Lawyer CEOs and Strategic Disclosure of Litigation Loss Contingencies
研究发现，有法律教育背景的CEO（律师CEO）在面临最终造成重大损失的诉讼案件时，比非律师CEO更及时地披露信息，但在重大和解前却更少发布预警，这可能是因为他们担心向对方律师泄露信息。
Using hand‐collected data, we find that lawyer CEOs, defined as CEOs with a legal education background, tend to make first disclosures about pending litigation cases on a timelier basis for litigation cases that end up with material losses than do non‐lawyer CEOs. However, for cases that result in immaterial losses, the presence of lawyer CEOs is not associated with optimistic claims. In contrast, lawyer CEOs are less likely to issue pre‐warnings prior to material settlements than non‐lawyer CEOs. We attribute the latter finding to the high perceived levels of disclosure proprietary costs in terms of ‘tipping one's hand’ to opposing counsels. These findings suggest that lawyer CEOs do not always exhibit conservative and risk‐averse disclosure styles.