David H. Webber
Professor of Law
Paul M. Siskind Scholar
Biography
David H. Webber is the author of the critically-acclaimed book, The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon, published by Harvard University Press. The book argues that labor has a massive untapped source of shareholder power in its trillions of dollars in pension assets. Webber toured extensively for the book and published op-eds about it in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. It was reviewed or otherwise covered in the New York Review of Books, the Financial Times, Publisher’s Weekly, Bloomberg Radio, CSPAN’s BookTV, Forbes, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, the Harvard OnLabor blog, Cornell University’s ILR Review, Rorotoko, de Volkskrant, Calcalist, Splinter News, The National Review and Dissent. It was published in Korean in 2020.
In 2022, Webber published scholarly articles in the Harvard Business Law Review, the University of Chicago Business Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Business. He has a coauthored paper forthcoming in the Stanford Journal of Law, Business, and Finance and has previously published in the New York University Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. He has presented his research at the Harvard Stanford Yale Junior Faculty Forum, the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, and the American Law and Economics Association conference. His coauthored article, “Shareholder Value(s): Index Fund ESG Activism and the New Millennial Corporate Governance,” was selected as one of the top ten corporate and securities law articles of 2020 in a national survey of law scholars by Corporate Practice Commentator.
The BU Law Class of 2023 voted him the Mark Pettit Teaching Award winner. He also won the 2023 Dean’s award for excellence in teaching. In 2017 he was awarded the Michael Melton Award for Teaching Excellence. He has also received the Dean’s award for service to the law school in 2020 and 2021. He co-teaches the Pensions and Capital Stewardship course for the Harvard Trade Union program at Harvard Law School, where he also spent Spring 2024 as a fellow for the Center for Labor and A Just Economy. He has served as Visiting Chair in Business Law at Tel Aviv University Law School and has taught at Reichman University and Boston College Law School. He is a graduate of Columbia and NYU Law School, where he was an editor for the law review.
Watch: Professor David Webber discusses The Rise of the Working Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon
- Profile Types
- Faculty, Full-Time Faculty, and Professors & Clinical Instructors
- Areas of Interest
- Civil Procedure, Corporate, Business & Transactional Law, ERISA, Mergers & Acquisitions, Securities, and Shareholder Activism & Litigation
Publications
Scroll left to right to view all publications
-
Alvin Velazquez & David H. Webber, Interview with David Webber: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of Labor's Capital, 99 Chicago-Kent Law Review (2024)
Scholarly Commons -
Michal Barzuza, Quinn Curtis & David H. Webber, The Millennial Corporation: Strong Stakeholders, Weak Managers 28 Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance (2023)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber & Connor S. Flaherty, Chapter 8: What is the purpose of securities regulation?, in 11 Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, (2023)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, The Humanities Strike Back: (E)ESG and Justice Strine Challenge Gamer Shareholder Primacy 24 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law (2022)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Labor’s capital in the twenty-first century 63 Labor History (2022)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Should Labor Abandon Its Capital? A Reply to Critics 12 Harvard Business Law Review (2022)
Scholarly Commons -
Michal Barzuza, Quinn Curtis & David H. Webber, ESG and Private Ordering 1 The University of Chicago Business Law Review (2022)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Are We Ready for the Next Recession? A Review of Yair Listokin’s Law and Macroeconomics: Legal Remedies to Recessions 22 Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies (2021) (book review)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Carmen Lu & Lisa Fairfox, Second Panel Discussion - Symposium: Who Makes ESG? Understanding Stakeholders in the ESG Debate, 26 Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law (2021)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Rethinking "Political" Considerations in Investment 46 Delaware Journal of Corporate Law (2021)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Michal Barzuza & Quinn Curtis, Shareholder Value(s): Index Fund ESG Activism and the New Millennial Corporate Governance 93 Southern California Law Review (2020)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, The Other Janus and the Future of Labor’s Capital 72 Vanderbilt Law Review (2019)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Reforming Pensions While Retaining Shareholder Voice 99 Boston University Law Review (2019)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon (2018)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Research Handbook on Representative Shareholder Litigation (2018)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Lead Plaintiffs and Lead Counsel in Deal Litigation, in Working Paper (2016)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber & Adam B. Badawi, Does the Quality of the Plaintiffs' Law Firm Matter in Deal Litigation? 41 Journal of Corporation Law (2015)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Shareholder Litigation Without Class Actions 57 Arizona Law Review (2015)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, The Use and Abuse of Labor's Capital 89 New York University Law Review (2014)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Private Policing of Mergers & Acquisitions: An Empirical Assessment of Institutional Lead Plaintiffs in Transactional Class and Derivative Actions 38 Delaware Journal of Corporate Law (2014)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, The Plight of the Individual Investor in Securities Class Actions 106 Northwestern University Law Review (2012)
Scholarly Commons -
David H. Webber, Is 'Pay-to-Play' Driving Public Pension Fund Activism in Securities Class Actions? An Empirical Study 90 Boston University Law Review (2010)
Scholarly Commons
In the Media
Scroll left to right to view all in the media posts
-
The 194th General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts June 9, 2025
Combatting Antisemitism
David Webber testifies.
