John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics

Harvard Law School
Griswold Hall #400
1525 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138

Tel: + 1 (617) 496-4420
Fax: + 1 (617) 496-5156
E-mail: jcoates@law.harvard.edu

Narrative

John Coates, IV is the John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School.  He joined the faculty in 1997 after private practice at the New York law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he was a partner specializing in mergers and acquisitions, corporate and securities law, and the regulation of financial institutions. Before coming to HLS, he taught on the adjunct faculties of New York University School of Law and Boston University School of Law.

His current research at Harvard includes empirical studies of the causes and consequences of the completion or failure of M&A transactions, including management buyouts, and of the effects of CEO tenure and option compensation on M&A in the 1990s.  He teaches courses on Mergers & Acquisitions, Financial Institutions Regulation, Contracts, Corporations, and the History of Capitalist Institutions.   Professor Coates is a principal researcher on the Program’s Corporate Purchasing Project, a quantitative and qualitative examination of how corporations purchase legal services.  He also instructs at the Program’s Executive Education course. 

Professor Coates is a frequent panelist and speaker on M&A, and a consultant to the SEC, law firms, mutual funds, hedge funds, and other participants in the M&A and capital markets. He also is a member of the Legal Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange and is a director of the American Law and Economics Association. He is the author of numerous articles on corporate, securities, and financial institution law, and for seven years co-authored the leading annual survey of developments in financial institution M&A.

Education

JD, New York University School of Law, 1989

BA, University of Virginia, 1986                        

Research and Scholarship

John Coates IV, Separating Myth and Reality in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 21 J. Econ. Persp. 91 (Winter 2007)

John Coates IV, Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry:  Evidence and Implications for Policy, Forthcoming in the Journal of Corporate Law (2007) (with R. Glenn Hubbard)

Courses Taught (2007-08)

Contracts, Spring 2008