The Samuel & Ronnie Heyman Center on Corporate Governance provides a wide range of expertise and rigorous faculty scholarship on the study of corporate and securities law.
Cardozo is the ideal place to study corporate, securities and commercial law, offering a comprehensive curriculum taught by professors who are recognized experts in their fields. Core courses familiarize students with the fundamental concepts and theories of corporate law, and upper-level courses focus on advanced topics and specific practice areas. In addition, special courses equip students with the skills and tools they will need in corporate practice, whether as transactional lawyers or litigators.
Opportunities for professional development and training outside the classroom abound. Cardozo’s location in New York City, the world’s leading financial and commercial center, means that students have plentiful internship and externship opportunities, including a program that places them in the legal offices of leading corporations. Cardozo also offers clinics that expose students to live clients, including the Securities Arbitration Clinic, the Tech Startup Clinic and The Indie Film Clinic. In addition, a steady stream of outside speakers, special guests and panels—many under the auspices of the Heyman Center— provides information and insight about current legal issues and corporate practice. The Heyman Center focuses attention on corporate, compliance and securities law issues and on a broad range of other corporate law-related topics by frequently sponsoring and organizing public events and lectures by prominent law and business figures and leading legal scholars.
Cardozo faculty and research affiliates of the Heyman Center write on a wide range of topics including cross-border securities offerings, derivatives regulation, corporate taxation, executive compensation, clearance and settlement regulation, corporate social responsibility and the interests of non-stockholder constituencies. In addition, the Heyman Center supports research in environmental law, financial institutions, antitrust, mass tort litigation, alternative dispute resolution (including business and securities arbitration), employment law, international and comparative business, investment and trade and commercial law.
Students become involved in the Heyman Center by participating in the programs organized by the center and working with faculty members on student and faculty research projects. Through the Heyman Center, Cardozo students learn not only about corporate and securities law but also the financial, business and regulatory contexts in which the law plays a part.
Upcoming Events
The Heyman Center focuses attention on corporate, compliance and securities law issues and on a broad range of other corporate law-related topics by frequently sponsoring and organizing public events and lectures by prominent law and business figures and leading legal scholars.
Our Faculty and Senior Fellows
Sam Weinstein
Sam Weinstein is an associate professor of law. He joined Cardozo from the U.C. Berkeley School of Law, where from 2015-17 he was a fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy. Before that, he was an attorney in the Legal Policy Section of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Division. Professor Weinstein began his career as a litigator at Munger, Tolles & Olson in San Francisco, after serving as a law clerk to Judge Edward R. Becker of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Haverford College, and received both his J.D (Order of the Coif) and Ph.D. in U.S. history from U.C. Berkeley. His research interests include antitrust, financial regulation, corporate law, and the history of the regulatory state.
Courses: Contracts, Antitrust
David Carlson
Professor Carlson is the author of more than 90 articles on the subjects of debtor-creditor law and legal philosophy. He was editor-in-chief of the Hastings Law Journal and an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. His books range from a revision of Gilmore's classic treatise, now titled "Gilmore and Carlson on Secured Lending: Claims in Bankruptcy," to two books on Hegel.
Courses: Debtors' and Creditors' Rights, Distressed Real Estate, Consumer Bankruptcy, Property
Laura Cunningham
Professor Cunningham has written on income tax, partnership tax, estate tax, and trusts & estates and is coauthor of "The Logic of Subchapter K: A Conceptual Guide to the Taxation of Partnerships," now in its fourth edition.
Courses: Federal Income Taxation, Partnership Taxation, Trusts & Estates, Estate and Gift Taxation
Mitchell Engler
Professor Engler was an acting assistant professor at New York University School of Law from 1997 to 1999 and was an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson for five years. He was an editor of the New York University Law Review and the Tax Law Review. His scholarship focuses on income tax.
Courses: Corporations, Corporate Taxation, Federal Income Taxation
Elizabeth Goldman
Professor Goldman spent seven years as senior counsel at the division of enforcement of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the Northeast regional office in New York, prosecuting federal securities law violations. While at the SEC, she received many awards, including the chairman's Award for Excellence. She began her career as a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Clarence C. Newcomer in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania before joining Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, where she worked on commercial and securities arbitrations.
Courses: Securities Arbitration Clinic, Securities Regulations, Pretrial Practice
Melanie Leslie
Dean Leslie is coauthor of leading trusts and estates casebooks (both published by Foundation Press). Her scholarship has focused on wills, trusts, and fiduciary duties in the trust, corporate and nonprofit contexts. Before joining the Cardozo faculty, Leslie clerked for Justice Gary S. Stein of the New Jersey Supreme Court and was a litigation associate at McCarter & English. Leslie graduated magna cum laude from Cardozo, where she was executive editor of the Cardozo Law Review.
Courses: Nonprofit Governance, Evidence, Trusts and Estates, Property
Jeanne Schroeder
Professor Schroeder practiced in corporate finance for 12 years as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and a partner at Milgrim Thomajan & Lee. Her scholarly interests range from commercial law doctrine to feminist jurisprudential theory. Schroeder's publications include a much-cited article on Martha Stewart's legal troubles under the securities laws, and two books that develop a feminist theory of law and economics incorporating Hegelian political philosophy and the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan.
Courses: Securities Regulation, Corporate Finance, Payments, Secured Transactions
Charles Yablon
Yablon brings to Cardozo experience as an attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and was clerk to Chief Judge Irving R. Kaufman, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is the author of numerous articles on corporate law, jurisprudence and civil procedure and teaches Corporations, Mergers and Acquisitions and Comparative Corporate Governance at Cardozo. Yablon has taught corporate law at Columbia University, New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University and a JD from Yale University.
