From “Call me Ishmael...” (Herman Melville) to "It was a dark and stormy night..." (Edward Bulwer-Lytton): there are a number of websites that wonder about the most memorable (best/worst) opening sentences in books (e.g., here, here, here)
Has there been anything like this for law journal articles? Not as far as I’m aware of. Thus, I just had a look at the opening lines of the articles published in the Journal of Corporate Law Studies between 2009 and 2011. Here are a number of good lines and a few comments:
The global financial crisis reached its peak with the catastrophic events of September and October 2008 … (Emilios Avgouleas 2009) [well, sorry, that was a bit optimistic …]
The financial tsunami currently sweeping the global markets is claiming bigger and bigger victims, starting with residential home owners, then working its way through investors and banks, before reaching nation states … (Christoph Kumpan 2009) [same issue but more open; also good how the scope of crisis is explained in few words]
Clarifying when investors can sue, who they can bring their claim against and what they have to prove in order to succeed in their claim is an important function of securities laws … (Eilis Ferran 2009) [I like the three “w’s”]
The economic position of passive capital has, in disparate ways, significantly influenced the development of corporate law … (Robert Flannigan 2009) [the “in disparate ways” makes it interesting]
Social choice theory provides an important, yet hitherto neglected, perspective on the question of whether to exclude reference to the interests of non-shareholder stakeholders within the regulatory framework governing takeovers … (Liza Rybak 2010) [good showing immediately the originality of the article in a few words]
Reform of company and/or corporations law is moribund … (David Wishart 2010) [very catchy if there weren’t the “and/or”]
The current economic crisis has been a wake-up call … (Lady Justice Arden 2010) [catchy too, though references to the crisis are now something like "it was a dark and stormy night" ...]
In corporate and financial environments the notion of risk taking is a double-edged sword … (Marc Moore 2010) [good: opens the discussion]
Investor protection is one of the major subjects in the legal and economic literature on corporate governance … (Alessio Pacces 2011) [yes, catchy but this may work for half of all articles on company law; actually, it’s possible that I’ve used similar sentences as well ...]
The pre-packaged administration is a process that has provoked numerous media attacks, commentaries and reports - not to mention a new statement of professional practice and a number of judicial interventions … (Vanessa Finch 2011) [I like the “not to mention” structure]
In terms of the magnitude of losses as well as the speed and breadth of its expansion, the current financial turmoil deserves a unique place in economic chronicles and in the history of financial markets … (Panagiotis Staikouras 2011) [There we go again, but presumably it’s correct that any crisis is “unique”]
So, what’s my favourite? Not sure, perhaps Kumpan 2009 or Finch 2011.
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