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Distinguished Faculty Fellow
Greenfield, who is Professor of Law and Law Fund Research Scholar at Boston College Law School, teaches and writes in the areas of business law and constitutional law. His publications include journal articles in the Yale Law Journal, the Virginia Law Review, the Boston College Law Review, the George Washington Law Review, and the Tulane Law Review, among others. His articles are widely cited, and he has been called “the leading figure” and “the most creative thinker” in the “stakeholder” school of corporate law scholarship. Professor Greenfield is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, where he graduated with honors and was awarded membership into the honorary society Order of the Coif. Before joining the faculty of Boston College in 1995, Greenfield served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter, of the United States Supreme Court, and to Judge Levin H. Campbell, of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He also worked at the law firm of Covington & Burling, in Washington, D.C. Most recently, Professor Greenfield authored the book The Failure of Corporate Law: Fundamental Flaws and Progressive Possibilities (University of Chicago Press, 2007). In it, he outlines how, as a matter of corporate law, public corporations are not truly “public” in any sense that implies civic responsibility or concern for the larger good. Rather, as the law has evolved in just the past century, managers of most large companies are prohibited by law from taking into account the interests of the public in decision making, if doing so hurts shareholders. Greenfield argues that corporate law should return to a system in which the public has a greater say in how firms are governed. Greenfield maintains that the laws controlling firms should be much more protective of the public interest and of the corporation’s various stakeholders, such as employees or the local communities in which companies operate. Only when the law of corporations is evaluated as a branch of public law—as with constitutional law or environmental law—will it be clear what types of changes can be made in corporate governance to improve the common good. Greenfield proposes changes in corporate governance that would enable corporations to meet the progressive goal of creating wealth for society as a whole rather than merely for shareholders and executives. Learn more about Professor Greenfield and his other scholarship. |
Center on Corporations, Law & Society
The Center
on Corporations, Law & Society at Seattle University School of Law is pleased
to announce that Professor Kent Greenfield of Boston College Law School will
serve as its 2007-2008 Distinguished Faculty Fellow. Professor Greenfield, who
as a leader among progressive corporate law scholars has worked informally with
the Center on Corporations, Law & Society since its inception, will engage
in scholarship efforts and special projects to amplify the Center’s mission
of fostering dialogue and scholarship on the role law plays in understanding
the relationship between corporations and society.