Michael Stone
Professor Stone was a managing director and general counsel of Morgan Stanley Individual Investment Group (formerly Morgan Stanley Dean Witter) and interim chief legal officer of Morgan Stanley & Co. Prior to joining Dean Witter in April 1982, Stone was chief attorney, Branch of Enforcement at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. From 1973 to 1977, Stone clerked in the Appellate Term of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Stone is a Past President of the Compliance and Legal Division, Executive Committee of the Securities Industry Association (SIA) and served on the SIA’s Federal Regulation Committee. He serves on the Mediation Panel for the Federal District Court in the Eastern District of New York. He is a member of the ABCNY Committee on Professional & Judicial Ethics, the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution and the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. Previously, he served on the Chicago Board Options Exchange Business Conduct Committee. Stone teaches Ethics for the Business Attorney at Cardozo. Stone holds a B.A. from the State University of New York at Binghamton, a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and an LL.M. from New York University.
Matthew Wansley
Matthew Wansley researches venture capital law and risk regulation. Before joining the faculty at Cardozo, he was the General Counsel of nuTonomy Inc., an autonomous vehicle startup. Before that, he was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. He clerked for the Hon. Scott Matheson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the Hon. Edgardo Ramos on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. His research has been published or is forthcoming in the Administrative Law Review, the Journal of Corporation Law, the Indiana Law Journal, the U.C. Davis Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review.
Courses: Torts
ITRANS
The Intensive Transactional Lawyering Program (ITRANS) is part of Cardozo’s practical skills curriculum for students planning to focus on transactional practice. In this 2-week immersion course held in January, students gain essential skills needed for effective client representation in doing deals. Through a deal simulation, students learn contract drafting, client consultation, matter management and negotiation through interactive workshops and guided practice sessions designed to give them opportunities to develop their skills. The course ends with a final deal negotiation. Students are taught by Cardozo full-time and adjunct faculty, along with respected lawyers in transactional practice, who provide feedback throughout the program and critique the final negotiation.
Select Courses
Heyman/ACCA In-House Counsel Externship
This program facilitates students working with in-house corporate counsel during the academic year. Heyman/ACCA students enjoy a unique perspective on the legal structure of the corporation and the role of corporate counsel.
Some of the companies Heyman/ACCA students have worked at over the last few years include:
- Atlantic Records
- Bank of China
- Burberry
- CBS
- Chanel
- DC Comics
- Estee Lauder
- Gucci America
- Island Def Jam
- Jefferies
- JPMorgan Chase
- Kate Spade
- Morgan Stanley
- MTV/VH1
- NBC
- SONY Music
- Stuart Weitzman
- Viacom
Advisory Committee
The Heyman Scholars Program
The Heyman Center is the law school’s focal point for students interested in the practice of corporate law and for the study and research of legal issues related to business, finance and economic policy. The center focuses on creating unique opportunities for students interested in business law, organizing exclusive programs aimed at giving students direct contact with prominent lawyers, regulators and business people.
The Heyman Scholars Program is for select J.D. students at Cardozo. The program exposes them to special opportunities to learn about corporate and securities law issues and to interact with professional and academic leaders. Applications for entry into the program in Fall 2020 are due by July 15, 2020.
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Heyman Scholars Application
Corporate Compliance Program
In recent years, many large corporations, particularly in the banking and financial services sector, have dramatically expanded their corporate compliance departments. This has created attractive career opportunities for recent law school graduates interested in corporate and business law and regulation. Compliance officers are a corporation’s first line of defense against regulatory problems and allegations of wrongdoing. Compliance officers use their legal, business and counseling expertise to advise corporate executives on how to comply with the very complex regulatory environment in which modern businesses are conducted. They also prevent potential misconduct and enforce the corporations’ own standards of legal and ethical conduct. Compliance work can combine the intellectual challenge of solving complex legal problems, the satisfaction of preventing potential corporate misconduct and the security of working in a large organization with good opportunities for advancement.
To help students take advantage of these emerging opportunities, Cardozo has recently created a specialized concentration in compliance and risk management. This program is designed to teach students the substantive laws, rules and standards applicable to large business corporations, and particularly financial institutions, as well as the internal controls and governance structures by which potentially harmful conduct can be monitored and risks assessed and managed. The concentration provides in-depth instruction in such critical areas as Securities Regulation, Investor Protection, Business Ethics, Fiduciary Duties, Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing and other state and federal regulations applicable to financial institutions.
The program also includes, through its sponsorship by Cardozo’s Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Center on Corporate Governance, many special events and opportunities to hear from major business leaders, corporate counsels and government officials in specific areas of compliance. In recent years, the Heyman Center has sponsored many programs designed to be of interest to those working or planning to work in the compliance field.
Another important part of the program is the unique opportunities for internships and externships. Cardozo has partnered with major financial institutions and regulatory agencies in a variety of on-site programs designed to give our students hands-on experience and practical insights into the nature of compliance work. These partners include JP Morgan Chase; The Securities and Exchange Commission; The Commodity, Futures Trading Commission; the Financial Industry Regulatory; New York Department of Financial Services; and New York Office of Attorney General Authority.
Our aim is to help our students prepare for work in a corporate environment equipped not only with the substantive sophisticated knowledge on compliance but also with a set of meaningful connections, relationships and mentorships with alumni in corporate organizations, who are eager to support the growth and success of our students.