Eric Talley

Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law

Full-time Faculty

Education

J.D., Stanford University
Ph.D. (Economics), Stanford University
B.A. (Economics and Political Science), University of California, San Diego

Areas of Study

Areas of Specialty

Corporate Law
Corporate Finance
Corporate Governance
Contract and Commercial Law
Economic Analysis of Law
Mergers and Acquisitions
Machine Learning
AI
Predictive Coding

Eric Talley is an expert on the intersection of corporate law, governance, and finance. He also teaches and researches in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, quantitative methods, machine learning, contract and commercial law, alternative investments, game theory, and economic analysis of law.

As a co-director of the Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership, Talley shapes research and programs focused on the future of corporate governance and performance. Talley is a frequent commentator in the national media, and he speaks regularly to corporate boards, judges, and regulators on issues pertaining to fiduciary duties, governance, and finance. He is the host of the Columbia-based podcast, Beyond “Unprecedented”: The Post Pandemic Economy.

Before joining Columbia Law School in 2015, Talley held permanent or visiting appointments at University of Southern California, Caltech, University of Chicago, Harvard University, Georgetown University, RAND Graduate School, Stanford University, and University of California, Berkeley. In 2017, Talley was chosen by Columbia Law’s graduating class to receive the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

He is the immediate past chair of the board of directors of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies and was the co-president of the 2014 Conference on Empirical Legal Studies.

