The 24th Annual F.G. Pileggi Distinguished Lecture in Law, sponsored by The Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the lead law review of Delaware’s Widener University School of Law, was presented today by Professor Eric Talley, a visiting professor this year at Harvard Law School.  Here is a short description of this year’s event with a link to a video of the presentation. 

The prior 23 Annual Distinguished Pileggi Lecturers have been listed here. My posts about last year’s Distinguished Pileggi Lecturer (and reference to the two prior years) is available here. Some background on how the Annual Lecture began is described here. 

UPDATE: The Delaware Law Weekly has a story about it here. The Delaware Corporate Litigation Reporter, published by Thompson-West, also has an article about it that they graciously allowed me to reprint on this blog here.

A  partial abstract of this year’s Distinguished Lecture in Law by Professor Eric Talley,  held at the Hotel duPont in Wilmington, Delaware, on October 10, 2008,  is as follows:

How Complexity Simplifies Corporate Law, Governance, and Incentives

ABSTRACT:

Complexity makes corporate law and governance both challenging and interesting. Indeed, the modern corporate enterprise must mediate and regulate a vast number of conflicting interests, claims, constituencies and authority relationships. Within the shadowy interstices of these conflicts, coordination and incentive problems tend to propagate and thrive. In many ways, the key challenge of corporate law is that of constructing balance amid the chaos of these competing forces.