Martin Lipton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Martin Lipton (born June 22, 1931 in Jersey City, New Jersey) is a prominent American lawyer. He is a founding partner of the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz specializing in advising major corporations on mergers and acquisitions and matters affecting corporate policy and strategy. He has written and lectured extensively on these subjects. Martin Lipton was Editor-in-Chief of the New York University Law Review (1954–1955), and from 1958–1978 Lipton taught courses on Federal Regulation of Securities and Corporation Law as a Lecturer and Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University School of Law.
Since 1976, Lipton has been a member of the Board of Trustees of New York University; since 1998, he has been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of New York University. Since 1972, Mr. Lipton has been a trustee of the New York University School of Law (Chairman 1988–1998). Mr. Lipton is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute, and a director of the Institute of Judicial Administration.
In 1979 Mr. Lipton authored Takeover Bids in the Target’s Boardroom, the seminal article advocating the right of a board of directors to take into account the interests of all the constituencies of the corporation, a position adopted by the Delaware Supreme Court in 1985, and in more than thirty other states by statute or judicial decision and in the Companies Act of 2006 of Great Britain. Lipton served as special counsel to the City of New York in connection with the fiscal crisis (1975–1977), as special counsel to the United States Department of Energy (1979–1980) and as Acting General Counsel of the United States Synthetics Fuel Corporation when it was established in 1980.
In 1982 Lipton created the Shareholders Rights Plan or poison pill, which has been described by Prof. Ronald Gilson of the Columbia and Stanford Law Schools as "the most important innovation in corporate law since Samuel Dodd invented the trust for John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil in 1879." In 1992 Lipton served on the Subcouncil on Corporate Governance and Financial Markets of the United States Competitiveness Policy Council which resulted in his co-authoring with his fellow member of the Subcouncil, Prof. Jay Lorsch of The Harvard Business School, an article A Modest Proposal for Improved Corporate Governance, which became the template for much of the basic corporate governance principles that were adopted in the 1990s. Lipton served as counsel to the New York Stock Exchange Committee on Market Structure, Governance and Ownership (1999–2000), as counsel to, and member of, its Committee on Corporate Accountability and Listing Standards Corporate Governance (2002) and as Chairman of its Legal Advisory Committee (2002-2004). Mr. Lipton is a Member of the Executive Committee of the Partnership for New York City and served as its Co-Chair (2004-2006).
Mr. Lipton has a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an L.L.B. from the New York University School of Law. He is a member of The American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a Chevalier de Légion d’Honneur.
