Berkeley Law professors are prolific, insightful scholars with broad and significant influence felt well beyond the school’s walls through their research, legal advocacy, policymaking and commentary.
New Research
At the Pinnacle of Corporate Law Scholarship
“Does Voluntary Financial Disclosure Matter? The Case of Fairness Opinions in Mergers and Acquisitions,” an article by Professors Steven Davidoff Solomon and Adam Badawi and Berkeley Center for Law and Business Senior Fellow Matthew Cain, has been recognized as one of the top 10 corporate and securities articles of 2023 by Corporate Practice Commentator. It’s the eighth time on the annual list for Solomon and the second for Badawi.Research to Help Renew Democracy
Professor Emily Rong Zhang is one of the first recipients of Public Agenda’s Democracy Renewal Project grants — which are funding studies that show how to reach universal access to elections while strengthening trust and confidence in one of democracy’s core mechanisms. Zhang and Naomi Sugie of the University of California, Irvine, will expand the scope of a randomized controlled trial testing text-messaging interventions to enhance political participation among individuals with criminal records and their families.Questioning ‘Golden Ticket’ Bankruptcy
In a recent article in the Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal, Professor Kenneth Ayotte and Alex Zhicheng Huang, a Robbins J.S.D. Fellow, analyze how “debtor-in-possession” (DIP) loans, which are intended to help a company finance its bankruptcy case, are effectively reorganization plans in disguise.Wexler Gives Senate Testimony
Professor Rebecca Wexler recently testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism at a hearing on the use of artificial intelligence in criminal investigations and prosecutions. “Although AI tools present exciting opportunities to render the legal system more accurate and equitable in some respects, they also, in their current form and use, present troubling obstacles to fair and open proceedings,” she told senators.A Path to Regulating AI
In a recent Politico op-ed, Professor Tejas N. Narechania and co-author Ganesh Sitaraman argue that the same regulatory levers governments already use to govern utilities and other essential services should be a template for new rules for the burgeoning AI sector. The biggest companies now pouring money into AI — including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft — have all been sued for anticompetitive tactics, Narechania and Sitarmaran write, and are “poised to control” a broad new swath of innovation.
