BigLaw Disorientation: What Role do Corporate Attorneys Play in Our Global Capitalist Political Economy?

LPE at Berkeley Law and the Plaintiffs’ Law Association welcome Columbia Law Professor Katharina Pistor, author of The Code of Capital, for a discussion about the role of high-value lawyers in creating, claiming, and protecting wealth.

After most Berkeley Law students graduate, they work at a national “BigLaw” firm doing work that we’ve learned to call, for example, “Defense-Side Litigation,” “Mergers and Acquisitions,” or “Corporate Restructuring.” Before law school, these terms were alien to us. Through our training and career development support in Law School, they become familiar enough that most Berkeley Law graduates feel comfortable charting their careers under a similar jargon-laden umbrella at one of these firms. But a deeper conversation about the role of their work in our political economy is often omitted from Firm, CDO, and School programming. In The Code of Capital, Professor Pistor makes a compelling argument that through corporate practice, lawyers write and compile a “private code” of global capitalism. Join us to discuss how corporate lawyers “code” assets to create for their clients “capital” which is increasingly valuable, timeless, and backed by the coercive power of the state and the implications of this regime on our understanding of capitalism and wealth inequality.

Lunch Provided on a first-come-first-served basis. RSVP here!