Lawrence A. Cunningham

professor of law and business and libby scholar


Larry Cunningham

At a glance...
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Libby Scholar and Professor of Law & Business
Law School

lawrence.cunningham@bc.edu

Office Location
Law School
L200

617.552.6373
    

Lawrence A. Cunningham is Libby Scholar and Professor of Law & Business.

He has written more than 30 scholarly articles and published 10 books. His books include the textbook Introductory Accounting, Finance and Auditing for Lawyers, now in its fourth edition and adopted at some 60 law schools across the United States.

Prior to entering teaching, Dean Cunningham practiced corporate law with Cravath, Swaine, & Moore in New York. He has served as a consultant to corporate boards of directors, law and accounting firms, and regulatory and standard-setting bodies and has given expert witness testimony in matters concerning corporate and securities law, as well as ethics and valuation. He was Director of the Independence Standards Board’s Task Force on Alternative Practice Structures of Auditors from 1998 to 2001 and a Member of the Securities Regulation Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Before joining the Boston College Law School faculty in 2001, he spent one year here as Visiting Professor of Law, and before that served as Professor of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, and Director of its Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Center on Corporate Governance. Dean Cunningham also has served as Visiting Professor of Law at the Law Schools of George Washington University and Vanderbilt University.

Dean Cunningham has been featured in Forbes and Money and on CNN, CNBC, and The Motley Fool Radio Show. He has been a guest on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and has appeared on or been quoted in scores of other broadcast and print media.

As Academic Dean, Cunningham prepared the book Heights of Justice, an anthology of selected scholarship from the Boston College Law School faculty, and chaired the Law School Task Force to develop a new LL.M. program in General Legal Studies at Boston College Law School.

EDUCATION

B. A., University of Delaware; J.D., Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University (Order of the Coif)

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Articles in Progress:

Selected Presentations (since 2003)

  • Presenter, Duke University School of Law Conference (February 2, 2007)
  • Lectures, University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain, October-November 2006)
  • Faculty Workshop, George Washington University Law School (October 5, 2006)
  • Presenter, Columbia University Law School Conference, Gatekeepers: The Professions after the Reforms (September 29, 2006)
  • Faculty Workshop, University of Tennessee College of Law (September 25, 2006)
  • Public Lecture, University of Tennessee College of Law and College of Business Administration (September 25, 2006)
  • Faculty Workshop, University of Illinois College of Law (September 18, 2006)
  • 18th Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics Conference (Trier, Germany, July 2006)
  • Faculty Workshop, Boston College Law School (June 2006)
  • "Auditing Unraveled." Commentary at the Institute of Law and Economic Policy 12th Annual Conference co-sponsored with Columbia University Law School (Nassau, Bahamas, May 2006)
  • Faculty Workshop, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law (December 2005).
  • Faculty Workshop, University of Minnesota School of Law (December 2005).
  • Faculty Workshop, University of California at Davis School of Law (November 2005).
  • "Reflections on Global Corporate Governance and Accounting," sponsored by the US Department of State at the University of Lisbon and at Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal, May 2005.
  • 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Schools, Section on Business Associations, "The Financial Statement Insurance Alternative to Auditor Liability." (San Francisco, California, January 8, 2005)
  • Clason Speaker Series, Western New England College of Law (Springfield, Massachusetts, November 11, 2004).
  • "The Revolution in Auditing: Corporate Governance and Liability Aspects," at the 17th Bi-Annual University of Kansas Business School/Deloitte & Touche Auditing Conference (April 29, 2004).
  • "A Role for States in the Federalized Corporate Governance Model: Audit Committee Oversight," at the University of Connecticut School of Law Conference on Corporate Governance at the Crossroads (April 23, 2004).
  • "How Behavioral Finance Challenges Efficient Market Theory and What this Means for Value Investing" at the Seventh Annual Congress on the Psychology of Investing in Boston, November 15, 2003.
  • "The Limits of Corporate Internal Controls as a Policy Option," Dean's Lunch and Faculty Workshop, Vanderbilt University Law School (October 29, 2003).
  • "How Warren Buffett Naturally Avoided the Tele-Dot-Com Binge," the First Annual Wilson Lecture jointly sponsored by the schools of law and management at Wake Forest University, October 21, 2003.
  • "Corporate Law as One Part Delaware, Three Parts American: A Comment on Professor Mark Roe's 'Delaware's Politics'," Vanderbilt University Law and Business Conference entitled "Who Makes Corporate Law?" (October 17, 2003).
  • "Sarbanes/Oxley and All That: Impact Beyond America's Shores" to the Federation of European Securities Exchanges' 7th European Financial Markets Convention, London, June 2003.
  • "Internal Controls and Risk," at the University of Illinois College of Law, Champaign, Illinois, April 2003.
  • "Sarbanes-Oxley and the Role of Lawyers in Public Companies," at Columbia University Law School, New York, New York, April 2003.
  • "Semiotics, Hermeneutics, and Cash: Solving Global Accounting’s Biggest Problem," at a conference on international accounting harmonization at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, February 2003.

Past Presentations: Dean Cunningham has made scores of presentations on various subjects, including for academic audiences at Boston College, Cardozo, Cincinnati, City University of New York (City College), California (Davis), Catholic (Portugal), Columbia, Connecticut, Cornell, Fordham, George Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Lisbon (Portugal), Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Washington University in St. Louis, Western New England, and Universidad Francisco Marroquin (Guatemala); practitioner audiences including the Practising Law Institute's Annual Institute on Securities Regulation; and investor audiences in Athens, Boston, Guatemala City, London, Munich, New York, Princeton, Toronto and Washington.

 Scheduled Presentations:

  • Presenter, University of Connecticut School of Law Conference (April 12, 2007)
  • Presenter, New York Law School, Corporate Law Conference (April 13, 2007)

COURSES

Fall '08: No courses taught
Spring '09: No courses taught

PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS

ARTICLES


OTHER

  • "Paper Tiger." The Daily Deal (Friday June 25, 2004).
  • "Personality Plus." The Daily Deal (Monday September 22, 2003): 34. Electronic version available at TheDeal.com.
  • With Jerry Bowyer. "The Crisis of Investor Confidence Calls for More Capitalism." New York Sun (July 3, 2002).
  • "Governance Reforms: Boon…or Bafflegab?" Directors and Boards 25: no.3 (Spring 2001): 25-28.
  • "The Endless Quest for Integrity in Financial Reporting." In 30th Annual Institute on Securities Regulation, v.2, 11-36. New York: Practising Law Institute, 1998.
  • Editor. "Conversations from the Warren Buffett Symposium." Cardozo Law Review 19: no.1-2 (September-November 1997): 719-816.
  • With Lester Brickman. Brief of Amicus Curiae, In the Matter of Edward M. Cooperman, 83 N.Y.2d 465 (1994) [Reprinted at University of Cincinnati Law Review 64 (1995): 42-70.]
  • With Lester Brickman. "Living With the Ban on Nonrefundable Retainers: Cooperman's Scope, Meaning and Consequences." New York State Bar Journal 66 (September/October 1994): 50-54.
  • With Daniel E. Stoller and Kenneth A. Saverin. "Institutional Ownership: Shareholder Activism and Reporting of Holdings." In Shareowner Activism: The Emerging Role of Institutional Investors, J. William Robinson, chairman, 9-28. New York: Practising Law Institute, 1987.
  • "Out-of-State Attorney Fee Forfeiture." Cardozo Law Review 8 (August 1987): 1191-1226.