Donald Trump on Trial

John C. Coffee Jr.

Yale Law'69, NYU Law'76 
Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Director, Center on Corporate Governance, Columbia University

In conversation with:

Michael Caruso

CC ‘83, CEO and Publisher, The New Republic

Donald Trump has always had an uncanny ability to get himself into legal predicaments--and to somehow get himself back out. But now the former president is facing a seemingly overwhelming number of court cases —19 separate legal actions in all—that range from charges of financial fraud and sexual misconduct to mishandling government documents and attempting to overturn an election to inciting the insurrection on Capitol Hill.

Prof. Coffee will give us his expert analysis of the most dangerous cases facing Donald Trump today, and his chances of survival or conviction.

Time will be allocated for Q&A.

John C. Coffee Jr. is a prolific scholar, frequent news commentator, and a recognized leading authority on white-collar crime and complex litigation as well as securities law, corporate governance, and class actions.

Coffee has been repeatedly listed by the National Law Journal on its annual list of The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America. His comments on current issues appear frequently in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times, and he regularly testifies to congressional committees on issues of securities and finance law.

For his work in white-collar crime, Coffee was awarded the Donald Cressey Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in 2011. For his work in corporate governance, Coffee received the Allen & Overy Law Prize in 2018 for The Agency Costs of Activism: Information Leakage, Thwarted Majorities, and the Public Morality, a paper exploring how the interests of activist investors can conflict with those of other shareholders.

Coffee’s scholarly books include Corporate Crime and Punishment: The Crisis of Underenforcement (2020), Entrepreneurial Litigation: Its Rise, Fall, and Future (2016); The Regulatory Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis with Eilís Ferran, Niamh Moloney, and Jennifer G. Hill (2012); Gatekeepers: The Professions and Corporate Governance (2006); and Knights, Raiders, and Targets: The Impact of the Hostile Takeover with Louis Lowenstein and Susan Rose-Ackerman (1988).

At Columbia Law School, where he has taught since 1980, Coffee founded and serves on the editorial board of The CLS Blue Sky Blog, where legal scholars and practicing lawyers write on current issues involving the capital markets. In his role as director of the Center on Corporate Governance, Coffee regularly organizes conferences at which leading experts in finance and law discuss and illuminate current issues in securities law and mergers and acquisitions. He frequently speaks on corporate governance and securities regulation issues in the United States and abroad.

Michael Caruso serves as the CEO and publisher of The New Republic. Previously, he was the editorial director of The Hill's Changing America. From 2011 to 2019, he was the fourth editor-in-chief of the Smithsonian magazine. Prior to that, he was a Deputy Editor at The Wall Street Journal.