Publications

Web

Buy Now, Pay Later: Credit, Information, and the Courts

plagiarized their laboriously collected credit reports and distributed them under their own names. To foil this type of piracy, firm leaders asserted strong legal rights over the Agency’s data, and even included fictitious credit ratings... View Details

01 Sep 2010
News

Social Entrepreneurship Fellows Named

founder of Friendfactor (www.friendfactor.org), an enterprise that aims to mobilize a national grassroots movement to accelerate the achievement of full legal equality for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) Americans. Last... View Details

Keywords: Awards; disability; gay rights; Accommodation; Hospitality

08 Apr 2002
Research & Ideas

How to Negotiate “Yes” Across Cultural Boundaries

Decision-making and governance processes, which determine either a "yes" or a "no," can differ widely from culture to culture, not just in terms of legal technicalities but also in terms of behaviors and core beliefs.... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius

05 Apr 2016
Blog Post

Summer Internships in the JD/MBA Program

also with a team of lawyers specializing in transactional and real estate law. To compete at this level, I realized I would need a more in-depth understanding of both sides of the equation: taxes, regulatory issues, the distinctions between international View Details

05 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

A Market for Human Cadavers in All but Name?

securing specimens from a new set of actors in the commerce in cadavers. These actors are legal entrepreneurial ventures that have been operating for more than a decade in the United States; they cater to domestic users and international... View Details

Keywords: by Michel Anteby; Health

Henry W. Bloch

Bloch diversified H & R Block by purchasing Personnel Pool of America, CompuServe, and Hyatt Legal Services. By the mid-1980s, H & R Block was spending at least $20 million a year on advertising. By 1992, Bloch had expanded the... View Details

Keywords: Services

22 Jan 2008
Research & Ideas

New Challenges in Leading Professional Services

Professional service firms—law firms, financial services firms, money management firms, private equity firms, hedge funds, management consultants, advertising agencies—are the most challenging and exciting organizations to lead, maintain the authors of a new book, When... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Legal Services; Legal Services; Legal Services

May 1995
Background Note

Note on Product Liability

By: Willis M. Emmons III, Monica Brand and Greg Keller

This note provides an overview to the evolution and current state of product liability law in the United States. View Details

Keywords: Goods and Commodities; Legal Liability; Safety; Product Marketing; Business Strategy; Policy; Government and Politics; United States

Find at Harvard

February 1994 (Revised August 1994)
Background Note

Note on Contingent Environmental Liabilities

By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Forest L. Reinhardt

Addresses contingent environmental liabilities that are the result of unforeseen environmental risks where the dollar amount of such liabilities is unknown and depends on future events. In contrast, fines for violating environmental laws are liabilities, but are not... View Details

Keywords: Legal Liability; Risk Management; Natural Environment; Laws and Statutes; Pollutants; Governance Compliance; United States

September 1992 (Revised March 1997)
Case

Summit Distributors (A)

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Amy P. Hutton

Summit Distributors was in danger of violating loan covenants because of slow economic activity and forecasted losses and was faced with a choice. Changing the inventory valuation method from LIFO to FIFO would avoid default but would require higher future income... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Cost Accounting; Cash Flow; Interest Rates; Economic Systems; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Statements; Valuation; Accounting Audits; Financing and Loans; Legal Services Industry; Legal Services Industry

01 Sep 2012
News

Who Owns Yoga?

slowly. In 1978, he wrote Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class. He trademarked his company’s name, Bikram’s Yoga College of India, and in 1994 began offering intensive courses, training 200 teachers each year. Bikram also followed the very nontraditional yoga practice of... View Details

Keywords: Kim Girard; yoga; Arts, Sports, Language, Driving, and Other Schools; Educational Services; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

November 1994
Case

Navistar International

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Jeremy Cott

As a consequence of laying off half its workforce in a massive downsizing program, the company--a large manufacturer of medium and heavy trucks--struggles with a huge ($2.6 billion) liability for retiree medical costs. Although the company has promised its retirees... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Process; Wages; Labor Unions; Legal Liability; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Restructuring

19 Nov 2014
HBS Case

Marketing Marijuana

On Tuesday, the family of deceased musician and celebrated marijuana user Bob Marley announced what it claimed will be the first global cannabis brand, Marley Natural. Suddenly, marijuana is a growth industry—and increasingly, a legal... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

Web

Law, Management and Entrepreneurship - Course Catalog

Lecturer at HBS, I am a retired Securities Litigation Partner at WilmerHale in Boston. I draw upon examples from my practice and have designed the course to develop legal literacy by honing instincts that will help business leaders avoid... View Details

05 May 2003
Research & Ideas

Sharing the Responsibility of Corporate Governance

Harvard Business School professor Constance Bagley studies the intersection of business and law, and is interested in how companies can use legal resources as a competitive asset. In this interview, Bagley discusses ways businesses can... View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

October 2008 (Revised January 2015)
Teaching Note

Polanco: A Fashionable Opportunity

By: Arthur I Segel and Ben Creo

Teaching Note for [209012]. View Details

Keywords: Investment; Planning; Buildings and Facilities; Construction; Design; Property; Opportunities; Legal Liability; Real Estate Industry; Mexico

November 2005 (Revised November 2007)
Case

Meisterchef.com

By: Henry B. Reiling

Two underperforming companies are seeking to combine on terms that will preserve the net operating loss of one for use against their combined future profits or at least against the future profits of the company that generated the losses. The questions are whether the... View Details

Keywords: Code Law; Corporate Governance; Mergers and Acquisitions; Cost Accounting; Taxation; Corporate Strategy; Profit; Crisis Management; Financial Management; Legal Services Industry; Legal Services Industry; United States

February 2002
Background Note

States vs. Microsoft, The

By: Michael A. Wheeler and Gillian Morris

Although the federal Justice Department managed to settle its massive antitrust litigation against Microsoft in 2001, the state suit against the company continued. State attorney generals, perhaps emboldened by their recent victory over the Big Five tobacco companies,... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Public Ownership; Private Ownership; Negotiation Deal; Goals and Objectives; Lawsuits and Litigation; Decision Making; Legal Services Industry; Legal Services Industry