Corporate law specialists to debate regulation April 1 at Tulane Law

From Day One, Professor Ann Lipton tells students that corporate law “ultimately is about who’s going to control the wealth and power that corporations accumulate.”

So, in an era when all sorts of regulations seem to be falling out of favor, what better time to examine the balance between the federal and state governments in laying out rules for corporate behavior?

As Tulane University Law School’s Gordon Gamm Faculty Scholar for 2016-17, Lipton is bringing top corporate and securities law scholars from across the United States to Tulane Law April 1 to explore questions surrounding the federal government’s encroachment on traditional state authority in regulating businesses — and how that could be about to change.

The conference, “Navigating Federalism in Corporate and Securities Law,” is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Wendell H. Gauthier Appellate Moot Court Room 110 of Tulane Law’s John Giffen Weinmann Hall, 6329 Freret St. in New Orleans. The event is free and open to the public.

Topics include:

— Whether appointment of activist shareholders to corporate boards leads to leaking of confidential information?

— If the Trump administration relaxes securities regulations, should states step in and fill the void?

— How does crowdfunding fit with the operation of small companies?

— What is the states’ role in regulating corporations’ campaign donations?

“Corporations are very, very powerful. This is about how they’re going to be regulated,” and what’s the proper balance between shareholders and managers, said Lipton, the Michael Fleishman Associate Professor in Business Law & Entrepreneurship.

The conference takes places right after Tulane Law's two-day Corporate Law Institute, one of the nation's premier gatherings of corporate deal makers, legal professionals, academicians and judges, now in its 29th year. Once described by Fortune magazine as “Davos for Wall Street” (a reference to the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Switzerland), the Corporate Law Institute explores trends in a high-stakes world, while giving Tulane Law students a chance to network and learn more about how classroom discussions play out in real business scenarios. 

Presenters at the April 1 event, in addition to Lipton, are James Cox, Brainerd Currie Professor of Law, Duke Law School; Jill Fisch, Perry Golkin Professor of Law and co-director, Institute for Law and Economics, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Kent Greenfield, Professor of Law and Law Fund Research Scholar, Boston College Law School; Robert Jackson, Professor of Law and director of the Program on Corporate Law and Policy, Columbia Law School; Summer Kim, Assistant Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law; James Park, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law; Edward Rock, Professor of Law, New York University School of Law; Robert Thompson, Peter P. Weidenbruch Jr. Professor of Business Law, Georgetown Law Center; Urska Velikonja, Associate Professor of Law, Emory Law School; and J.W. Verret, Associate Professor of Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School.

Lipton said the conference “would not be possible without the Gamm funding.”

Tulane Law alumnus Gordon Gamm (L ’70) and his wife, Grace, created the faculty scholar award in 2014 to promote the work of early-career professors. Lipton is the third recipient. Professor Saru Matambanadzo, the inaugural Gamm Scholar, sponsored a forum on “the Future of Law & Inequality,” and Professor Sally Richardson welcomed scholars from around the world for a global conference on comparative law.

Lipton, who spent more than a decade handling securities and corporate litigation in New York, joined the Tulane Law faculty in 2015 after two years teaching at Duke University School of Law. She also teaches courses through Tulane University’s Murphy Institute, a multidisciplinary center that supports academic programs in political economy, ethics and public policy.

As an attorney, Lipton handled class actions involving some of the world’s largest companies; as a scholar, she focuses on her research and writing on improving the way corporations operate. Her work has been published in the Georgetown Law Journal, Washington University Law Review, Arizona Law Review and the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy. She also blogs regularly for the Business Law Prof Blog. 

A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, Lipton clerked for the late Judge Edward Becker when he was chief of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia and then for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter in 2001-02.