Judge William T. Allen, Nusbaum Professor of Law and Business and founding director of the Pollack Center for Law & Business at NYU, passed away on October 13, 2019, at the age of 75.
“Bill was a beloved colleague, teacher, and friend,” said Dean Trevor Morrison in an email announcement. “His distinguished influence as a judge and legal scholar, and his vision and commitment to NYU, will be felt for generations to come.… The NYU community benefitted greatly from Bill’s expertise and innovation, and we are very grateful to him.”
From 1985 to 1997, Allen served as chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, the nation’s preeminent trial court specializing in corporation law. The hundreds of opinions that he issued included the landmark Caremark and Time-Warner cases, which respectively addressed the obligation of boards to monitor legal compliance and a board’s ability to continue pursuing its business plan despite the threat of a hostile takeover.
Joining NYU Law in 1997, Allen taught Corporation Law, Corporate Governance, and Mergers and Acquisitions at both the Law School and Stern School of Business. In Fall 1997, Allen founded the NYU Pollack Center for Law & Business as an interdisciplinary joint venture between NYU Law and Stern. The center serves as a hub for students and faculty interested in the intersection of law and business and enriches the connections between both schools. Co-author of a leading treatise on corporation law, Commentaries and Cases on the Law of Business Organization, Allen also served as counsel at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz from 1997 until his passing.
Posted October 16, 2019