In Memoriam: Ronald J. Gilson, Pioneering Corporate Law Scholar
A longtime Stanford Law professor whose influence reached across disciplines and continents, Gilson leaves a lasting legacy in legal scholarship and education.

An experienced practitioner of corporate and securities law before entering academia, Ronald J. Gilson was the author of major casebooks on corporate finance and corporate acquisitions. He wrote widely on U.S. and comparative corporate governance and on venture capital and was a reporter of the American Law Institute’s Corporate Governance Project. Professor Gilson was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the European Corporate Governance Institute and was the independent board chair for the American Century Investments in Mountain View family of mutual funds, managing over $40 billion in assets. In addition to his role at Stanford Law School, he was a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research, and the Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business at Columbia University School of Law.

Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1979, Professor Gilson was a partner at a San Francisco corporate law firm. He clerked for Chief Judge David L. Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.