Welcome
What is a corporation? Twenty years ago, Henry Hansmann and Reinier Kraakman argued that the corporate form empowers firms to hold assets and enter contracts as entities separate from their owners and managers. One dimension of this, “limited liability,” was well-known; it shields the assets of a firm’s owners from the firm’s creditors. More important, Hansmann and Kraakman argued, is the reverse of limited liability—that the law shields the assets of a firm from the creditors of the firm’s owners.
This phenomenon, later termed “entity shielding,” is not only highly efficient but could not practicably be achieved by contract. In the 20 years since their classic paper, a large, global, and interdisciplinary field has emerged to study the ways in which the law defines organizational forms and the consequences of those choices.
At the 2022 Transnational Law Conference, “The Essential Role of Organizational Law” 20 Years Later: Exploring the Field That Emerged,” distinguished scholars will discuss and extend these themes across a variety of disciplines.
Conference Schedule
- Henry Hansmann, Oscar M. Ruebhausen Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale University
- Reinier Kraakman, Ezra Ripley Thayer Professor of Law, Harvard University
- Ron Harris, Kalman Lubowsky Professor of Law and History, Tel-Aviv University
- Vic Khanna, William W. Cook Professor of Law, University of Michigan
- Naomi Lamoreaux, Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics and History, Yale University
- Veronica A. Santarosa, Professor of Law, University of Michigan
- Anne Choike, Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the Equitable Entrepreneurship & Innovation Law Clinic, Michigan State University
- Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, Professor of Law and Economics, University of Amsterdam
- Peter Molk, Professor of Law, University of Florida
- Henry Smith, Fessenden Professor of Law, Harvard University
- Robert Anderson, Professor of Law, Pepperdine University
- Gabriel Rauterberg, Professor of Law, University of Michigan
- Geeyoung Min, Assistant Professor of Law, Michigan State University
- Mariana Pargendler, Professor of Law, Fundação Getulio Vargas
- Richard Squire, Alpin J. Cameron Chair in Law, Fordham University
- Andrew Verstein, Professor of Law; University of California, Los Angeles
- Ken Ayotte, Robert L. Bridges Professor of Law; University of California, Berkeley
- Anthony J. Casey, Donald M. Ephraim Professor of Law and Economics, University of Chicago
- Ofer Eldar, Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance; Duke University
- Michael Francus, Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law, Harvard University
- Nadya Malenko, Associate Professor of Finance, University of Michigan Ross School of Business
- Andrew Verstein, Professor of Law; University of California, Los Angeles
- Julian Arato, Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
- John Armour, Professor of Law and Finance, University of Oxford
- Luca Enriques, Professor of Corporate Law, University of Oxford
- Usha Rodrigues, University Professor and M.E. Kilpatrick Chair of Corporate Finance and Securities Law, University of Georgia