Authoring a paper called “How Twitter Is Disrupting Shareholder Activism,” led Professor Seth Oranburg to additional research on corporate governance. That piece also led to him publishing a book with Cambridge University Press.
“Their managing editor called me out of the blue and said he’d read my Twitter article,” says Oranburg, a new Professor at UNH Franklin Pierce, who spent the previous six years at Duquesne University School of Law. “He wondered if I was planning a book on the topic. I decided I was going to do just that.”
The resulting work, A History of Financial Technology and Regulation: From American Incorporation to Cryptocurrency and Crowdfunding, published at the end of March. Oranburg’s guide is written for a relatively broad audience, including law students looking to gain a better understanding of financial regulation. “Anyone who is interested in business,” Oranburg says, “will find something useful in the book.”
As indicated in the title, the publication also looks backwards to help explain present trends by tracking the history of finance, beginning in 1791. Oranburg hopes to eventually teach a seminar at UNH Franklin Pierce based on the book, with students reading the chapters along with source materials and newer articles, then writing their own reactions and opinions.
“At the end of the day, I suppose my target audience is anyone who is looking for a new perspective on finance and the law,” he says, “and who wants to engage with a critical approach to these topics.”
A graduate of the University of Chicago School of Law, Oranburg began his legal career as a congressional intern and became an antitrust paralegal at the Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, LLP in Washington, D.C., before applying to law school. It was at Chicago that he delved deeper into antitrust policy. He spent a summer working in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, before returning to Cadwalader the following year.
“In my third year of law school, I got involved in a new corporate law clinic that specialized in transactional work for major corporations like Microsoft and Verizon,” Oranburg shares. “Meanwhile, I created a student organization called Law Inc. that, through the clinic’s supervision, gave legal advice to startup businesses and entrepreneurs in Chicago’s business school New Venture Challenge.”
After passing the Bar in California, Oranburg worked at Fenwick & West LLP in Silicon Valley, where he helped startups incorporate, get financing, sell to larger corporations, and go public. Oranburg’s teaching career began with visiting professorships at Florida State University College of Law and Chicago-Kent College of Law. He joined the Duquesne Law faculty in 2016, where he directed the JD/MBA joint degree program, among other leadership roles; was the 2018 recipient of the Dr. John and Liz Murray Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship; and the 2019 recipient of a Presidential Scholarship Award.
Oranburg’s primary scholarship interests include financial regulation, corporate governance, and contract law, which he addresses in A History of Financial Technology and Regulation. He offers three bullet points from the book: Financial technology is as old as finance itself, so we can learn many lessons by looking at analogies and distinctions throughout history to modern financial innovations; Bitcoin was only the first cryptocurrency, and it may not survive, but the blockchain created to power bitcoin allows for decentralization of finance much more broadly; and financial technology will change more rapidly than conventional rulemaking through legislation or administrative agencies can handle, so new methods for regulating emerging financial technology must be developed.
“Jargon is probably the biggest reason why people have trouble learning finance and regulation,” Oranburg explains. “There are so many terms that are impossible to understand with just a common vernacular. The solution, I hope, is a book like this one that takes the time to say what financial and legal terms mean using common language to approach the topic. Ultimately, I hope people realize they can learn about finance and law, even if these topics are new and unfamiliar to them.”
In making the decision to leave his post at Duquesne, Oranburg was drawn to the excellence of the intellectual property program at UNH Franklin Pierce. He was impressed by the students and felt the desire to teach contract law to emerging lawyers who plan to use their law licenses to help people grow businesses and create new technologies. He will begin by teaching Contracts to both residential and hybrid students and eventually hopes to teach courses in business, commercial, corporate, and securities law.
Oranburg also has an interest in leveraging technology to improve education, especially legal education. He is particularly fond of the hybrid JD program that allows students to pursue a law degree without having to relocate. He wants to play a role in continuing to increase access to that online legal education.
“I am thrilled to be joining a community of people who are likewise interested in creating and germinating new ideas and inspiring others to become more entrepreneurial and inventive,” Oranburg says. “So the first thing that drew me here is the people and wanting to be part of this community of scholars and teachers.”
