Mariana Pargendler

Mariana Pargendler’s scholarship focuses on corporate law, corporate governance, and contract law from economic and comparative perspectives.

She has published over 30 articles in various journals and edited volumes, including the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the American Journal of Comparative Law, among others. She is also a coauthor of The Anatomy of Corporate Law: A Comparative and Functional Approach (Oxford University Press, 2017), a leading academic treatise on comparative corporate law. Her work has been translated into several languages, and she has lectured widely at universities across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Her article on the grip of nationalism on corporate law was awarded the Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton Prize by the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) in 2020. Her article on the history and political economy of corporate lawmaking in Brazil was recognized with the Hessel Yntema Prize by the American Society of Comparative Law in 2013.

Before joining Harvard Law School, she served as Professor of Law at FGV Law School in São Paulo, Brazil, where she also directed the Center for Law, Economics, and Governance. Professor Pargendler has served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia, Penn, Stanford, and Yale, and has taught as Global Professor of Law at NYU’s Buenos Aires program.

Professor Pargendler holds LL.M. and J.S.D. degrees from Yale Law School, as well as LL.B. and PhD degrees from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). Prior to entering academia, she practiced in the areas of corporate governance and M&A in the New York office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.