Professor Black is the Charles Hartsock Professor of Law and the Director of the Corporate Law Center. Prior to joining the College of Law, she was a professor at Pace University School of Law, where she taught corporate and securities law. She was also the founder and co-director of the Securities Arbitration Clinic, believed to be the first law school clinic to represent small investors in disputes with broker-dealers, and was co-director of the Pace Investor Rights Project, which sponsors advocacy, education, and research efforts in the area of investor justice.
Her extensive professional experience includes visiting professorships at the University of Illinois School of Law, Vytautas Magnus University Law School (Lithuania), and New York University Law School. She also served as deputy director of the Association of American Law Schools, as well as vice dean and acting dean at Pace University School of Law.
Prior to beginning her academic career, Professor Black was in private practice at two east coast law firms, Kaye Scholer Fierman Hays & Handler (New York) and Rogers & Wells (Washington, D.C.).
A prolific writer, she has authored numerous law review articles on securities arbitration, securities fraud, and RICO claims that have been frequently cited, including by both the majority and dissenting opinions in the Supreme Court's opinion, Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, on fraud on the market. She is frequently quoted in the media on issues relating to securities arbitration and investors' rights. She has also written a treatise on corporate dividends and stock repurchases.
Books
Articles, Essays & Book Reviews
Barbara and her Corporate Law Center presented its third annual program with the Association of Corporate Counsel – Southwest Ohio Chapter, on The Role of Corporate Counsel During a Time of Economic Crisis. Speakers included the General Counsels of Fifth Third Bank and Macy’s and several other distinguished local corporate attorneys, as well as Professor Edward Janger, a recognized bankruptcy expert at Brooklyn Law School.
Barbara’s article, Should the SEC be a Collection Agency for Defrauded Investors?, 63 Bus. Law. 317 (2008), was cited in James J. Park, Shareholder Compensation as Dividend, 108 Mich. L. Rev. 323 (2009). Her blog post, Will Proxy Access Be Here Soon?, Securities Law Prof Blog, Aug. 20, 2009, was cited in Micah Bloomfield, David Lowden, & Theodore S. Lynn, Real Estate Investment Trusts (RIA, 2009 Supp.).
Barbara was the co-chair and one of the principal speakers at the Securities Law Seminar held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association (PIAA) in Carlsbad, California. She spoke on securities law developments and regulatory reform affecting retail investors.
Several of Barbara’s articles were cited:
Barbara presented, Post-Dura Issues and Collateral Damage in Securities Litigation, as part of the 13th Annual UC Faculty Summer Scholarship Series. Several of her articles were cited:
Two of Barbara’s publications were cited:
Barbara’s article, Eliminating Securities Fraud Class Actions under the Radar, was accepted for publication in the Columbia Business Law Review. She presented the article at the National Association of Shareholder and Consumer Attorneys (NASCAT) Annual Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Barbara participated in a panel discussion on Loss Causation Issues After Dura at the 15th Institute of Law and Economic Policy (ILEP) conference on Recoveries for Victims of Securities Fraud in Scottsdale. ILEP is a public policy research and educational foundation established to preserve, study and enhance access to the civil justice system by all consumers. Barbara’s commentary will be published in the University of Iowa College of Law’s Journal of Corporate Law.
Barbara’s Corporate Law Center held its annual symposium at the College on New Models of Regulating the Financial Markets: The SEC at 75.
Barbara’s articles, Should the SEC be a Collection Agency for Defrauded Investors?, 63 Bus. L. 317 (2008), and The Explained Award of Damocles: Protection or Peril in Securities Arbitration, 34 Sec. Reg. L.J. 17 (2006) (with Jill Gross), were cited in Verity Winship, Public Agencies and Investor Compensation: Examples from the SEC and CFTC, 61 Admin. L. Rev. 137 (2009).
Barbara spoke on The Role of the SEC in the Financial Meltdown at a University of Dayton symposium, The Fallout from the Bailout, with former SEC Chair Harvey Pitt. Her article, Perceptions of Fairness of Securities Arbitration: An Empirical Study, was cited in Marcia Coyle, Credit Crisis Spawns Arbitration Claims, N.Y.L.J., Apr. 2, 2009, at 5.
