2024 Austin W. Scott, Jr. Lecture Series: Digital Shareholders

Named for Austin Scott, a member of University of Colorado Law School faculty for 20 years, this annual lecture features a member of the Colorado Law faculty selected by the dean who is engaged in a significant scholarly project.

For decades, ordinary people were legally prohibited from investing in startup companies. Wealthy, so-called ‘accredited’ investors, and the friends and family of the founder, were allowed to participate—but the public was expressly excluded. This well-meaning rule was intended to protect the public from losing our money in speculative startup companies, yet it was also exclusionary and unfair—and so it was reformed.

A recent change in federal law authorized a new form of online stock market for startup companies, open to the whole public, known as ‘investment crowdfunding.’ Finally, ordinary people were allowed to invest in startup companies—and millions of Americans have already taken the plunge, investing billions of dollars in thousands of companies from coast-to-coast.

Are these investments safe? Are they lucrative? Should you join the crowd? The public is invited to an open lecture at the University of Colorado Law School by Prof. Andrew A. Schwartz. An engaging lecturer and Fulbright Scholar, he literally wrote the book on the subject: Investment Crowdfunding, recently published by Oxford University Press.

One general CLE credit pending for Colorado attorneys.

More Information


Know What’s Next