History

Currently

HISTORY

The Center for Advanced Due Diligence Studies was founded by Professor Gary M. Lawrence.

In 1991, Professor Lawrence developed a formal due diligence training program for attorneys, investors, investment advisors, investment stewards, directors, underwriters and other transactional principals and professionals. The following year ALM, a leading publisher of scholarly works, asked Professor Lawrence to expand the program’s training manual into a formal treatise. After two more years of intensive research and academic collaboration, the first comprehensive due diligence treatise, Due Diligence in Business Transactions, was published. That work is now approaching its third decade of publication.

Today, Professor Lawrence works to enhance due diligence and transactional scholarship and practice through teaching, training, writing and speaking and through the activities of the Center for Advanced Due Diligence Studies. He has been a member of or active in the American Bar Association (“ABA”) Committees on Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Governance, and Federal Regulation of Securities; the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (“SIFMA”) Compliance and Legal Society, the National Association of Corporate Directors (“NACD”), the National Association of Bond Lawyers (“NABL”), Stanford University’s Center for Professional Development, the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, the Global Association of Risk Professionals, the Academy of Financial Services, and the American Securitization Forum, among others.  His scholarly work has been cited authoritatively in numerous publications, in filings before the Supreme Court of the United States, and by the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.  He has advised the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and has served as a transactional expert in a number of high-profile securities and other cases.

Professor Lawrence is and has been for more than ten years a member of the adjunct faculty of the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University where he teaches advanced due diligence studies to JD, MBA and LLM candidates. Other academic endeavors include serving as Visiting Due Diligence Scholar in Residence at Queen Mary University of London.