Barbara delivered the Harold C. Schott Scholarship Award Lecture at the College on Protecting the Retail Investor in an Age of Financial Uncertainty.
Barbara published When Perception Changes Reality: An Empirical Study of Investors' Views of the Fairness of Securities Arbitration, 2 J. Disp. Resol. 349 (2008) (with Jill Gross). Two of her articles were cited:
Barbara was appointed to the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Securities Regulation. Two of Barbara’s articles were cited:
Barbara spoke on the SEC's and Ohio's “up-the-ladder” reporting requirements at the second annual ethics conference, The Role of the General Counsel in Advising Management and the Board of Directors, sponsored by the Corporate Law Center and the Association of Corporate Counsel, Southwest Ohio Chapter. Paul Heldman, General Counsel of the Kroger Company, was the keynote speaker.
Barbara was appointed for a three-year term as a non-industry member of the National Adjudicatory Council (NAC) of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). NAC is the national committee that reviews initial decisions rendered in FINRA disciplinary and membership proceedings.
Several of Barbara’s publications were cited:
Barbara co-chaired the 10th Annual Securities Law Seminar, an all-day program that is part of the Annual Meeting of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association (PIABA), in Colorado Springs. She presented Securities Law Round-Up and Legal Theories for Supporting Customers' Claims of Damages.
Barbara's research on the satisfaction rate for investors who use an arbitration process to settle claims against the securities industry was quoted in Michael Maiello, Don't Cry for Justice, Forbes.com.
Two of Barbara's articles were cited:Barbara participated in the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies held at Cornell Law School on Sept. 12-13, where her article, When Perception Changes Reality: An Empirical Study of Investors' Views of the Fairness of Securities Arbitration, 24 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. ___ (2008) (with Jill Gross), was included in the poster session.
Several of Barbara's articles were cited:Barbara's article, Perceptions of Fairness of Securities Arbitration: An Empirical Study, was reprinted in Securities Arbitration 2008 (PLI). The scholarly version of the article, When Perception Changes Reality: An Empirical Study of Investors' Views of the Fairness of Securities Arbitration, will be featured at the poster session at the Cornell Empirical Legal Studies Conference on September 12-13 and will be published in the Journal of Dispute Resolution.
Barbara published a commentary on Minor Myers, The Decisions of Special Litigation Committees: An Empirical Investigation, as part of the Fourth Annual Conglomerate Junior Scholars Workshop.
Several of Barbara's publications were cited:Second year students, Jeffrey Hicks and Nicholas Schwandner worked for the Corporate Law Center this summer and conducted an analysis of business and commercial cases filed in Hamilton County for the Ohio Supreme Court Taskforce on Commercial Dockets
Barbara received the 2008 Harold C. Schott Scholarship Award, in recognition of her outstanding research and scholarly achievement. From the announcement: "Professor Black's scholarly work has been influencing the way academics, judges, lawyers, the SEC, and the investing public view the nation's securities law for thirty years." She will deliver a public lecture on her innovative scholarship at the College during the 2008-09 academic year.
Barbara attended the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting in Montreal, where she moderated a panel on Law, Value and Wealth: Markets and Securities Law and served as a discussant on a panel on Trends in Securities Litigation and Settlements.
Barbara's article, Fraud on the Market: A Criticism of Dispensing With Reliance Requirements In Certain Open Market Transactions, 62 N.C. L. Rev. 435 (1984), was cited in Brent A. Olson, Publicly Traded Corporations: Governance & Regulation (Thomson West, 2nd ed., 2008 Supp.).
Barbara published Should the SEC be a Collection Agency for Defrauded Investors?, 63 Bus. Law. 317 (2008). She posted a new article, When Perception Changes Reality: An Empirical Study of Investors' Views of the Fairness of Securities Arbitration (with Jill Gross), on SSRN. Barbara's study, Perceptions of Fairness of Securities Arbitration: An Empirical Study (with Jill Gross), was extensively discussed in Bloomberg News, Wall Street, Ivory Tower Wrestle in Study Wars. She posted Is Securities Arbitration Fair to Investors?, 25 Pace L. Rev. 1 (2004), on SSRN.
