Dean George W. Matheson Professor of Law
Michael A. Perino is the Dean George W. Matheson Professor of Law at St. John’s University School of Law in New York. Professor Perino has also taught at Columbia Law School (2002-03, 2013), Cornell Law School (2005), and Stanford Law School (1995-1998), where he was a Lecturer and Co-Director of the Roberts Program in Law, Business, and Corporate Governance.
Professor Perino is the author of The Hellhound of Wall Street: How Ferdinand Pecora’s Investigation of the Great Crash Forever Changed American Finance (Penguin Press 2010). The Hellhound of Wall Street won the Citi Private Bank Financial History of the Year prize, and the book was named as one of the best books of 2010 by Bloomberg/Business Week, the Library Journal, and Progressive magazine. Professor Perino wrote the leading treatise on the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, Securities Litigation under the PSLRA (CCH 2000), as well as numerous articles and monographs on securities regulation, securities fraud, and class action litigation. He has testified in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives and is frequently quoted in the media on securities and corporate matters.
The SEC has retained Professor Perino to provide it with a report and recommendations (PDF) on the adequacy of arbitrator conflict disclosure requirements in securities arbitration. Professor Perino was also one of the principal developers of Stanford Law School’s Securities Class Action Clearinghouse.
Books and Monographs
The Hellhound of Wall Street: How Ferdinand Pecora’s Investigation of the Great Crash Forever Changed American Finance (Penguin Press 2010)
Securities Litigation Under the PSLRA (formerly Securities Litigation After the Reform Act) (Wolters-Kluwer 2000) (Updated semi-annually 2001 to 2013).
The Milberg Weiss Prosecution: No Harm, No Foul? AE1 Legal Center for the Public Interest, Briefly…, Vol. 11, No. 9
Book Chapters
Have Institutional Fiduciaries Improved Securities Class Actions? A Review of the Empirical Literature on the PSLRA’s Lead Plaintiff Provision, in Handbook of Institutional Investment and Fiduciary Duty (Cambridge University Press 2013). SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2175217.
Crisis, Scandal and Financial Reform during the New Deal in The Oxford Handbook of the New Deal (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2054806
Articles
Is the Price Right? An Empirical Study of Fee-Setting in Securities Class Actions, 115 Columbia Law Review 1371 (2015) (with Lynn A. Baker and Charles Silver).
A Scandalous Perversion of Trust: Modern Lessons from the Early History of Congressional Insider Trading, 67 Rutgers Law Review 335 (2014).
Setting Attorneys’ Fees in Securities Class Actions: An Empirical Assessment, 66 Vanderbilt Law Review 1677 (2013) (with Lynn A. Baker and Charles Silver).
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the Politics of Governmental Investigations, 80 U. Mo.-Kan. City L. Rev. 1063 (2012).
Institutional Activism through Litigation: An Empirical Assessment of Public Pension Fund Participation in Securities Class Actions, 9 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 363 (2012).
A New Look at Judicial Impact: Attorneys’ Fees in Securities Class Actions after Goldberger v. Integrated Resources, Inc., 29 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol’y 5 (2009) (with Theodore Eisenberg and Geoffrey Miller).
Law, Ideology, and Strategy in Judicial Decision Making: Evidence from Securities Fraud Actions, 3 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 497 (2006) (peer-reviewed journal).
SEC Enforcement of Attorney Up-the-Ladder Reporting Rules: An Analysis of Institutional Constraints, Norms, and Biases, 49 Vill. L. Rev. 851 (2004).
Stock Price Response to News of Securities Fraud Litigation: An Analysis of Sequential and Conditional Information, 40 Abacus 21 (2004) (with Paul A. Griffin & Joseph A. Grundfest).
American Corporate Reform Abroad: Sarbanes-Oxley and the Foreign Private Issuer, 4 Eur. Bus. Orgs. L. Rev. 213 (2003).
Did the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act Work? , 2003 U. Ill. L. Rev. 913, reprinted 37 Securities L. Rev. 369 (2005).
Enron's Legislative Aftermath: Some Reflections on the Deterrence Aspects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, 76 St. John's L. Rev. 671 (2002).
Securities Law for the Next Millennium: A Forward-Looking Statement, 75 St. John's L. Rev. 1 (2001).
Fraud and Federalism: Preempting Private State Securities Fraud Causes of Action, 50 Stan. L. Rev. 273 (1998).
Class Action Chaos? The Theory of the Core and an Analysis of Opt Out Rights in Mass Tort Class Actions, 46 Emory L.J. 85 (1997).
A Strong Inference of Fraud? An Early Interpretation of the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, 1 Sec. Reform Act Litig. Rep. 397 (1996).
The Pentium Papers: A Case Study of Collective Institutional Investor Activism in Litigation, 38 Ariz. L. Rev. 559 (1996) (with Joseph A. Grundfest).
Working Papers
The Lost History of Insider Trading.
Markets and Monitors: The Impact of Competition and Experience on Attorneys' Fees in Securities Class Actions, http://ssrn.com/absract=870577
Securities Litigation Reform: The First Year's Experience (A Statistical and Legal Analysis of Class Action Securities Fraud Litigation Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995), Working Paper No. 140, John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics Working Paper Series, Stanford Law School (February 1997) (with Joseph A. Grundfest).
Other Writings
The Gift of Inside Information, New York Times Dealbook (Dec. 12, 2014) (available at http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/the-gift-of-inside-information/).
What FDR Hated About Glass-Steagall, Bloomberg Echoes (Jun. 14, 2013)
How the FCIC Can Salvage Its Relevancy, Fortune.com (Nov. 2, 2010)
Another View: Lessons From Pecora Were Ignored, New York Times DealBook (Oct. 14, 2010)
Is Securities Arbitration Fair for Investors?, Written Testimony of Professor Michael A. Perino Before the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises of the Committee on Financial Services, United States House of Representatives (March 17, 2005).
REPORT TO THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION REGARDING ARBITRATOR CONFLICT DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS IN NASD AND NYSE SECURITIES ARBITRATIONS (Nov. 4, 2002). (PDF)
What We Know and Don't Know About the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Written Testimony of Michael A. Perino Before the Subcommittee on Securities of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, United States Senate (Oct. 29, 1997).
A Census of Securities Class Action Litigation After the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Written Testimony of Michael A. Perino Before the Subcommittee on Securities of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, United States Senate (July 24, 1997).
Ten Things We Know and Ten Things We Don't Know About the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Joint Written Testimony of Joseph A. Grundfest and Michael A. Perino Before the Subcommittee on Securities of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, United States Senate (July 24, 1997).