Columbia Law School’s Center on Corporate Governance was inaugurated on June 17, 2003 with a conference called “Roundtable on Access to the Proxy Statement.” The event brought together leading institutional investors and academics to discuss the prospects for direct shareholder nomination, through a corporation’s own proxy statement, of a limited number of “watchdog” directors.

The Center accomplishes three things:
(1) it organizes and sponsors conferences, generally funded by law firms and bar associations (and, to a degree, by Columbia Law School); these conferences debate current issues and can lead to law review articles or other secondary literature expanding on the conference debate;
(2) it oversees and manages the CLS Blue Sky Blog, which describes itself as an affiliate of the center; and
(3) it employs students in editing and selecting articles, generally giving them credit hours for this work.

The Center also oversees and manages the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog, an affiliate of the center.