A new program represents a merger of classrooms and boardrooms
One of the main goals of the recently established Program on Corporate Governance is to strengthen ties between academia—especially HLS—and the worlds of practice and policy-making.
The program has established a board of advisers made up of prominent practitioners in the corporate governance area. Its members are Peter A. Atkins ’68 (Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom); Joseph E. Bachelder ’58 (Bachelder Law Offices); Byron S. Georgiou ’74 (Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins); Robert V. Mendelsohn ’71 (former CEO, Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Group); Theodore N. Mirvis ’76 (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz); Robert A.G. Monks ’58 (Lens Governance Advisors); James C. Morphy ’79 (Sullivan & Cromwell); Toby S. Myerson ’75 (Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison); Eileen T. Nugent (Skadden); Paul K. Rowe ’79 (Wachtell, Lipton); and Rodman Ward Jr. ’59 (Skadden). All have already participated in corporate governance events at HLS.
“Being able to draw on the advice and perspective of such a distinguished group is invaluable for the program,” says Program Director Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84. “Both faculty and students have learned much from their visits.”
The program is also able to draw on Harvard Law School’s corporate law faculty. “We have an exceptionally strong pool of talent in this field,” says Dean Elena Kagan ’86, “and facilitating connections between them and practitioners and policy-makers creates real synergies.”
Last fall, the program sponsored a series of events organized by HLS Professor Robert Clark ’72 and Lecturer Leo E. Strine Jr., vice chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, that brought many prominent practitioners to HLS. One panel focused on the recent takeover battle between Time Warner and Carl Icahn, assembling most of the key players in the contest—including Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons and Lazard’s CEO Bruce Wasserstein ’70. Another panel focused on shareholder activism, with a debate between Martin Lipton (founding partner of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz), Morphy and Bebchuk. Atkins lectured on the future of mergers and acquisitions.
Video recordings of these and other events, as well as more information about the program, are available at the program’s Web site: http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/corp_gov/.