HLS Appoints Corporate Law Expert as Professor

Columbia Law School Professor and visiting Harvard Law School (HLS) professor Mark J. Roe has been named Professor of Law at Harvard--a tenured post.

Roe teaches corporate finance and corporate law at HLS.

"He is the foremost authority in the U.S. on comparative corporate governence," said Thayer Professor of Law Reinier H. Kraakman '71. "We don't have anyone [at HLS] who does exactly what he does."

According to Roe, one reason he was drawn to HLS was the school's talented faculty.

"There's a great group of colleagues in the corporate and business area; I look forward to joining them on the faculty," said Roe in a press release.

Roe has written extensively on corporate law and on new methods of corporate reorganization and bankruptcy, according to an HLS press release.

In his 1994 business trade bestseller, Strong Managers, Weak Owners: The Political Roots of American Corporate Finance, Roe analyzed the role of American populism on corporate governance.

"He's been very insightful in trying to relate corporate structure to the broader aspects of society," said Kraakman.

Roe is also an established expert on international corporate governance.

He has written about how concentrated corporate ownership, as practiced by many European social democratic countries, can hinder transparency and shareholder rights.

"He has a cross-national scope that no one else on the faculty does," said Kraakman.

"Columbia's loss is our gain," said HLS spokesperson Michael A. Armini. "We are thrilled to have him."

Roe joined the Columbia Law School Faculty in 1988. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and at the Rutgers University School of Law.

Before entering academia, Roe worked at the Federal Reserve Bank and as an associate in securities law at the New York firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel.

He received a B.A. from Columbia University in 1972.