CLS Hosts Conference Celebrating 75th Anniversary of Berle Book

Press contact:

James O’Neill

212-854-1584  Cell: 646-596-2935

 

December 3, 2007 – Columbia Law School will host an invitation-only day-long conference Dec. 7 to mark the 75th anniversary of the groundbreaking book on business law which the late Columbia Law School Professor Adolph Berle co-authored with economist Gardiner Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property.

 

Columbia Law School Dean David M. Schizer called their work ``perhaps the most important book on business law ever written,’’ and told Columbia Law School’s first-year students during his welcoming address in September that it ``remains topical as corporate scandals unsettle our economy and as global economic competition intensifies.’’

 

 

 

 

SPEAKERS:

 

David Schizer, Dean of Columbia Law School, will give a welcome address.

John Coffee, the Adolph Berle Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, will speak on ``The Political Economy of the Berle/Means Corporation: Enforcement Intensity and International Competitiveness.’’

Mark J. Roe of Harvard Law School will speak on ``Strong Managers, Weak Owners, and Hedge Funds.’’

Lucian Bebchuk of Harvard Law School will speak on ``Invigorating Corporate Elections in the Berle-Means Corporation.’’

John Armour of Oxford University Law School and Jeffrey N. Gordon, the Alfred W. Bressler Professor of Law and Albert E. Cinelli Enterprise Professorship at Columbia Law School, will speak on ``The Berle-Means Corporation of the 21^st Century.’’

Bernie Black, University of Texas Law School, will speak on ``Unbundling and Measuring Tunneling.’’

William W. Bratton of Georgetown University Law School and Michael L. Wachter of the University of Pennsylvania Law School will speak on ``Shareholder Primacy’s Corporatist Origins: Adolph Berle and the Modern Corporation.’’

Ronald J. Gilson, the Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business at Columbia Law School, and Charles Whitehead of Boston University Law School will speak on ``Private Equity and the Future of Public Shareholders.’’

Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, stands at the forefront of legal education and of the law in a global society. Columbia Law School joins traditional strengths in international and comparative law, constitutional law, administrative law, business law and human rights law with pioneering work in the areas of intellectual property, digital technology, sexuality and gender, and criminal law.