Articles

CLL Attorney Introduces New Publishing Course to Yale University

Mar. 26, 2010

From 1978 to 2009, CLL attorney Martin Levin taught in the Professional Publishing Course at Stanford University, which was the only course for middle and senior managers in book, magazine, and on-line publishing.

When Stanford announced that it was going to discontinue the course, Martin decided to preserve the course.  So in typical fashion, he did not sit on his hands, but instead went out and found a new home for it at Yale University.
The Yale Publishing Course is scheduled to take place from July 18 to 23, 2010,  with subsequent sessions offered annually.  The new director is Tina Weiner, Yale Office of International Affairs (203-432-0963; tina.weiner@yale.edu).

The faculty will continue to be drawn from universities, icons in the new technology field and major players in the magazine and book publishing industry. To retain the close relationship between students and faculty the course will be limited to 80 students, about 40% of whom will probably come from outside the United States.
 
The Course’s curriculum will focus on such topics as strategic planning, financial management and entrepreneurship; best practices in the use of new technology and content delivery; legal issues involving open access and intellectual property; and the future of digital dissemination. The program will feature lectures and seminars by distinguished members of the Yale faculty and publishing executives with proven records as innovators. It will also tap into the rich resources of the prestigious Yale University Press. Participants drawn from around the globe will be immersed in information on the latest technological advances and be exposed to cutting-edge thinking about the business of publishing as a global enterprise. While stepping back from their daily jobs, they will be able to reflect on broader perspectives, discuss strategies with their counterparts, and consider new approaches that will enable them more effectively to operate within their own organizations. The program will combine lectures with small discussion groups and provide ample opportunity for participants to meet informally with each other and with the presenters. The Course’s presenters will be available throughout the week to advise participants on a one-on-one basis.

The Yale Publishing Course will be held on the historic Yale campus in the state-of-the-art Greenberg Conference Center. The Course will join a suite of international senior leadership programs already in place at Yale, such as the Global Health Leadership Institute, the India-Yale Parliamentary Leadership Program, and the China-Yale Advanced University Leadership Program.

Martin Levin was President of the Times Mirror Book Group and retired and joined Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman as a recent law school graduate in the same year!  In the more than 25 years since then, he and CLL attorney Bob Halper have arranged for over 100 mergers and acquisitions of book publishers.
 
We recently held our 21st annual seminar for the publishing industry and had a record attendance of about 100, most of whom knew Martin personally.

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