

The Modern Corporation and Private Property (MCPP) by Adolf A. Berle Jr. and Gardiner Means, published in 1932, is undisputedly the most influential work ever written in the field of corporate governance. In a nutshell, Berle and Means argued that corporate control had been usurped by a new class of managers, the result of which included (1) shareholder loss of control (a basic property right), (2) questionable corporate objectives and behavior, and (3) the potential breakdown of the market mechanism. In this paper, I examine the origins of MCPP, paying particular attention to the authors’ underlying motives. I argue that …

Democracy In America At Work: The History Of Labor’S Vote In Corporate Governance, Ewan Mcgaughey

Seattle University Law Review

Can there be democracy in America at work? The historical division between democracy in politics and hierarchy in the economy is under strain. Hierarchical interests in the economy are shifting their model of power into politics, and yet a commitment to revive the law is resurgent. Central examples are the proposed Accountable Capitalism Act, Reward Work Act, Workplace Democracy Acts, and Employees’ Pension Security Acts. They would create a right for employees to elect 40% of directors on $1 billion company boards, a right for employees to elect one-third of directors on other listed company boards and require one-half employee …

Berle X: Berle And His World: An Homage To William W. Bratton, Charles R. T. O'Kelley

Seattle University Law Review

An introduction to the Berle X symposium, honoring William W. (Bill) Bratton.

Made For This Moment: The Enduring Relevance Of Adolf Berle’S Belief In A Global New Deal, Leo E. Strine Jr.

Seattle University Law Review

At a time when the insecurity of working people in the United States and Europe is being exploited by nativist forces, the concept of a global New Deal is more relevant than ever. But, instead of a global New Deal, the predominant force in international trade in recent decades has been spreading pre-New Deal, laissez-faire approaches to markets, without extending with equal vigor the regulations essential to providing ordinary people economic security. Adolf Berle recognized that if the economy did not work for all, the worst impulses in humanity could be exploited by demagogues and authoritarians, having seen this first …

Technological And Institutional Crossroads: The Life And Times Of Adolf A. Berle Jr., Bernard C. Beaudreau

Seattle University Law Review

In this paper, I examine the life and times of Adolf A. Berle Jr., perhaps the most influential scholar in the field of corporate governance. Specifically, I examine his contribution in light of the technological and institutional changes that occurred in the late nineteenth century—changes that were germane to his thinking and understanding of corporate governance. I argue that, despite his perspicacity, he failed to appreciate the changing role of corporate officers—that is, from that of fiduciary agent to that of visionary, founder, and essential element in corporate success. Put differently, in the early twentieth century, the key asset in …

Merrick Dodd And The Great Depression: A Few Historical Corrections, Charles R. T. O'Kelley

Seattle University Law Review

Merrick Dodd is remembered primarily for his role as coprotagonist, with Adolf Berle, in the famous Berle–Dodd debate. Dodd’s contribution to that debate—For Whom are Corporate Managers Trustees?—has generally been interpreted as the inspiration for modern stakeholder theory. Berle’s contribution has generally been viewed as the foundation on which shareholder primacy rests. Both of these views have been clarified by the nuanced work of Bratton and Wachter. Oddly, while scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to Berle’s actual life story, there is almost no scholarship that sheds light on Merrick Dodd, the historical person.

Berle And Means’S The Modern Corporation And Private Property: The Military Roots Of A Stakeholder Model Of Corporate Governance, Andrew Smith, Kevin D. Tennent, Jason Russell

Seattle University Law Review

The Modern Corporation and Private Property by Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means (1932) remains one of the most cited works in management studies. Our paper shows that Berle and Means espoused a stakeholder theory of corporate governance that challenged the then-hegemonic idea that the sole purpose of a corporation is to create value for the shareholders. We argue that Berle and Means’s support for stakeholder theory can be associated with their earlier service in the U.S. military, an organization which then inculcated an ethos of public service in its members. Our paper, which is based on archival research in the …

“All Lawyers Are Somewhat Suspect”: Adolf A. Berle And The Modern Legal Profession, Harwell Wells

Seattle University Law Review

Adolf A. Berle was perhaps the preeminent scholar of the modern corporation. He was also an occasional scholar of the modern legal profession. This Article surveys his writings on the legal profession from the 1930s to the 1960s, from the sharp criticisms he leveled at lawyers, particularly corporate lawyers, during the Great Depression, to his sunnier account of the lawyer’s role in the postwar era. I argue that Berle’s views were shaped both by the reformist tradition he inherited from Louis Brandeis and his writings on the corporation, which left him convinced that the fate of the legal profession would …