Lawrence J. Trautman

Corporate Boardroom Diversity: Why Are We Still Talking About This?

What exactly is board diversity and why does it matter? How does diversity fit in an attempt to build the best board for an organization? What attributes and skills are required by law and what mix of experiences and talents provide the best corporate governance? Even though most companies say they are looking for diversity, why has there been such little progress? Are required director attributes, which are a must for all boards, consistent with future diversity gains and aligned with achieving high performance and optimal board composition? How might women and people of color best cultivate the skills necessary to make themselves attractive and productive board directors? My goal in this paper is to provide answers to these questions, and to discuss how a nominating committee and board can define their needs, explore their options, and provoke radical thinking about how corporate governance may be improved by reexamining fundamental assumptions about diversity. Hopefully, constructive thinking about diversity and board composition, and a productive dialogue among all in the corporate governance community will result.

Bitcoin as Asset Class

A five cent

Irac! Irac! Irac!: How to Brief a Supreme Court Opinion

0.05 investment in Bitcoin on July 17, 2010, the first date in which there appears to have been a published value had grown to

Virtual Currencies; Bitcoin & What Now after Liberty Reserve, Silk Road, and Mt. Gox?

7,383.39 on July 18, 2018. While Bitcoin as a currency has existed for less than a decade it had a very limited liquidity and usage during the first few years. During calendar year 2017 alone, Bitcoin increased in value from about

The Matrix: The Board’s Responsibility for Director Selection and Recruitment

970 to

E-Commerce, Cyber, and Electronic Payment System Risks: Lessons from PayPal

14,292, an increase of approximately 1,735 percent. Highly volatile, and having reached a market capitalization of almost

Following the Money: Lessons from the Panama Papers, Part 1: Tip of the Iceberg

300 billion by December 13, 2017, Bitcoin had become equivalent to the world’s sixth largest currency and has, despite its volatility, attracted considerable attention as an investment asset. Our research examines the history of Bitcoin from inception until mid-year 2018 and compares and contrasts price performance and correlation with other asset classes: Dow Jones 30 Industrial Average; SP NASDAQ; Russell 2000; gold; real estate; Nikki; MSCI; and bond market. We believe our study covers performance of this important alternative class over the greatest period of time to date. We conclude that Bitcoin may be an attractive investment from a diversification perspective because of its low correlation with equities markets. However, Bitcoin’s characteristics of high volatility and potential illiquidity make it difficult to compare with more traditional assets such as equities and bonds.

Is Disruptive Blockchain Technology the Future of Financial Services

The purpose of this short essay is to provide introductory guidance to busy students of constitutional law about how to go about briefing a Supreme Court opinion. Others have stated that the most difficult thing about the study of law “is learning how to read cases and statutes and finding a way to organize the materials into a workable format.” Our goal is to convey these basic analytical and briefing concepts in a format readable within 20 minutes of diligent effort. Ample additional resources are presented in our footnotes for those desiring a more robust discussion.