Gatekeepers: The Professions and Corporate Governance

John C. Coffee Jr, world-renowned Professor of Corporate Law, examines how gatekeeping professions - auditors, attorneys, securities analysts, and credit-rating agencies - exist to guard against governance failures. In this book he explores how they developed, to what degree they failed, and what reforms are feasible. Above all, he examines the institutional changes and pressures that caused gatekeepers to underperform or neglect their responsibilities, and focuses on those feasible changes that can restore gatekeepers as the loyal agents of investors.