Project for Law & Business Ethics

From: RDShatt@aol.com
To: Eric.Chaffee@notes.udayton.edu
Sent: 9/21/2011 4:02:21 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Is this within your law and business ethics project?
Dear Professor Chaffee,

The Project for Law and Business Ethics website says, "The project's mission is to explore the role of law and lawyers in promoting the ethical operation of business entities and preventing ethical breaches before they occur."

I think my article Does the Civil Liability System Undermine Business Ethics? discusses a matter that should qualify for and is worthy of exploration in your law and business ethics project. Would you care to comment?

Thank you.

Rob Shattuck


From: RDShatt@aol.com

To: eric.chaffee@notes.udayton.edu
Sent: 11/10/2011 7:04:20 A.M. Central Standard Time
Subj: Fwd: Is this within your law and business ethics project?
Dear Professor Chaffee,

I am following up on the below email I sent you in September. I continue interested in whether you think this is worthy of exploration in your law and business ethics project.

I have this project of my own to investigate the views and analyses that multiple interested parties have concerning the subject of entity level liability versus officer and employee individual liability as a means to deter corporate wrongdoing. Could I make my project informally part of your law and business ethics project? Isthere another faculty advisor for the law and business ethics project who you think would be interested in collaborating on my project?

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Rob Shattuck 

From: Eric.Chaffee@notes.udayton.edu
To: RDShatt@aol.com
Sent: 11/10/2011 10:15:16 P.M. Central Standard Time
Subj: Re: Fwd: Is this within your law and business ethics project?
Rob,

Thank you for your inquiry. Although your project looks interesting, unfortunately, the Project does not have the resources to collaborate at this point.

Best,

Eric

Eric C. Chaffee
Associate Professor
Chair, Project for Law & Business Ethics
University of Dayton School of Law
300 College Park Dr.
Dayton, OH 45469-2772
937-229-4622

From: RDShatt@aol.com
To: Eric.Chaffee@notes.udayton.edu
CC: beqeditor@uncc.edu, KDarcy@theecoa.org, pat@ethics.org
Sent: 11/12/2011 5:58:52 A.M. Central Standard Time
Subj: Re: Is this within your law and business ethics project?
Thank you very much for replying, Eric.

It's too bad your Project for Law & Business Ethics doesn't have the resources at the moment, because I think my project is dead center in the intersection of law and business ethics that your Project touts.

I have been corresponding with recent Business Ethics Quarterly authors. I think my topic is being overlooked and it has great promise for numerous interesting research questions and also much multi-disciplinary appeal. If you wish to judge about this for yourself, you should look at my email correspondence at the following three links: link1, link2 and link3 . Also, you should look at my article "Whither the Quest of Business Ethicists?" that I tried to get published in Business Ethics Quarterly in 2009 and my correspondence with Professor Weaver regarding the same that is here.

The idea of altering the legal machinery to make individual officers and employees more accountable is extremely challenging. There may be legitimate grounds for not doing so. Corporate management could be adamantly opposed. I think ethics and compliance officers are inhibited from speaking on the subject because of what management may think. (Again, if you would like to judge for yourself, take a look at the many blog posts I have under the label "F1. ECOA" that are here.)

The Ethics Resource Center did a 2010 white paper Ethical Leadership and Executive Compensation: Rewarding Integrity in the C-Suite that argues for some things that may not be viewed entirely favorably by corporate management. I used that white paper and also the ERC's 2010 white paper Too Big To Regulate: Preventing Misconduct in the Private Sector to urge the Ethics Resource Center to extend its work to my topic as well. See this email and this email.

Until I find someone else willing to collaborate with me, please consider that you have a standing offer for my project to be incorporated in your Law & Business Ethics Project and worked on by me on an unpaid basis.

Sincerely,

Rob Shattuck