2024-2025 Raben Lecture: YLS Prof. and Ctr. Co-Dir. Sarath Sanga '14, Ctr. Exec. Dir. Nancy Liao '05, YLS Dean Heather Gerken, Harvard Econ. Prof. Melissa Dell, and YLS Prof. & Ctr. Co-Dir. Roberta Romano '80
Fall 2024 Chirelstein Colloquium: YLS Prof. and Ctr. Co-Dir. Sarath Sanga '14, Brent McIntosh '99 of Citi, and YLS Prof. and Ctr. Co-Dir. Roberta Romano '80
Fall 2024 Chirelstein Colloquium: Martin W. Korman '89 of Wilson Sonsini
Fall 2024 Hilibrand Series Panel: Brent Wible '03 of DOJ CRM, Michael Bosworth '03 of Goldman Sachs, Nancy Kestenbaum '90 of Covington, and Ctr. Fellow David Zornow '80
Fall 2024 Chirelstein Colloquium: Mark E. Van Der Weide '95 of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Fall 2024 Chirelstein Colloquium: YLS Prof. and Ctr. Co-Dir. Roberta Romano '80 and Ronald E. Creamer, Jr. '91 of Cravath
Fall 2024 Alumni Breakfast: Edward Rock (NYU), Zohar Goshen '90, '91 (Columbia), YLS Profs. and Ctr. Co-Dirs. Sarath Sanga '14 & Roberta Romano '80, YLS Prof. Jon Macey '82, & Marcel Kahan (NYU)
Enhancing the Business Law Experience at Yale Law School
Our wide-ranging objective is to enhance the quality of students’ educational experience and of faculty research in the business law area, by increasing exposure to and engagement with contemporary business law issues.
Our focus of study includes corporate law and the law of other nongovernmental organizations, the supervision and regulation of financial markets and intermediaries, the legal framework of finance (including bankruptcy, reorganization, and secured transactions), and antitrust and the law of regulated industries.
About Us
YLS Profs. and Center Co-Directors Sarath Sanga ’14 (left) and Roberta Romano ’80 (center), and Center Exec. Dir. Nancy Liao ’05 (right)
Our founders, Robert Todd Lang ’47 (1924-2018) and YLS Prof. and Dean (from 1994 to 2004) Anthony T. Kronman ’75
The Center was established in 1999 following conversations between Robert Todd Lang ’47 and then-YLS Dean Anthony T. Kronman ’75, and was the first of its kind in the country. Roberta Romano ’80, YLS Sterling Professor of Law, and Sarath Sanga ’14, YLS Professor of Law, co-direct the Center. Nancy Liao ’05, is the John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Executive Director. Distinguished alumni and members of the bar sit on our Board of Advisors and Yale Law School faculty members form our Executive Committee. Affiliated Faculty from other parts of Yale University regularly participate in our programs.
Visit Our History, Our Organization, and Our Endowed Funds for more.
Our Intellectual Life
Bringing Expert Perspectives to Yale
Harvard Prof. and President Emeritus Lawrence H. Summers speaking on Inflation Risks for America and the Global Economy at the 2022-2023 Winter Lecture.
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Combining Scholarship, Policy, and Practice
2023-2024 Roundtable featuring a panel on Lessons Learned from a Post-Mortem of the Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse Failures with (clockwise from left top) Randall Guynn of Davis Polk, YLS Prof. and Center Co-Dir. Roberta Romano ’80, HKS Mossavar-Rahmani Center Fellow Sir Paul Tucker (formerly of the BOE and the Systemic Risk Counsel), NYU Stern Prof. Viral Acharya (formerly of the RBI), and Yale SOM Prof. and Dir. of the Yale Program on Financial Stability Andrew Metrick (formerly of the Council of Economic Advisers).
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Supporting Inter-Disciplinary Study
2023-2024 Workshop presenters, (clockwise from left top) U. of Chicago Booth Prof. Christian Leuz, Columbia Law Prof. Eric Talley, Washington U. School of Law Visiting Prof. Lauren Yu-Hsin Lin, and Berkeley Law Prof. Manisha Padi ’17.
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Featuring Current YLS Research
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Celebrating Our Past & Present
The History of Business Law at Yale
William O. Douglas, who was Sterling Professor of Law at Yale from 1928 to 1936, was associated with the Legal Realist movement. One of the most prominent corporate law scholars of his generation, Douglas was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1939, where he served until he retired in 1975.
Yale Law School has a long and illustrious tradition in business law, starting in the Nineteenth century, and the business law faculty at Yale was key to the Law School’s emergence as a center of teaching and scholarship. The Legal Realists, in particular, established Yale’s preeminence during the 1920s to the 1940s, as they looked beyond judicial opinions by using the tools of a nascent social science in order to better understand how the law works.
For more, view
The History of Business Law at Yale.
The Simeon E. Baldwin Award
The Simeon E. Baldwin Award was established in 2007 and is presented by the Center to a Yale Law School graduate or faculty member in recognition of distinguished achievement in law and business. Simeon Baldwin, both a student and faculty member of the Law School, was the leading railroad lawyer of his day and was responsible for putting in place the Law School’s interdisciplinary tradition, which would propel Yale Law into the preeminent institution it is today.
For more on the Award and its recipients, view The Simeon E. Baldwin Award.
“Corporate law cannot be taught just by reading the latest court decisions or scholarly articles. It requires real-world knowledge of what's happening in real time on Wall Street, at the Federal Reserve, in boardrooms, and in markets spanning the globe.”
— Robert J. Giuffra '87, Vice Chair, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and Chair of the Center's Board of Advisors.
Bert W. Wasserman Workshop.