Wednesday, March 27, 2019
12:00 pm–1:00 pm
Room 115
This year’s Pound Lecturer is Professor Stephen Bainbride, William D. Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prof. Bainbridge’s lecture is entitled Corporate Purpose in a Populist Era and focuses on the 2016 US Presidential election and similar developments parts of Europe, commentators widely acknowledged the rise of populist movements on both the right and left of the political spectrum that both were deeply suspicious of big business. This development potentially has important implications for the law and practice of corporate purpose.
History of the Pound Lecture:
Roscoe Pound, a native of Lincoln, Nebraska, is widely considered to be one of the early giants of American Legal Thought. He began his legal career in his hometown, practicing law and joining the faculty at the University of Nebraska College of Law. In 1903, Pound became dean, a role he would fill until 1910. While the dean at Nebraska Law, Pound delivered his famous address to the American Bar Association, “Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice,” a speech that prompted a widespread re-examination of the nature of our legal system. Pound left Nebraska Law in
1910 to teach at Harvard Law, and became dean in 1916. Scholars claim that Pound is one of the greatest legal minds of his time and still refer to his writings today. In 1949, the Nebraska State Bar Association funded a lectureship in Pound’s honor. “New Paths of Law,” the first Pound Lecture, was delivered in 1950 by Roscoe Pound himself.