Third Moment Consulting

John Coates is a nationally recognized expert in corporate governance, conflicts of interest, and corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions (M&A). He also has deep knowledge about financial institutional, capital markets, and securities, having served as General Counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as the SEC’s Acting Director of the Division of Corporation Finance, as a member of the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee, and as a consultant to the SEC on its first and largest Fair Fund distributions.

He has served as a monitor for the Department of Justice, overseeing a global systematically important financial institution.  As a consultant, he has advised:

• private equity fund investor committees and advisors regarding conflicts of interest, 
• mutual funds and collective investment vehicles on how to manage conflicting client interests, 
• corporate boards regarding how to consider potential litigation, and how to allocate costs and burdens associated with litigation, 
• the SEC regarding the creation and allocation of Fair Fund distributions, and
• general counsels and legal departments of large companies on how to manage internal conflicts and ethics programs.

He has served as Vice Dean of Finance and Strategic Initiatives at Harvard Law School, where he has overseen budgeting, capital expenditure planning, and financial reporting.  He teaches and researches financial reporting, analysis, and business valuation, and has taught Finance at Harvard Business School, both in the MBA program and to executives.  He chaired Harvard University’s Committee on Faculty Financial Conflicts of Interest, and an ad hoc group that helped design the University’s policies on conflict of interest.  He teaches and researches conflicts of interest at companies and partnerships, as well as their management and effects.  He is co-director of Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession, and has taught leadership, finance, and management of conflicts of interest and other aspects of corporate governance in executive education settings at both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.

Professor Coates has testified at trial and deposition in numerous matters, including before the Delaware Chancery Court; state courts in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York; and in U.S. district courts.  He has also testified before committees of both chambers of the U.S. Congress, and in state legislatures and before city councils regarding legal and corporate governance matters.

Prior to joining the Harvard faculty, Professor Coates was a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he specialized in corporate governance, financial institutions, and M&A. He has provided consulting services to the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and the New York Stock Exchange.  Professor Coates has also consulted for participants in financial markets, including individuals, hedge funds, investment banks, and commercial banks. 

His research has been published in the Harvard Business Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the Journal of International Banking, Finance and Law, Accounting Horizons, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives, among others. The NYU School of Law Alumni Association has honored Professor Coates with an award for excellence in teaching.