As promised, I am reporting back from Tulane’s Corporate Law Institute qua “Who’s Who in the M&A World” gathering.  Leo Strine did indeed query today: “can you have angst without a soul?”  (He asked in response to the statement that initial bidders fear deal-jumpers when waiting out a go shop period.)  Though the WSJ was the first to give you the Strine quote, allow me to give you a few more substantive details from Strine’s panel, which was a super one.  The panel was titled “The Challenges of Representing a Private Equity Target,” and the panel included moderators Jim Morphy and Eileen Nugent, and speakers Vice Chancellor Leo Strine, Creighton Condon, Jesse Finkelstein, Robert Kindler, Ted Mirvis, and David Sorkin.  (Morphy sat next to Kindler, who sat next to Mirvis, who sat next to Strine – it is unclear to me how *that* seating chart got put together….)

Read the full piece here. 

While we have been going on and on and on about Leegin here at TOTM, Manfred Gabriel offers a detailed analysis and a prediction on Twombly, the pending SCOTUS case which may provide some important guidance on 12(b)(6) standards.  Gabriel predicts that the Court will neither embrace the District Court’s ruling that plus-factors must be pleaded in a complaint to survive a motion to dismiss nor adopt the Second Circuit’s holding.  Instead, Gabriel predicts that the Court will…

Read the full piece here. 

Transcripts in Leegin are available here (HT: Antitrust Review where David Fischer points out some of the highlights of the oral argument).  I may add some additional thoughts later after I read the whole thing again, but for now here are some first impressions…

Read the full piece here. 

I leave tomorrow for Tulane’s Annual Corporate Law Institute.  This conference is viewed by many as the top annual deal conference, so I am expecting great things (this will be my first time attending the conference). Indeed, the speaker line-up is incredible. Chief of OMA at the SEC, Chief Justice of the Del. Supreme Court, Vice Chancellor Strine, Richard Breeden, Justice Jack Jacobs, a medley of deal lawyers from super firms, Patrick McGurn from ISS… the list goes on.

Read the full piece here.

As readers of TOTM know, I am interested in law school rankings. So recently I’ve been reading about the Vault “underrated” law school rankings (see my colleague Ilya Somin’s take here). Of course, I agree that GMU is underrated (and also with the praise the recruiter comments section gives to our evening students). But that is besides the point.

Read the full piece here.

Ronald Cass, dean emeritus of Boston University Law School, argues in today’s WSJ that the Supreme Court should overrule Dr. Miles…

Read the full piece here. 

Marginal Revolution’s Alex Tabarrok has a good post responding to recent attacks on the extension of credit to poor borrowers (and in particular, this rant from Nouriel Roubini).

Read the full piece here.

The insider trading trial of former Qwest CEO Joseph Naccio began yesterday. I’ve posted a couple of times (here and here) on Nacchio’s innovative defense, which the WSJ labeled a “black box” defense.

Read the full piece here.

Friday’s WSJ documented an effect of ethanol mandates…

Read the full piece here.