History and Mission

History:
 

The NYU Pollack Center for Law & Business was established through a unique joint venture of the Stern School of Business and the NYU School of Law in the fall of 1997.

To honor Lester Pollack for more than 25 years on the Law School’s Board of Trustees, the last eight as Chairman, the NYU Center for Law & Business was renamed the NYU Lester Pollack Center for Law & Business in 2006.

Mr. Pollack served from 1965 to 1979 as Executive Vice President and Member of the Board of Loews Corporation, and was the close advisor to Laurence Tisch, late Chairman of the NYU Board of Trustees. Mr. Pollack, Chairman and Founder of Centre Partners Management LLC, has been an active Limited Managing Director of Lazard Frères & Co. LLC since 2001. Mr. Pollack was a founding General Partner of Odyssey Partners from 1982 to 1986. Prior to that, he was General Partner and Vice President of Oppenheimer & Co. and Vice-Chairman and Co-Chief Operating Officer of United Brands from 1979 to 1981. Mr. Pollack is a graduate of Brooklyn College and earned an LL.B. from the NYU School of Law, where he serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Pollack is also a member of the University’s board.

At the dedication dinner in February 2006, Mr. Pollack said: “This evening celebrates my ambitions to give back to the school that gave so much to me.”

Mission:
 

The mission of the Center is to bring together the resources of both schools to enhance graduate business and legal education and student and faculty research in areas where law and business intersect. The Center also provides support to legal and business professionals engaged in furthering the Center's research, teaching and learning agenda.

Our mission has three principal parts:
Professional Education: To enrich the teaching curriculum of both the business and law schools through the development of a unique set of new courses offered to those students at either school who have a special interest in the interaction of law and business
Scholarship: To facilitate professional interaction, and joint scholarly work, between faculty who share an interest in the structure, regulation and function of the market economy.
Policy and Professionalism: To contribute to the public welfare through programs of professional education and development, through the support of scholarship that assists governmental and private policymakers in fashioning change that contributes to enhanced business productivity, and through the sponsorship of events that add to the public discourse on law and business.