Academic Focus: Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership
The center engages business leaders and the legal community to strengthen corporate governance and performance while illuminating major issues facing corporate law.
If New York is a capital of capital, Columbia Law School’s Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership is a capital of the study of capital.
Through conferences, forums, lectures, scholarly publications, and even a podcast, the Millstein Center presents programs for corporate leaders and law students and generates independent, cutting-edge research.
“We’re advancing the conversation on corporate governance, corporate law, and the role of corporations in society,” says Dorothy S. Lund, Columbia 1982 Alumna Professor of Law. Lund is faculty co-director of the Millstein Center along with Jeffrey Gordon, Richard Paul Richman Professor of Law, and Eric Talley, Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business.
To achieve its mission, the center not only capitalizes on Columbia Law School’s strengths in corporate and business law but also takes full advantage of the school’s location in New York City, home to major corporations and financial institutions as well as the Big Law firms that represent them. The proximity gives the Millstein Center “access to incredible people in the world of business and law,” Lund says. “This is why many students come to Columbia Law School: for this focal point where businesspeople, legal minds, and students all come together.”
Organizers design the center’s conferences to tackle the most current issues in corporate governance, transactions, and regulation. Whether the topic is a recent change to Delaware corporate law (and ensuing litigation) or the increasing role of private equity firms on corporate boards, there is no lack of complex issues to discuss, Lund says. “That’s the goal: to be really on the cutting edge, the bleeding edge, of corporate law, which is very exciting at this moment in time.”
Among the center’s signature events is an annual conference on mergers and acquisitions that features discussions by M&A practitioners, regulators, and legal scholars. The 2025 event featured a panel on antitrust that included Associate Professor of Law and former Chair of the Federal Trade Commission Lina Khan. Speakers have also included members of the Delaware Supreme Court and Court of Chancery, where the most significant corporate disputes are heard.
The center was founded by Ira M. Millstein SEAS ’47, LAW ’49 (1926–2024), who practiced law for more than 70 years at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and was a noted authority on antitrust law. Millstein initially established the center at Yale University; it moved to Columbia Law School in 2012.
In 2024, to honor its founder, the center launched the Ira M. Millstein Memorial Conference, which explores fast-moving developments in capital markets and corporate governance. The second annual conference, held in 2025, included panels on the impact of private equity investing, new Delaware corporate law, corporate political involvement, and changes in Securities and Exchange Commission guidance. The conference is an additional large public event to explore current topics with a variety of viewpoints represented, “which is critical in today’s polarized environment,” says Erica Mitnick Klein, the center’s executive director.
The center’s advisory board helps guide center programming, and its members participate in conference panels. Jim Millstein ’82, Ira Millstein’s son, serves as the board’s chair and is carrying on the Millstein family legacy. Co-chair of Guggenheim Securities and former chief restructuring officer for the U.S. Treasury, Millstein brings his dual experience in government and the private sector to his role at the center, which has a focus on programming that explores the relationship between corporate and political governance. Another longstanding leader of the center, David Nierenberg, draws on his deep governance expertise as chair emeritus.
Advisory board members also provide a sounding board for scholarly research. “Having access to our incredible board is particularly useful for developing research projects,” Lund says. “And they’re excited to engage because they really care about corporate governance and enjoy advancing the conversation.” This collaboration—between the center’s faculty co-directors, board members, and participants—in programming “vastly improves the research that we all do as scholars,” says Lund.
For Columbia Law students, the Millstein Center offers lunchtime panels and a distinguished speaker series, as well as student fellowships. In addition, the center’s long relationship with the Delaware Court of Chancery has led students to clerk for judges there.
“Millstein Center speakers and programs offer students the chance to learn from and network with accomplished professionals in corporate law and M&A,” Talley says. “It’s an unrivaled opportunity for law students headed for careers in a dynamic and exciting field.
Talley and Lund also host a podcast, Beyond Unprecedented: The Post-Pandemic Economy, which is produced by the Millstein Center and Columbia Law School and kicked off its fifth season in February (see more below).
Ultimately, the directors say that the center’s focus is of interest to a broad audience. “Corporations and large shareholders are centers of power,” says Lund. “For that reason alone, [corporate governance] matters. It matters to your 401(k) account, and it matters because these people and these entities are shaping our world.”