The University of Cincinnati Law Review (winter 2008) published the papers presented at the 2007 Corporate Law Center Symposium, Twenty Years After Shearson/American Express v. McMahon: Assessing Investors' Remedies.
For the second summer, the Corporate Law Center will provide assistance to the Special Task Force on Commercial Dockets established by the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. 2Ls Jeffrey Hicks and Nicholas Schwandner will conduct empirical research on the impact of the creation of a separate docket for business and commercial disputes on filings in Hamilton County.
Barbara organized and hosted the 2008 Corporate Law Symposium on The Dysfunctional Board: Causes and Cures. Her book, Corporate Dividends and Stock Repurchases, (Clark Boardman Callaghan, 1990), was cited in Charles W. Murdock, Business Organizations (Thomson-West, 2007 Supp.).
Barbara posted Perceptions of Fairness of Securities Arbitration: An Empirical Study (with Jill I. Gross (Pace)), the first empirical study of participants' perceptions of fairness of securities Self-Regulatory Organizations (SRO) arbitrations involving customers. Barbara and Professor Gross drafted and designed the survey, coordinated its mailing, interpreted the data we collected, and prepared the Report, with the technical assistance of Cornell University's Survey Research Institute. They surveyed participants in NASD Dispute Resolution and NYSE arbitrations that were filed from Jan. 1, 2002 through Dec. 31, 2006 and closed between Jan. 1, 2005 and Dec. 31, 2006 and received 3,087 responses (a 13% response rate). Their findings detail that survey participants have divided views about the fairness of securities arbitration and that for almost every question in the survey, customers have a more negative perception of the process than non-customers.
A preliminary version of the report, which was commissioned by the Securities Industry Conference on Arbitration (SICA), was leaked to a Dow Jones reporter, who reported on the study's findings on Feb. 6, and, a day later, SICA released publicly the final report. Since its release, the report has engendered vigorous debate over its findings. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) criticized what it called the study's “middling results, flawed process” (and its focus on subjective perceptions). In contrast, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) praised the study and said that its findings support what state regulators have been hearing from investors in their states -- that they believe the securities arbitration process is "rigged" against them. Other media coverage includes BNA Securities Daily (Feb. 8), Securities Arbitration Alert (Feb. 6, Feb. 20), Investment Executive (Feb. 6), and Investment News (Feb. 6).
Barbara's article, Securities Commentary: The Second Circuit's Approach to the 'In Connection With' Requirement of Rule 10b-5, 53 Brook. L. Rev. 539 (1987), was cited and quoted at page 9 of the Supreme Court's majority opinion in Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., No. 06-43 (1/15/08).
Barbara's article, The Irony of Securities Arbitration Today: Why Do Brokerage Firms Need Judicial Protection?, 72 U. Cin.. L. Rev. 415 (2003), was excerpted in Donna M. Nagy, Richard W. Painter & Margaret V. Sachs, Securities Litigation and Enforcement (Thomson West, 2nd ed. 2007). She joined the Advisory Board of the Securities Regulation Law Journal.
Barbara attended the AALS Annual Meeting in New York City, where she presented Are Retail Investors Better Off After Sarbanes-Oxley? at the Section on Securities Regulation panel on Have Securities Regulation Reforms Hit The Mark? (one of five papers selected after a call for papers; papers will be published in the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial and Commercial Law).) She posted a subsequent version of the paper, Are Retail Investors Better Off Today?, on SSRN.
Barbara published Tattlers and Trail Blazers: Attorneys' Liability for Clients' Fraud, 46 Washburn L.J. 91 (2006). She posted Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta (8th Cir. 2006): What Makes it the Most Important Securities Case in a Decade? on SSRN.
Barbara presented The Role of Corporate Counsel in Fostering an Ethical Environment at the Southwest Ohio Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel America CLE seminar. The presentation was announced in How In-House Counsel Can Promote Ethics, 15 (11) Metropolitan Corporate Counsel NaN. (Nov. 2007).
Several of Barbara's articles were cited:Barbara's article, Should the SEC be a Collection Agency for Defrauded Investors?, was accepted for publication in The Business Lawyer. She presented her paper, Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta (8th Cir. 2006): What Makes It the Most Important Securities Case in A Decade?, at Supreme Court Preview Symposium - Scheme Liability, Section 10(b), and Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific Atlanta, organized by the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western.
