For Immediate Release
October 4, 2007

Contact:

Kara Tershel, (202) 662-9500

Professor William Bratton

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Georgetown University Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff is pleased to announce the appointment of Georgetown Law Professor William Bratton to the newly established Peter P. Weidenbruch, Jr., Professorship in Business Law. He will be formally installed in a ceremony at the Law Center on October 19.

Established by David R. Belding, Georgetown Law Class of 1971, the Weidenbruch Professorship recognizes Weidenbruch’s distinguished service as a member of the Georgetown Law faculty for more than 40 years.

"As a leading scholar in the fields of business law, corporate legal theory and law and economics, Bill Bratton is ideally suited for this professorship," Aleinikoff said. "We are deeply grateful to David Belding for honoring his friend and mentor, Peter Weidenbruch, with this meaningful tribute which will enhance the Law Center’s strong reputation in the field of business law."

Bratton joined the Georgetown Law faculty in 2003. He is a research associate at the European Corporate Governance Institute in Brussels, a professorial fellow in the department of business law at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and a member of the American Law Institute, the American Economics Association and the American Finance Association.

Professor Peter P. Weidenbruch, Jr.

At Georgetown Law, Bratton teaches corporations, corporate finance and legal accounting, and has conducted workshop series in law and economics and corporate legal theory. He has published articles on corporate law, legal history and law and economics, and is the editor of "Corporate Finance: Case and Materials" and the co-editor of a collection of essays on regulatory competition. Before coming to the Law Center, Bratton served on the faculties of Cardozo Law School, Rutgers School of Law-Newark and George Washington University School of Law. He has been a visiting professor at Duke, Stanford and the University of Leiden.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Columbia College, Bratton received his law degree at Columbia Law School, where he was articles editor of the Columbia Law Review. He served as law clerk to Judge William H. Timbers of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and practiced corporate law at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York.

Weidenbruch received his J.D. from Georgetown Law in 1956 and his LL.M. in taxation in 1957. He served as special attorney in the Tax Court Division of the IRS Chief Counsel’s Office and as tax counsel to Mobil Oil Corporation before joining the Georgetown Law faculty in 1965. During 1972 and 1973, he served as assistant to the commissioner and as assistant commissioner at the IRS. He has also held numerous positions in the Tax Section of the American Bar Association.

In 1975, Weidenbruch was named the Ralph H. Dwan Professor of Taxation at Georgetown Law, where he also served as associate dean for graduate programs from 1975 to 1979. In 1986, he was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from Georgetown. He was named faculty member of the year in 1994, recipient of the Paul R. Dean Alumni Award in 1996 and recipient of the Frank Flegal Award as the outstanding teacher of the year in 1999. He has served as a member of the Law Center’s National Law Alumni Board since 1986.

Belding is the co-founder and director of Max Petroleum, a publicly traded company that focuses on the exploration and production of petroleum in the Republic of Kazakhstan. After graduating from Georgetown Law, he served as a law clerk to the Nevada Supreme Court. He then joined the Reno law firm that later became Breen, Young, Whitehead & Belding, where he concentrated in federal taxation, real property, corporations and commercial litigation.

In 1977, Belding founded Gold Strike Resorts, where he was managing partner and general counsel until 1995. He later served as senior manager at Mandalay Resort Group and as general counsel of Mandalay Development. A partner and member of the advisory board of Valor Equity Partners, he has also been involved in the formation of several private and publicly held companies in the fields of biotechnology and telecommunications. Belding received a B.S. in economics and finance from the University of Arizona in 1968.

 

About Georgetown University Law Center 

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It has the largest full-time faculty in the nation and is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body representing more than 60 countries.

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