Business & Entrepreneurship

Workers pour sweat, blood and even dollars into the firms that employ them, especially in a labor market characterized by employment and retirement insecurity, says Marion Crain, JD, expert on labor and employment law and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Work can shape one’s life in ways that run to the core of identity,” she says. “Work law, however, ignores these realities of interdependence and mutual investment, committing itself to a model of employment as an arm’s length, impersonal cash-for-labor transaction.” Crain suggests looking at other legal models such as marriage law to more accurately respond to the realities of the employment relationship, particularly at termination. 

The Public Interest Law and Policy Speakers Series continues Thursday, Sept. 20, with Goodwin Liu, associate justice of the Supreme Court of California, on “Federal Law in State Court: Handling Conflicts over Arbitration, Immigration, and Constitutional Rights” at noon in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom (Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 310). The 2012-13 series features judges, lawyers, authors and academics with expertise in public interest law and policy. For a full list of the 2012-13 speakers visit http://law.wustl.edu/pilss/.

Britain’s royal family has obtained an injunction against the French magazine Closer to prevent it from publishing topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton. “The case would likely come out differently if it were brought in the United States,” says Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Richards, an internationally recognized expert in privacy and free speech law who hails from England, explains that English and European courts have been very aggressive in stopping media from publishing pictures delving into the sex lives of celebrities.

The Center for Research in Economics and Strategy (CRES) at Olin Business School is hosting two special events with Kathryn Shaw, PhD, the Ernest C. Arbuckle Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Shaw is the 2012 CRES Distinguished Woman in Economics and Strategy. She will present two lectures during her visit to Olin, Sept. 27 and 28.

Two new interdisciplinary exective education courses bring together experts from across the Danforth Campus to explore emerging concepts that will impact the future of industries, economies and the environment. The two-day and three-day seminars will take place near the end of October.

The “No More ‘Too Big to Fail’” rallying cry is unrealistic, says Cheryl Block, JD, federal taxation, budget and bailout expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “When the next really big economic crisis arises, Congress is unlikely to stick to its ‘no bailout’ pledge,” she says.

The Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies will kick off its two business plan competitions at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 6. Combined, the Olin Cup and YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition will award more than $200,000 in funding for new commercial and social ventures.

Before settling down to study, groups of Washington University in St. Louis law students worked with a variety of area community groups like the Wellston Community Gardens during the School of Law’s Orientation Service Project Week.

Consumers generally prefer having more options when choosing among products but not when making choices involving the distant future, according to a study from Washington University in St. Louis.

According to the New York Times, Penguin will publish first-person account of the bin Laden raid written by a Navy SEAL. Kathleen Clark, JD, national security law expert and professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, discusses the process for publishing this type of book.