It's not a question of how many lawsuits you've got going, but whether any given law professor gets inspired to build a course around your lawsuits — or lawsuit. Even a single lawsuit could form the basis of a course.
What makes it interesting enough to blog — any given article can inspire a blogger to write a post — is that the lawprof is Stephen M. Bainbridge. His course is “Law of Elon Musk.” He explains:
Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity is an excellent case to teach students. And then there is a pending case on his Tesla CEO-compensation package, which is a great case because it’s what will strike the students as an egregious amount of money — billions of dollars in CEO compensation — in excess of anything we’ve ever seen. It’s a great case to talk about: Is this a situation in which it would be rational for a company to put together that sort of a compensation package?...
One of the things students often have a hard time grasping is that a conflict of interest is not necessarily a crime, a bad thing, unethical. A conflict of interest is simply a state of being. It’s a status that you have, and the question is, Have you allowed your conflict of interest to influence your thinking on how you conduct whatever the transaction is?...
The story that I see is the story of an incredibly smart and adventurous guy who’s capable of generating ideas that produce enormous amounts of value but who would be a pain in the butt as a client because he often leaps before he looks....
One of the things that I think is very difficult for both students and for nonlawyers to understand is how process oriented the law is.... Obviously I’ve never met the guy, but just observing him, he’s not a process guy. He’s also not a guy that you can control. Think about when he tweeted out he was gonna take Tesla private at $420 a share, which I gather is some sort of marijuana reference. The SEC says this is securities fraud....
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15 comments:
Coleridge wrote in an op-ed that a conflict of interest is the pulley on which good character is hoist into public view.
His compensation for being the CEO of Tesla is him selling the shares that he owned when the company, his creation, went public. And, as the actual owner, he owns that portion of the profits, too. If that bit is the level of law professorship these days, then the law is truly and well fucked.
... I shrugged when I was the New York Magazine article...
I think you're missing a word here. If not, you've undergone an almost Kafka-like metamorphosis!
Clients who are sloppy, but in the right can generate huge amounts of fees; but their lawyers have to be able to deal with the uncertainty.
It also helps to understand when clients are in business to make money, not to win lawsuits.
Elon Musk is what is known as a Quick Start. I'm a Fact Finder.
Elon Musk has dared to challenge the ruling establishment and their army of robotic "Howards/gadflys". As Biden blurted out last night, the Democraticals are the party of sheep and don't you dare go against the crowd. Ever. For any reason.
But Musk does go against the crowd.
So the targeting of him will continue to accelerate but it must be done carefully as there are lots and lots of DC insiders who want to swoop in and steal the value that Musk has created.
Here is a Harvard Law opinion on Musk's compensation. On reading it, I'm trying to find the conflict of interest claimed by Stephen Bainbridge. As Yancey Ward notes, the compensations was for Musk's private share of stock in order for the company to go public. It wasn't payment for services. It was payment for shares of stock. The decision to make the compensation and at a certain price per share was made by a majority of the Tesla board excluding both Elon Musk and his brother.
As Musk only represented his stake, what is the conflict of interest that Stephen Bainbridge claims exists? Did he think Musk should have demanded more compensation?
Bainbridge has spent his long career writing and teaching corporate law and especially m + a law. It was possibly a way to keep things fresh for himself that he has designed an entire UCLA course around one businessman's legal problems. Bainbridge is also well known as a critic of the Socratic method of law school teaching.
Uber and Lyft decimated the cab licensing of cities.
Those companies never applied for licenses and went into cities and decimated the cab companies that had to comply with the cities rules.
The southern border has been open for a long time.
Many states have legalized marijuana and companies are in violation of federal criminal drug laws.
What professors like Bainbridge don’t understand is that reality shows the law is disregarded with zero consequence when politicians get something from it.
The Rule of Law is a catchphrase.
His compensation for being the CEO of Tesla is him selling the shares that he owned when the company, his creation, went public.
I know it's pedantic, but Musk did not create Tesla...he took over an already existing company and turned it into a raging success.
Ann, at some point, ever emeritus have to understand what they are reading as it applies to the real world.
Eloi are useless and get eaten.
Also, why would you waste your students' time and money? Was this before you became a famous blogger? Why didn't you spend that time teaching real legal skills?
Care to share the narcissistic syllabus? Or am I paying enough for your happy fat taxpayer funded pension already?
Hope Meade enjoys his breakfast. We can't eat out anymore.
Y
gahrie: "I know it's pedantic, but Musk did not create Tesla...he took over an already existing company and turned it into a raging success."
It was dying on the vine before Musk showed up with cash and strategic vision. And that includes Musk leading all the key rounds of fundraising and design and then later, completely revamping all supply chain and production strategy.
Ann, how about a law school course on Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin? It is a very rich stew of issues and the public record is extensive and continuing to evolve even as I write (see column in today’s New York Post: Oberlin has lost every round of litigation and still refuses to pay). The lessons here in institutional capture by racist morons, and ongoing failures of management to find and follow a legal strategy other than blind contumacy, would reward close study.
IMHO.
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