John Coates
John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics
Deputy Dean
Research Director, Center on the Legal Profession

John Coates is the John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School, where he also serves as the Deputy Dean for Finance and Strategic Initiatives and Research Director of the Center on the Legal Profession. Professor Coates served as Acting Director for the Division of Corporation Finance and as General Counsel for the SEC. Before joining Harvard, he was a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, specializing in financial institutions and M&A. At HLS and at HBS, he teaches corporate governance, M&A, finance, and related topics. He has testified before Congress and provided consulting services to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Department of Treasury, the New York Stock Exchange, and he served as the Chair of the Investor-as-Owner Subcommittee of the Investor Advisory Committee of the SEC.
Representative Publications
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Favorite
John C. Coates, Mergers, Acquisitions and Restructuring: Types, Regulation, and Patterns of Practice, in The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Law and Governance (Jeffrey N. Gordon & Wolf-Georg Ringe eds. 2017). -
Favorite
John C. Coates, Cost-Benefit Analysis of Financial Regulation: Case Studies and Implications, 124 Yale L. J. 882 (2015). - Considering the Index Fund Voting Process: Hearing Before the S. Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, 117th Cong. (2022) (testimony of John C. Coates IV, John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics, Harvard Law School).
- John C. Coates, SPAC Law and Myths (Feb. 11, 2022).
- John Coates, SPACs, IPOs, and Liability Risk Under the Securities Laws, CLS Blue Sky Blog (Apr. 12, 2021).