Bruce W. Bean
Lecturer in Global Corporate Law
Law College Building
648 N. Shaw Lane Rm 318
East Lansing, MI 48824-1300
517-432-6920
beanb@law.msu.edu
Degrees
J.D., 1972, Columbia Law School; A.B., 1964, Brown University
Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Bar Admissions
New York, California
Courses
Business Enterprises, Corporate Law and Policy: Doing Business in Transitional Political Systems, Jessup Team, Strategic International Transactions
Biography
Professor Bruce W. Bean began his international career upon graduation from Brown University as recipient of the first Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which enabled him to spend a year in Southeast Asia studying student political activity. After receiving his law degree, Professor Bean clerked for Judge Leonard P. Moore on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He practiced law at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett and then Patterson, Belknap Webb & Tyler, where he worked closely with Rudolph Giuliani, later Mayor of New York City. Professor Bean then worked as Counsel for Finance & Planning at the Atlantic Richfield Company in Los Angeles. He returned to New York as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of a diversified financial services company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. While in this position Professor Bean continued his active involvement in mergers, acquisitions and divestitures and actively lobbied on behalf of his company's interests in Washington.
Professor Bean lived and worked in Russia from March 1995 to August 2003. He was Managing Partner of Coudert Brothers' Moscow office until June 1998 when he became Head of Corporate and Foreign Direct Investment for Clifford Chance - Moscow, at the time the leading law firm in Russia and the world's largest international law firm. While in Moscow, he was active with the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission and served as Chairman of both United Way Moscow and the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia. He was one of the original founders of the Russian Institute of Corporate Law & Governance.
At the College of Law Professor Bean teaches Business Enterprises, Strategic International Transactions, Doing Business in Transitional Political Systems, and the Jessup International Moot Court Competition and serves as Faculty Advisor to the Journal of International Law and informal advisor to the Military Law Society. Professor Bean is co-director of the LL.M. for Foreign Lawyers Program. He has previously taught at the University of San Diego's Moscow Institute in Russia and at Columbia University's Harriman Institute.
Professor Bean is the author of "Attack of the Sovereign Wealth Funds," Michigan State Journal of International Law, (forthcoming 2010), "Yukos and Mikhail Khodorkovsky: An Unfolding Drama," in Corporate Governance in Russia, Edward Elgar Press, December 2004, "Doing Business in the New Russia," The International Lawyer, Fall 2001, and lead author of "Mergers & Acquisitions in Russia," in Corporate Acquisitions and Mergers (Kluwer Law International). His current research and writing focuses on comparative corporate governance, cross border transactions, sovereign wealth funds and international efforts to combat corruption. He has two book projects underway. One is an analysis of Russia's current Yukos affair; the other is a history of the Cold War.
During his years in Russia Professor Bean's work with the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission and as Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia brought him in close contact with many senior government officials in the Russian government, including President Boris Yeltsin, and Prime Ministers Victor Chernomyrdin, Yevgeny Primakoff and Sergei Stepashin. On the American side as well, Professor Bean met with President Clinton and Vice President Gore as well as with numerous cabinet members from both the Clinton and G. W. Bush Administrations. These included Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Secretaries of the Treasury Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Paul O'Neill, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Secretaries of Commerce William Daley and Donald Evans, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Congressional leaders with responsibility for policy and programs in Russia consulted regularly with Professor Bean during their visits to Moscow. These included Senators Carl Levin, Frank Lugar, Representatives Steny Hoyer, Richard Gephardt, Charles Rangel and numerous others. Professor Bean remains an opinion leader on Russian policy matters and continues to publish and speak on Russian American relations.
Professor Bean has made innumerable speeches and written dozens of articles, principally on topics related to doing business in Russia, Russia's political economy as well as on corruption and global corporate governance. He has been interviewed on Russian radio and PBS, and has been quoted in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, and The Moscow Times.