Prerequisites: For JD students, you must have completed Mediation or the Negotiation Workshop previously. There are no prerequisites for LLM students.

Exam Type: No Exam
A final paper is required.

This seminar will explore the concept of Alignment in the context of how dealmakers, financiers, and legal practitioners are shaping new asset classes that will change the future of our society. As we explore these topics, we will seek to understand the concept of Alignment, and how creative uses of Alignment are being applied as a core lever for creating and capturing value, mitigating risk, or changing the game. While Agreements are well-studied, little research has been devoted to understanding the concept of Alignment, how the two are different, and how skills at crafting Alignment can be among the most powerful tools for enabling your clients to mitigate risk and to unlock extraordinary value in their organizations, business transactions, and investments. We will invite featured guest speakers – industry experts, corporate leaders, and legal practitioners – to join many of our class discussions as we explore these topics.

• What This Course Is About: Understanding the Concept of Alignment as a Core Theme in the World of Business
• Stakeholder Capitalism and the ESG Movement: How can they be Compatible with a Fiduciary Obligation to Shareholders?
• Loonshots: Why Well-Established Companies Fail to Innovate…and How Legal Frameworks May Provide Part of the Solution
• Digital Currencies, NFTs, and the Evolution of Money: Legal Implications of Decentralized Finance
• The Role of Law in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data
• Agreement vs. Alignment: Lessons Learned by Some of the World’s Most Creative Dealmakers

Note: This seminar will meet for the first eight weeks of the term.