The Case Development Initiative (CDI), including Ashish Nanda, Faculty Director and Robert Braucher Professor of Practice (pictured left), Dechert Fellow Nicholas Haas (right), and Program Coordinator Rachel Gibson (center), focuses on producing cases for use in a variety of business-oriented courses at HLS. “We’re currently working on a professional service firm case study about the risky business of hiring stars,” said Haas. “We have been interviewing at a firm that seems to have developed an excellent approach to hiring and integrating lateral partners.” Gibson explained what CDI looks for when they determine which case studies to pursue. “Good cases tell good stories,” said Gibson. “We want to develop cases that allow the reader to fully inhabit the shoes of the decision maker, and learn by wrestling with and discussing in class the dilemmas they face.”
Other HLS faculty members on the CDI team include John Coates, John F. Cogan Jr. Professor Of Law and Economics, Guhan Subramanian, Joseph H. Flom Professor of Law and Business, and David Wilkins, Lester Kissel Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession. Professor Coates has written cases on El Paso’s sale to Kinder Morgan, and Hilton’s hostile bid for ITT for his course on Mergers and Acquisitions. Professor Subramanian, who is also a professor at Harvard Business School, has contributed negotiation-oriented case studies, including Oracle v. PeopleSoft, which describes PeopleSoft’s tactics to thwart Oracle’s hostile takeover bid. Professor Wilkins has coauthored with Professor Nanda cases on innovations in legal services, including Axiom, a non-traditional provider of legal services. For more information on using CDI case studies in legal and professional education, contact Rachel Gibson, rgibson@law.harvard.edu.