Barbara soke on a variety of securities arbitration and ethical issues at both the Securities Law Program and the Annual Meeting of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association(PIABA).
Barbara attended the AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference in Washington, D.C. as a member of the College's Faculty Appointments Committee.
Barbara participated in the Alumni Teach-In Day, as Tarik Haskins (Class of 2003), Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell (Wilmington, DE), taught her Corporations Class.
Barbara's articles, The Second Circuit's Approach to the "In Connection With" Requirement of Rule 10b-5, 53 Brook. L. Rev. 539 (1987), and The Strange Case of Fraud on the Market: A Label in Search of a Theory, 52 Albany L. Rev. 923 (1988), were cited in Keith Rowley, Cause of Action for Securities Fraud under Section 10(b) of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act and/or Rule 10b-5 in Causes of Action (Clark Boardman Callaghan, 2nd ed. 2007 Supp.).
Barbara's article, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO)--Securities and Commercial Fraud as Racketeering Crime after Sedima: What is a “Pattern of Racketeering Activity”?, 6 Pace L. Rev. 365 (1986), was cited in Andrew Kinworthy, To Remedy or Not to Remedy: The Availability of Disgorgement under Civil RICO, 84 Wash. U. L. Rev. 969 (2006).
Barbara published Transforming Rhetoric Into Reality: A Federal Remedy for Negligent Investment Advice, 8 Transactions: Tenn. J. Bus. L. 101 (2006). She was an invited participant in the Conglomerate Blog's Third Annual Junior Scholars Workshop and commented on a paper by Darian M. Ibrahim.
Barbara presented Should the SEC Be a Collection Agency for Defrauded Investors? at the Corporate Women Scholars Conference at Seattle University School of Law. She also presented the paper as part of the 11th Annual UC Faculty Summer Scholarship Series.
Several of Barbara's books and articles were cited:The Corporate Law Center is assisting the Ohio Task Force on Commercial Dockets with research on the operation of business and commercial courts in the United States. The Task Force, co-chaired by Patrick Fischer, President of the Cincinnati Bar Association (and partner at Keating, Muething & Klekamp) and Judge John Bessey, was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court to assess the best method of establishing commercial civil litigation dockets in the courts of common pleas in Ohio and to develop, oversee and evaluate a pilot project. Barbara met with the Task Force members and 2Ls Philip Borger and Nicklaus McKee are working full-time this summer on this ongoing project.
Barbara was selected by the AALS Section on Securities Regulation to present a paper, Are Retail Investors Better Off After Sarbanes-Oxley?, for presentation at the AALS Annual Meeting in New York City in January 2008. The paper will be published in the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate and Securities Law.
Barbara hosted a panel discussion at the College on Professional Lives of Corporate Counsel.
Barbara's book, Corporate Dividends and Stock Repurchases, (Clark Boardman Callaghan, 1990), was cited in Charles W. Murdock, Business Organizations (West, Illinois Practice Series, 2007 Supp.).
Barbara's article, The Elusive Balance Between Investor Protection and Wealth Creation, 26 Pace L. Rev. 27 (2005) (with Jill Gross), was cited in Stephanie Thielen Eckerle, Three Strikes You're Out: The Effect and Controversies of the SEC's Attempted Mandate for Greater Independence on Mutual Fund Boards, 40 Ind. L. Rev. 149 (2007).
Barbara presented Transforming Rhetoric into Reality: A Federal Remedy for Negligent Brokerage Advice, 8 Transactions: Tenn. J. Bus. L. 101 (2006), to the faculty at Chase College of Law. She attended Northwestern's Small Business Opportunity Conference. Barbara moderated a seminar with the lawyers at Keating Muething & Klekamp on the new Ohio Rules of Professional Responsibility.
Several of Barbara's articles were cited:Barbara launched Securities Law Prof Blog as part of Paul Caron's Law Professor Blogs Network.
Barbara attended the AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. She was quoted in Neale Sold $19 Million in Company Stock, Post-Tribune, Jan. 31, 2007.
Barbara was named Charles Hartsock Professor of Law.
Several of Barbara's publications were cited:Please see Faculty News Archives for earlier issues.