Executive Lawyers: Gatekeepers or Strategic Officers?

We thank Andres Almazan, Shashwat Alok, Jennifer Arlen, Paul Calluzzo, Qiang Cheng, Carola Frydman, Todd Gormley, E. Han Kim, Byungjin Kwak, Ross Levine, Kai Li, Nan Li, Yinghua Li, Ulrike Malmendier, Steve Salterio, Scott Schaefer, and seminar participants at Auburn University, Harvard University, Queen’s University, Simon Fraser University, Stanford/Berkeley joint seminar, Tsinghua University (PBC School), University of Alberta, University of Amsterdam, University of Minnesota, Yale University, Econometric Society Meetings at the AEA Meetings, Canadian Law and Economics Association annual meetings, Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS), NBER Law and Economics meetings, Northern Finance Association annual meetings (NFA), Singapore Management University Accounting Symposium, Washington University Corporate Finance Conference, Financial Intermediation Research Society (FIRS) Conference, Western Finance Association (WFA) Conference, China International Conference in Finance (CICF) as well as our team of dedicated research assistants, including Any Ung, Lindsay Carter, Elise Craig, Jun Lee, Erin Shin, Ahrun Thiyagarajah, and Peter Willett. We thank Blair Morrison, Chief Compliance Officer and Deputy General Counsel of BMO Financial Group for useful conversations. Wang and Wu thank Queen’s School of Business Research Program for their generous funding support The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.