Interesting Reads of the Week

Some interesting legal reads for the week of March 23, 2015:

  • Steve Quinlivan reports on eight coordinated enforcement actions by the SEC for insiders failing to file amendments to Schedule 13Ds, not reporting plans in going-private transactions. Quinlivan believes this is part of the SEC’s “robo-cop” efforts, i.e., using data mining to identify disclosure failures.
  • From DealBook, a survey of deal participants finds them less upbeat than last year about the coming year’s level of merger activity, though a majority remain optimistic.
  • Also from DealBook, some criticism of the bar exam, including debate over a year-over-year decline in scores.
  • From Prof. Noah Feldman, a defense of law schools, as opposed to having lawyers trained solely as apprentices to practicing lawyers. I think I agree with him, but the piece is short on examples, i.e., how exactly would the deep knowledge that law school provides allow me to provide better advice to a client in an M&A deal?