ALSB Centennial Speakers Series
In commemoration of the ALSB’s 100-year anniversary, the ALSB Centennial Planning Committee is pleased to sponsor the 2023-2024 centennial year Speaker Series to highlight the research expertise of our members. Throughout the year, this Series will bring together distinguished scholars, industry members, and educators to discuss pressing business and societal issues. The Centennial Speaker Series is made possible by the generous hosting support of the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at Wharton. For questions about this Series, please contact Dan Cahoy (drc13@psu.edu) or Kathryn Kisska-Schulze (kkisska@clemson.edu).
Made possible through the generous support of our co-sponsor:
NIL In Student Athletics
September 21, 2023 at 6:00pm ET
ALSB Speaker: Professor Marc Edelman (Baruch)
Outside Speaker: Kaitlin Ray (Former UCLA Tennis Player and Associate Attorney at Latham and Watkins LLP)
This event will explore the rise of name, image, and likeness (NIL) licensing in college athletics and the impact of the shifting legal and regulatory environment. The speakers will address questions about the key cases that cemented student rights in their personalities and how the law has developed in various states. Additionally, they will be asked to discuss the conflicts NIL markets may have with principles of amateur athletics as well as the school brands. Viewers are welcome to pose live questions during the session.
PLEASE SEE THE VIDEO REPLAY BELOW
Kaitlin Ray is an associate in the Century City office of Latham & Watkins and a member of the firm’s Entertainment, Sports & Media Practice.
Ms. Ray received her JD from Duke Law School, where she served as a notes editor for the Duke Law Journal and co-president of the Sports & Entertainment Law Society.
Prior to joining Latham, Ms. Ray served as a corporate legal intern at Major League Baseball. She also worked in sports media as an on-air college tennis analyst and reporter in the NBA G-League. She was a four-year starter for UCLA Women’s Tennis and member of its 2014 National Championship team.
Professor Marc Edelman is a tenured Professor of Law at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York and the Director of Business Ethics at the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity. He has published more than 70 law journal articles, presented research at upwards of 150 academic conferences, and has testified in front of multiple government agencies. He is regularly cited by the media on topics including how the Sherman Act applies to professional sports leagues, how gaming laws apply to fantasy sports contests, and how both labor laws and antitrust laws apply within the college sports industry. In July 2019, Professor Edelman testified before the California State legislature in favor of the Fair Pay to Play Act – the act that first enabled college athletes to earn money from licensing the rights to their names, images and likenesses.
Professor Edelman recently returned to the United States after completing a three month fellowship as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Canberra, Australia, where he conducted research on the comparative governance of sports under the American and Australian systems. An important theme of his research was on the topic of “college athlete rights as human rights.” In addition to earning him the opportunity to serve as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, Professor Edelman’s ongoing research on athlete rights has also earned him numerous ethics awards within the legal academy, including the 2022 Abraham Briloff Faculty Prize in Ethics and the 2018 Virginia Maurer Award for Best Ethics Paper, awarded by the Academy of Legal Studies in Business.
NIL In Student Athletics Replay
Regulation of Crypto Currency and Decentralized Finance
October 23, 2023 at 6:00pm ET
ALSB Speaker: Professor Kevin Werbach (Wharton)
Outside Speaker: Commissioner Kristin Johnson (Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Emory)
6Kevin Werbach is the Liem Sioe Liong / First Pacific Company Professor, Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics, and department chair at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. A world-renowned expert on emerging technologies, he examines business and policy implications of developments such as AI, algorithmic regulation, gamification, and blockchain/digital assets. Werbach served on the Obama Administration’s Presidential Transition Team, helped develop the U.S. approach to internet policy at the FCC during the Clinton Administration, hosted the Supernova executive technology conference, and created one of the most successful massive open online courses, with over 500,000 enrollments. He directs the Wharton Blockchain and Digital Asset Project. His books, which have been translated into six languages, include The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust (2018; paperback 2023), For the Win (2012; updated 2020), and After the Digital Tornado (2020; paperback 2022).
Commissioner Johnson was sworn in as a CFTC Commissioner on March 30, 2022, after being nominated by President Joseph Biden in September 2021, and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate. Commissioner Johnson is a nationally recognized expert on financial markets risk management law and policy with specialization in the regulation of complex financial products including the origination, distribution, and secondary market trading, clearing, and settlement of securities and derivatives. She is an internationally recognized expert on financial markets regulation and corporate governance, compliance, and risk management. Her recent work examines the implications of emerging innovative technologies including distributed digital ledger technologies that enable the creation of digital assets and intermediaries and artificial intelligence technologies that target commercial and consumer financial transactions, transfers, and assessments.
