The Buffett Essays Symposium

Description

Among the landmark occasions in the legendary history of Berkshire Hathaway and its iconic co-leaders, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, was a 1996 symposium held in New York at Cardozo Law School. The focus of the symposium was Warren’s letters to Berkshire shareholders. The format was a series of panels with two dozen different experts dissecting all the ideas in the letters, about corporate governance, takeovers, investing, and accounting. Intellectual sparks illuminated the two-day affair, which drew unusual press interest for an academic convocation.
While the principal tangible result of the conference was the publication of the international best-seller, The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, the transcript of the symposium is now being made available with annotations and updated commentary that show just how timeless the topics are and how venerable the principles Buffett laid out remain. I had the honor of hosting the event, editing The Essays, and now publishing this archival treasure, with current assessments by such luminaries as Robert Hagstrom as well as several participants from the original symposium.

Lawrence A. Cunningham is well-known to Berkshire shareholders and other followers of Warren Buffett. A business law professor and consultant based in New York City and Washington DC, his acclaimed books include The Essays of Warren Buffett, which Buffett calls the “gold standard” in books of the genre, and Berkshire Beyond Buffett, both of which Buffett has designated for sale inside the Berkshire Annual Meeting. A member of the George Washington University faculty, Cunningham is the Founding Director of GW in New York, an intensive training program for aspiring Wall Street lawyers.
A graduate of the University of Delaware and Cardozo Law School and former corporate lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Cunningham consults on corporate governance and has served on several boards, private and public, currently including Constellation Software Inc. He also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the University of Delaware College of Business and is a Trustee of the Museum of American Finance.