Publications

“Discharging the Discharge for Value Defense” (August 2021 working paper) (featured on Bloomberg’s “Money Stuff” by Matt Levine, The New York Times DealBook, and the Harvard Forum on Corporate Governance).
“Looking Back with a Legend: Ira Millstein Reflects on the Impact of Milton Friedman’s Views on Corporate Governance,” Business Lawyer (2021) (with Ira Millstein and Leo Strine).
“Cleaning Corporate Governance” (with Jens Frankenreiter, Cathy Hwang, and Yaron Nili), 170 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1 (forthcoming 2021) (featured on Harvard Law School’s Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation).
“Contractual Evolution” (with Matthew Jennejohn and Julian Nyarko), 89 University of Chicago Law Review (forthcoming 2022) (featured on the Columbia Blue Sky Blog).
“How the Litigious Bird Caught the (Banque) Worm” (with Sneha Pandya), Columbia Blue Sky Blog (February 2021).
“Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls: Fiduciary Duties in Venture Capital Backed Startups” (with Sarath Sanga) (2021 working paper) (featured on Harvard Law School’s Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation).
“Price Gouging in a Pandemic” (with Chris Buccafusco & Daniel Hemel) (2021 working paper).
“Racial Diversity and Corporate Governance: Assessing California’s New Board Diversity Mandate” (with Courtney Murray) (reprinted in California Business Law Reporter) (2020; 2021).
“Global Investor-Director Survey on Climate Risk Management” (with Bresnahan, Frankenreiter, Hinricks, Hodzik, L'Helias, Nyarko, and Pandya) (2020).
“Patently Risky: Framing, Innovation and Entrepreneurial Preferences” (with Elizabeth Hoffman, Matthew Spitzer, and David Schwartz), 34 Harv. J. of Law & Tech 192 (2020).
“Liability Design for Autonomous Vehicles and Human-Driven Vehicles: A Hierarchical Game-Theoretic Approach” 118 Transportation Research (Part C: Emerging Technologies) 1 (with Sharon Di and Xu Chen) (2020).
“Long-Term Bias” (with Michal Barzuza), Colum. Bus. L. Rev. (2020) (featured in The Wall Street Journal).
“A Computational Analysis of Constitutional Polarization” (with David Pozen and Julian Nyarko), 105 Cornell L. Rev. 1 (2019).
“Informed Trading and Cybersecurity Breaches” (with Joshua Mitts), Harv. Business L. Rev. (2019) (featured twice on Bloomberg here and here, and on Harvard Law School’s Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation).
“Could U.S. Tax Reform See Increased Offshore Investment?” IFC Economic Report (2018).
“Appraising the Merger Price Appraisal Rule” (with Albert Choi), J. Law Econ. & Org. (2018) (featured on Harvard’s Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation).
“Appraisal Arbitrage and Shareholder Value” (with Scott Callahan and Darius Palia), J. of Law, Finance & Accounting (2018) (featured on Columbia’s Blue Sky Blog).
“Is the Future of Law a Driverless Car? Assessing How the Data Analytics Revolution Will Transform Legal Practice,” Journal of Inst. & Th. Econ. (2018).
“Law and Corporate Governance” (with Robert Bartlett), The Handbook of the Economics of Corporate Governance, Vol. 1 (Hermalin & Weisbach eds., 2017) (featured on Columbia’s Blue Sky Blog).
“Contracting Out of the Fiduciary Duty of Loyalty: An Empirical Analysis of Corporate Opportunity Waivers,” (with Gabriel V. Rauterberg), Columbia Law Review (2017) (Corporate Practice Commentator, Top Ten Corporate and Securities Articles for 2017) (featured on Harvard’s Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation).
“Finance in the Courtroom: Appraising Its Growing Pains,” Delaware Lawyer (2017).
“Designing Corporate Bailouts,” (with Antonio Bernardo and Ivo Welch), Journal of Law & Economics (2016).
“Corporate Inversions and the Unbundling of Regulatory Competition,” Virginia Law Review (2015) (Corporate Practice Commentator, Top Ten Corporate and Securities Articles for 2016) (featured on Columbia’s Blue Sky Blog).
“On Experimentation and Real Options in Financial Regulation,” (with Matthew Spitzer), Journal of Legal Studies (2014).
“Who put the ‘lie’ in LIBOR (and who should take it out)? Civil LIBOR litigation in the US,” (with Samantha Strimling), Law and Financial Markets Review (2014).
“Social Entrepreneurship and Uncorporations,” (with Jesse Finfrock), Illinois Law Review (2014).
“Left, Right and Center: Strategic Information Acquisition and Diversity in Judicial Panels,” (with Matthew Spitzer), Journal of Law, Econ. & Org (2013).
“The Measure of a MAC: A Machine-Learning Protocol for Analyzing Force Majeure Clauses in M&A Agreements,” (with D. O’Kane), Journal of Inst. & Th. Econ. (2012).
“Law, Economics, and the Burden(s) of Proof,” in Research Handbook on the Economics of Torts (2012).
“On Uncertainty, Ambiguity, and Contractual Conditions,” Delaware Journal of Corporate Law (2009).
“Public Ownership, Firm Governance, and Litigation Risk,” University of Chicago Law Review (2009).
“Going Private Decisions and the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002: A Cross-Country Analysis,” (with Ehud Kamar and Pinar Karaca-Mandic), Journal of Law, Economics and Organization (2009) (Corporate Practice Commentator, Top 10 Corporate and Securities Articles for 2009).
“Experimental Law and Economics,” (with Jennifer Arlen), Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. (2008).
“Experimental Study of Law” (with Colin Camerer) in Handbook of Law and Economics (2007).

Activities and Affiliations

Faculty Co-Director, Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership
Host, Beyond “Unprecedented”: The Post-Pandemic Economy (podcast)
Executive Committee Member, Columbia Data Sciences Institute
Immediate Past Board Chair, Society for Empirical Legal Studies, 2019–Present (Chair, 2017–19)
Board Member, American Law and Economics Association (Chair of Recruitment Committee) 2017–19
Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor in Law, Business, and the Economy, University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law, 2009–2015
Faculty Co-Director, Berkeley Center for Law, Business, and the Economy, 2006–2015
University of California, Berkeley, Campus Budget Committee, 2011–2014 (Chair, 2013–2014)
Senior Economist, RAND Corporation, 2004–2013
Ivadelle and Theodore Johnson Professorship in Law and Business, University of Southern California, 2004–2006

On Why We Teach

“Students are often told to be on the lookout for inspiring teachers. The opposite is true as well: We’re always on the lookout for inspiring students.”

—Acceptance speech on receiving the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching from the Class of 2017

Eric Talley

Publications

Activities and Affiliations

On Why We Teach

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