Corporate Governance

Beneficial Ownership, Equity Swaps, and Proxy Contests: CSX v. The Children's Investment Fund (The Influence of Blogs) (Part 14)

By J. Robert Brown

Interestingly, the brief filed by the hedge funds in the CSX case (which has been posted on the DU Corporate Governance web site) referenced the "extensive practitioner commentary" on the case and provided a quote from Steve Davidoff at the Dealbook Blog, a modest demonstration of the continuing role played by law blogs in the development of the law.  Steve was a faculty member at Wayne State but next year will be at the University of Connecticut.  Before writing for Dealbook, he wrote extensively on the M&A Law Prof Blog (where he still posts primary materials from time to time). 

The quote illustrates one of the important values of law blogs.  Dealbook and The Race to the Bottom (here and here), among others, posted on the 115 page opinion almost immediately after its release, providing commentary on the court's analysis and assessing some of the implications.  Those following the matter did not have to wait the weeks and months (even years) for commentary from more traditional sources, whether law journals or law reviews.  Moreover, while the law firm memos on CSX came out quickly, law blogs reach larger audiences and can be more pointed in their commentary. 

As the paper Of Empires, Independents, and Captives:  Law Blogging, Law Scholarship, and Law School Rankings asserts, law blogging is part of the continuum of legal scholarship, not replacing but augmenting traditional scholarship, whether by developing possible topics for more traditional scholarship or for the application of traditional scholarship. 

Full post as published by The Race to the Bottom on June 23, 2008 (boomark / email).