In April of 2021, she testified at a hearing before the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions entitled Banking Innovation or Regulatory Evasion? Exploring Trends in Financial Institution Charters. The single-panel hearing discussed policy considerations with respect to banking charters and explored disintermediation in legacy financial markets such as banking and the provision of clearing and custody services. In July of 2019, she testified before the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Task Force on Financial Technology and the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence entitled Examining the Use of Alternative Data exploring the implications of integrating artificial intelligence in financial technology (fintech) platforms.
Prior to joining the Commission, she held endowed professorships at Emory University and Tulane University Law Schools and visiting professorships at prestigious law schools around the nation. She taught courses in the regulation of securities and derivatives markets, financial institutions, including courses on fintech, the development of blockchain technologies and artificial intelligence, as well as corporations and ethical leadership. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, an American Bar Foundation Fellow, and Chair of the Securities Regulation Section and the Executive Committee of the Business Associations and Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services Sections of the Association of American Law Schools.
Prior to entering the academy, Commissioner Johnson served as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel in the Treasury Services Division of one of the largest financial institutions in the world supporting private funds cash management services, a corporate associate at Simpson, Thacher, and Bartlett LLP’s New York and London offices where she represented issuers and underwriters in domestic and international debt and equity offerings, lenders and borrowers in banking and credit matters, and private equity firms and publicly-traded companies in mergers and acquisitions. Before attending law school, Commissioner Johnson served as an analyst in the Asset Management Division of a storied financial institution. She clerked for a federal judge who previously served on the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Commissioner Johnson has a B.S. with honors from Georgetown University Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service and a J.D. from The University of Michigan Law School where she served as a senior editor on the Michigan Law Review and received the Clara Belfield and Henry Bates International Research Fellowship.
Sustainability, ESG Investing, and Pensions
November 2, 2023 at 6:00pm ET
ALSB Speaker: Professor Dana Muir (Michigan)
Outside Speaker: The Honorable Phyllis Borzi (Former Asst. Secretary U.S. Employee Benefits Security Administration)
This event will explore the legal controversies that have arisen from the increased global interest in and concerns about the consideration of ESG factors in investing. The speakers will focus on federal and state regulation of the more than $35 trillion in U.S. retirement plan assets and discuss some international comparisons. They will be asked to explain how political considerations have shaped the regulation and the difficulties that poses for retirement plan assets. Viewers are welcome to pose live questions during the session.
Professor Dana Muir, JD, MBA, is a chaired Professor of Business Law at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. She is a recognized expert on trustee obligation especially at the cross section of investments and retirement plan assets, advice, and engagement. Professor Muir’s research has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts. Recently, her research has focused on the consideration of ESG factors when making investment decisions related to pension plan assets in the U.S., South Africa, the E.U. and U.K.
Professor Muir has been active in multiple government-related policy roles, including membership on the Employee Benefits Security Administrations Advisory Group and on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s Advisory Committee. during the implementation of one investment policy and the subsequent review of that policy. Professor Muir was the Editor-in-Chief of Employee Benefits Law, is a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel as well as a past member of the College’s Board of Governors, and served as a board member and chaired the compensation committee at Aerospace Corporation.
The Honorable Phyllis C. Borzi, JD, MA, retired as the US Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) in 2017. She was confirmed by the US Senate in 2009. During her tenure, EBSA oversaw nearly 708,000 private-sector retirement plans, approximately 2.8 million health and welfare benefit plans that provide benefits to approximately 150 million workers and their families. Previously, Ms. Borzi was a research professor at George Washington University Medical Center’s School of Public Health and Health Services. In addition, she was Of Counsel with the Washington, DC, law firm of O’Donoghue & O’Donoghue LLP. From 1979 to 1995, Ms. Borzi served as Pension and Employee Benefit Counsel for the US House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Labor- Management Relations of the Committee on Education and Labor. Ms. Borzi is currently a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University and also represents retirees as a fiduciary on the committee governing the Goodyear Retiree Health Care Trust. She serves on the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard Board of Advisors and the Board of Maryland$aves, and is a charter member, former President, and former Board member of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. Ms. Borzi sits on the Edelman Financial Engines Board of Directors and is an independent consultant, continuing to advise private sector clients and state and local governments and pursue her lifelong commitment as an advocate for consumers.