Events Search and Views Navigation
September 2026
Reflections on President Trump’s Department of Justice
Speaker: University Distinguished Professor Bennett L. Gershman, Elizabeth Haus School of Law, Pace University
Since President Trump took office in January 2025, federal criminal prosecution and the protection of civil and constitutional rights by the U.S. Department of Justice have been sorely tested. The Watergate scandal in 1972 produced systems of control and supervision in the Department to ensure that legal decisions would not be influenced by personal or partisan considerations and that employees would use sound judgment and integrity. However, the guardrails that were established by successive Attorneys General to protect the independence of the Department from political influence and ensure that attorneys in the Department would be accountable for legal and ethical violations have broken down under the Trump administration. Federal judges in nearly two hundred decisions have rebuked the Department of Justice for unlawful and unethical conduct, protecting lawless conduct by government officials, prosecuting (better word is persecuting) Trump’s enemies, flouting court orders, and stifling dissent. In its disdain for law, ethics, and justice, the Department has become an arm of government tyranny.
Find out more »October 2026
Controllers’ Idiosyncratic Vision and the Regulation of Self-Dealing, with International Comparison
Speaker: Professor Zohar Goshen, Jerome L. Greene Professor of Transactional Law, Columbia Law School
Controlling shareholders can create substantial value by pursuing an idiosyncratic vision that outside investors may not fully understand. But control also creates opportunities for self-dealing. How can minority shareholders be protected without undermining the controller’s ability to create value?
Join Professor Goshen as he examines this tension and two principal approaches: (i) approval by disinterested shareholders or directors, and (ii) judicial review for fairness. He will also discuss Delaware’s inconsistent use of these mechanisms and compare its approach with those adopted in other countries.