Lawrence A. Cunningham

Lawrence A. Cunningham (born July 10, 1962) is an American corporate director and advisor, author, professor and lawyer. The Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, he is also the founder and managing partner of the Quality Shareholders Group and special counsel with an international law firm. Cunningham is best known as an expert on corporate governance. He is also known for his knowledge of the history and corporate culture of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett. He has served on the board of directors of many companies, including Constellation Software, Kelly Group Partners, and Markel Group.

Early life Cunningham's father died when Cunningham was 13. He then enrolled in Girard College, a high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for "poor orphans." He worked full-time to put himself through his home-state school, University of Delaware, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in economics. He then attended and graduated from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University with a JD degree magna cum laude in 1988. Career From 1988 to 1994, Cunningham practiced corporate law with Cravath, Swaine & Moore, specializing in corporate governance, corporate finance and M&A.

From 1994 to 2002, he taught at the Cardozo School of Law, where he directed The Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Center on Corporate Governance, and wrote several books on value investing. From 2002 to 2007, he was professor of law and business and vice dean at Boston College.

From 2007 to 2022, he was the Henry St. George Tucker III Research Professor at George Washington University where he founded and for many years ran GW in New York (a training program for GW Law School students interested in business law) and the Quality Shareholders Initiative (now organized as a consulting firm, Quality Shareholders Group). He has written or edited about 50 scholarly articles, including articles in law reviews, and published a dozen books. His textbook on accounting is the standard teaching book in US law schools.

Margin of Trust: The Berkshire Business Model. Columbia University Press. 2020. Dear Shareholder: The Best Executive Letters. Harriman House. 2020. Quality Shareholders. Columbia University Press. 2020. Editor, John L. Weinberg's 1948 Princeton Thesis "Status and Functions of Corporate Directors."