Keynote Remarks: Workplace Flexibility 2010: Reflections on Working With Corporations

Chai R. Feldblum

Chair R. Feldblum, Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, delivered keynote remarks.  Below is an edited version of the speech he gave on February 4, 2011.

View Full Text (PDF)

From Page to Practice: Corporations as Progressive Actors

On Friday, February 4, 2011, the Review of Law and Social Change hosted a symposium: From Page to Practice: Corporations as Progressive Actors.  This issue is dedicated to that symposium.

Genevieve Lakier ’11 and Amalea Smirniotopoulos ’11, 2010-11 Editors in Chief, explain the importance of engaging corporations in progressive action during their introductory remarks to this issue.

View Full Text (PDF)

In Remembrance of Professor Derrick Bell

By Anthony Thompson

1930-2011

“Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say ‘We have done this ourselves.'”

Read Full Text (PDF)

Toward an Improved Legal Form For Social Enterprise

 

Keren G. Raz

Abstract

Lawyers, policymakers, and social entrepreneurs are engaging in a vigorous debate regarding new legal forms for social enterprise. Some argue that commercial activity in the non-profit sector

Photo credit: Wikipedia

is not new and does not require a new legal form; others argue that new legal forms, including the Low-profit Limited Liability Company (L3C) and the Benefit Corporation, can meet the needs of social enterprise; and still others argue that new legal forms are needed. This debate has suffered, however, from a fractured understanding of foundational issues related to the meaning of ―social enterprise‖ and the limitations of existing legal forms in facilitating it. This paper seeks to repair our fractured understanding of social enterprise by (1) clarifying what social enterprises are and how they differ from other organizations; (2) revealing what social enterprises require from a corporate form; (3) explaining how existing corporate structures, including the L3C and the Benefit Corporation, fall short in meeting those requirements; and (4) briefly considering the characteristics of a new legal form for social enterprise that will better facilitate the growth and success of these promising organizations.

View Full Text (PDF)