Happy to be here!

Hi there Prawf readers,

As always, it is nice to return to the Prawfs fold.  As some of you may know, my interests lie in the intersection of criminal and corporate law.  I teach Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Corporations, and a White Collar Crime seminar.  I write about corporate compliance and what might generally be referred to as criminal law and economics.   Recently, I have become interested in the connection between fraud and two overlapping topics, "temporal inconsistency" and the study of "willpower lapses."  Over the years, several scholars, most notably Dan's colleague at FSU, Manuel Utset, have asked: what implications does temporal inconsistency have for criminal law enforcement and punishment?  How should our understanding of temporal inconsistency alter the mix of criminal and civil statutes, regulation and enforcement activity that we rely upon to reduce socially undesirable conduct? Recently, I along with several other scholars had the great opportunity to offer some thoughts on this topic in comments that the Virginia Journal of Criminal Law solicited for a volume featuring Utset's work.  After completing my own contribution, I decided to write a separate article exploring temporal inconsistency's implications for the corporation's internal compliance function. That paper, Confronting the Two Faces of Corporate Fraud, will appear in the Florida Law Review in early 2014.  I'll post and talk about the paper later this month. 

Meanwhile, in addition to writing my exam, winding down my classes (last week of teaching) and grading, I plan to blog this month on major developments in the white collar crime world.  To that end, it is impossible not to be fascinated by Michael Steinberg's insider trading trial, which seems to be moving along smoothly (at least from the prosecution's perspective) for now.  More on that tomorrow - I've got to head home now and light some candles.  Happy holidays!