A Rights-Based Approach to Protecting the Southern Resident Orcas
Originally published as ‘Fighting for the Rights of the Southern Resident Orcas” on www.voicesforbiodiversity.org on April 3, 2019 On December 18, 2018, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Wild Fish Conservancy threatened the Trump administration with a lawsuit under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for allowing salmon fisheries to take too many salmon, which the critically […]
Watershed Rights FAQ
Isn’t advocating legal rights for nonhuman entities a bridge too far? Aren’t we better off working existing channels to protect the environment? Yeah, I was waiting for that question. There are probably a bajillion different ways of answering that objection, but for purposes of an FAQ let’s distill them into three different kinds answers: an […]
Dancing with the Devil: A Founder’s Guide to Working with Legal
In my experience, most founders and other business folks think of Legal as a cost center related to risk management, a line item under G&A, an operating expense. I think that’s completely wrong-headed–regardless of the accounting rules. Done right, Legal can be a powerful ally in scaling your business, one that’s better conceptualized as COGS. […]
Uncomfortable Connection
We spend more of our lives with our co-workers than we do with our own family. I realized this uncomfortable truth long before I was a lawyer working 80-hour weeks. Even at a modest 40 hours a week it holds true for all practical purposes, and the reality of that lived experience takes its toll […]
What is this Rights of Nature thing, anyway?
It’s a fascinating, multi-faceted concept centered around the notion that the natural world should be afforded the same legal rights and protections as humans. That’s what. The notion of ascribing legal rights to Nature is a huge topic, with a myriad of different facets, thorny questions, interesting issues, and the like. So in keeping with […]
Leaving the Unicorn
There’s a reason that people want to work for the proverbial Silicon Valley unicorn–and it’s not the shot at the equity prize. Oh, of course, that dream is present. We all gotta eat. But most professionals who have the chops to be hired by a fast-paced startup are smart enough to recognize that they’re not […]
Managing Equity Dilution from Convertible Notes
Raising startup capital by issuing convertible notes to early investors is a great way to get money in the door quickly. The great benefit is that most of the difficult negotiation gets kicked down the field a ways to the hoped for institutional round of venture financing. But can you really defer all those uncomfortable […]
