Holger Spamann L.L.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’09, an expert in corporate governance and finance, will join the Harvard Law School faculty in July as an Assistant Professor of Law. He is a former co-executive director of HLS’s Program on Corporate Governance, co-taught Corporate and Securities Law Policy with Professor Lucian Bebchuk as a Lecturer on Law in 2009, is a former Corporate Governance Research Fellow, and has given guest lectures on several occasions.
Announcing the appointment, Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow said: “We are so delighted that Holger Spamann has decided to accept our invitation to join the law school faculty. His remarkable range of expertise spans comparative corporate governance, corporate law theory, law and economics, and the diffusion of legal systems across borders. His global perspective is both rich and deep; he has studied law in France, Germany, and England; he is learned in law, economics, and history; and he speaks five languages. He is a fantastic interlocutor and accomplished scholar. For students, faculty, and the entire community, his engaged and engaging presence will be superb!”
Spamann’s primary teaching interests include corporations, corporate finance, and bankruptcy. His research has also involved securities regulation, law and economics, civil procedure, conflict of laws, comparative law, EU law and international economic law.
“I am very happy and honored to join the HLS faculty,” Spamann said. “I feel privileged to have the opportunity to work with such outstanding colleagues and students.”
Prior to entering the S.J.D. program at HLS, Spamann was a trainee (“Referendar”) under the direction of the Court of Appeals for the State of Hamburg in Germany.
He also has previously worked in private equity M&A as an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York, and as a junior researcher for the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and Private International Law in Hamburg.
Spamann has written and co-written articles in the Reviews of Financial Studies, the BYU Law Review, the Yale Journal on Regulation, the Georgetown Law Journal, the American Journal of Comparative Law, and the journals of Legal Analysis, Institutional and Theoretical Economics, International Economics and World Trade. He is a referee for the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Law and Economics Review, Business and Politics, the International Review of Law and Economics, the Israel Science Foundation, the Journal of Law and Economics, and Regulation and Governance.
His works in progress include articles on derivatives and corporate governance, methodological requirements for large-scale comparisons, and U.S. crime policy in comparative perspective.
As an S.J.D. and L.L.M. student at HLS, Spamann won a number of writing accolades, including two Brudney Prizes for Best Corporate Law Paper, two Olin Prizes for Best Law & Economics Paper, and the Addison Brown Prize for Best Private International Law Paper.
Spamann also earned an A.M. in Economics from Harvard, and expects to earn his Ph.D. in Economics this year. He holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics, as well as a German law degree from the University of Hamburg and a French law degree from the University of Paris 1. He has fluency and/or proficiency in five languages: German, French, English, Russian and Spanish.