Clark on Reading The Odyssey and Professional Responsibility @shermanjclark

Sherman J. Clark, University of Michigan Law School, has published A Lawyer's Odyssey: Constitutive Conversation in Literature and Law. Here is the abstract.

Through a close reading and original translation of several passages from The Odyssey, this essay suggests that lawyers can learn from a certain sort of engagement with literature — and with Homer in particular. Reading The Odyssey in the way I describe highlights the constitutive capacity of speech. What we say, and how we say it, does not merely reveal who we are; it helps makes us who we are. Moreover, our speech also helps construct the character of those to whom we speak. Homer brings this home. Reading the Odyssey can thus help us think more deeply about what we choose to say and how we choose to say it. Homer can help us learn to take responsibility for what we do — to ourselves and to others — when we speak.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Homer In the Boardroom

Andrew A. Schwartz, University of Colorado Law School, has published Corporate Legacy at 5 Harvard Business Law Review 237 (2015). Here is the abstract.

Throughout human history, people have sought to overcome the human condition and achieve the only form of immortality reasonably available to us: a legacy that “lives on” after we are gone. Legacies can be established in countless ways, including art (Leonardo da Vinci), literature (William Shakespeare), and athletics (Babe Ruth). The corporate form, though not previously recognized as such, can likewise serve as a vehicle for achieving an enduring legacy because corporations are endowed by the law with “perpetual existence.” Publicly traded corporations in particular are well suited for this purpose, given the significant social and cultural role they play. Once a company goes public in an IPO, however, it suddenly becomes vulnerable to takeovers, which can end its corporate existence and thereby any hope of an enduring legacy. This unwelcome fate can be avoided, however, if a company goes public with powerful takeover defenses in place — which practically all do, according to new data presented here. Mature public companies, by contrast, are controlled by people who joined the board long after the IPO. These directors lack the same passion for the company’s independent existence because, unlike the pre-IPO shareholders, their legacy is not tied to the company. Accordingly, a mature public company may be amenable to abandoning its takeover defenses. The data presented here shows that practically all new public companies — those launching their initial public offering (IPO) — go public with powerful takeover defenses in place. This behavior is puzzling because the adoption of takeover defenses presumably lowers the price at which the pre-IPO shareholders can sell their own shares in and after the IPO. Why would founders and early investors engage in this seemingly counterproductive behavior? This Article claims that IPO firms adopt takeover defenses, at least in part, so that they can remain independent indefinitely and create corporate legacies that last for generations.

Download the article from SSRN at the link. See also Andrew A. Schwartz, The Iliad and the IPO at the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.

References To Homer in Australian Judicial Opinions

Leslie Katz has published "Homer in Australian Reasons for Judgment or Decision." Here is the abstract.

The paper discusses various allusions to Homer or his works in the reasons for judgment of Australian courts or the reasons for decision of Australian tribunals.

Download the paper from SSRN here.