read more -
Franklin Observer June 8, 2025
People, Power, and Politics
David Webber is mentioned.
read more -
Boston Globe August 27, 2024
Brown University Gets Warning from 24 States on Israel Divestment Vote
David H. Webber is quoted.
read more -
The Regulatory Review August 24, 2024
Enhanced Regulatory Oversight in ESG Investing
David H. Webber's research is mentioned.
read more -
Newsweek May 13, 2024
Colleges Divesting from Israel Face a Ben & Jerry’s Meltdown | Opinion
David H. Webber pens an opinion.
read more -
Washington Post April 23, 2024
White House Calls on Pension Funds To Adopt Stronger Labor Standards
David Webber is quoted.
read more -
Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog March 20, 2024
The Millennial Corporation: Strong Stakeholders, Weak Managers
David Webber co-authors a piece.
read more -
LexBlog
The Millennial Corporation: Strong Stakeholders, Weak Managers
David Webber co-authors a piece.
read more -
The American Prospect October 14, 2023
Workers Funding Other Workers’ Misery
David Webber is quoted.
read more -
American Prospect October 4, 2023
Workers Funding Other Workers’ Misery
David Webber is quoted.
read more -
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance August 21, 2023
Shareholder Rights: Assessing the Threat Environment
David H. Webber is quoted.
read more -
NPR July 10, 2023
Businesses, Governments Clash over How to Tackle Climate Change
David Webber is quoted.
read more -
Barron's July 1, 2023
Culture Wars Put American Companies on the Defensive
David Webber is quoted.
read more -
E&E News Climatewire June 22, 2023
States Shrug Off Warnings, Plow Ahead with Anti-ESG Laws
David Webber is quoted.
read more -
POLITICO
States Push Costly GOP War on Climate Investing
David Webber is quoted.
read more - View All Articles
Stories from The Record
Activities & Engagements
No upcoming activities or engagements.
Review of Banking and Financial Law and the Brookings Institution 2024 Symposium: The Politics of Financial Regulation
Get DetailsBook Talk: The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon
Get DetailsG20 Pensions & ESG Forum
Get DetailsMeet the Author: Rise of the Working Class Shareholder
Get DetailsNew Business Scholarship: New and Recent Books on Business and Business Law
Get DetailsWorkshop in Law, Business & Economics
Get DetailsCourses
Civil Procedure: LAW JD 873
Examines the structure and function of civil procedure and the requirements of due process of law.
FALL 2025: LAW JD 873 A1 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025| Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon,Wed | 2:10 pm | 4:10 pm | 4 | Janet Freilich |
| Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon,Wed | 2:10 pm | 4:10 pm | 4 | Jed Handelsman Shugerman |
| Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue,Thu | 2:10 pm | 4:10 pm | 4 | Maya Steinitz |
| Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon,Wed | 2:10 pm | 4:10 pm | 4 | Naomi M. Mann |
| Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon,Wed | 2:10 pm | 4:10 pm | 4 | David H. Webber |
Jewish Law and Philosophy: LAW JD 730
Secular law focuses on the relationships between people. Its interest in “inner life” is primarily restricted to questions of whether someone intended to commit a particular act. Jewish law similarly concerns itself with our behavior towards one another, often through a discourse of obligations, in addition to rights. Jewish law also applies legal-like reasoning inwardly, focusing on how living religiously transforms the individual and the community from the inside out. This course will focus on Jewish law to explore competing conceptions of law’s purpose, the difference between divine and secular law, discourses of rights versus obligations, and the relationship between mysticism and reason. No prior knowledge of Jewish law, Hebrew, or Aramaic is necessary. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: A limited number of students may use this class to satisfy the requirement. GRADING NOTICE: This class will not offer the CR/NC/H option. ** A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar, or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, will be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 730 A1 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026| Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wed | 2:10 pm | 4:10 pm | 3 | David H. Webber |
SECURITIES REGULATION: LAW JD 883
This course offers an introduction to federal securities regulation under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. We will examine how the securities laws shape the process by which companies raise capital through IPOs, public offerings, and private placements. We will also focus on the mandatory disclosure regime for publicly traded companies and the related topics of securities fraud, insider trading, market manipulation, and shareholder voting. We will study core concepts such as the definition of a security and materiality. Finally, we will spend significant time examining the role of the SEC and private shareholder litigation in policing the securities laws. GRADING NOTICE: This class will not offer the CR/NC/H option.
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 883 A1 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026| Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon,Wed | 10:40 am | 12:40 pm | 4 | David H. Webber |