Relational Contracting Webinar 2: 

Date: May 6, 2024
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Contracting for impact investing is likely to result in incomplete contracts, often by choice due to the relatively high transactional costs of trying to create more complete contractual agreements able to anticipate and respond to the many ways that impact investing can be derailed. This webinar looks at how some impact investors and their investees are turning to a more relational contractual approach that relies on the activation of shared guiding principles to overcome the challenges of contractual incompleteness.

The webinar, drawing on the expertise of David Frydlinger in creating relational contractual approaches, will address the following key questions:

• What guiding principles are most relevant to impact investing?  
• What role do guiding principles play in filling contractual gaps?  
• How can guiding principles be used to shape decision-making processes among contracting parties that are trying to achieve more than financial returns? 

This event has been approved for 1 New York State CLE credit in the category of Areas of Professional Practice. The credit is both transitional and non-transitional; it is appropriate for both experienced and newly admitted attorneys.

5.6.24 Webinar Bibliography 

1. Harvard Business Review, "A New Approach to Contracts"

2. Frydlinger, David, and Oliver Hart, “Overcoming Contractual Incompleteness: The Role of Guiding Principles” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization

3. 2023 Grunin Conference, Morning Plenary - A New Approach to Contracting: Building on Shared Values

4. The Vested Way: A Model of Formal Relational Contracts (University of the Pacific Law Review, McGeorge School of Law, Vol. 52, Iss. 1 (2020))

5. Follow Guiding Principles To A Successful Contract (Forbes)

Relational Contracting Webinar 1: 

Date: January 9, 2024
Watch Here

The growing need to achieve positive social and environmental impact throughout business relationships is driven by escalating challenges related to climate change, poverty, and social inequality. Traditional approaches to contracting often lack the flexibility needed to manage uncertainties in such relationships. 

This webinar gleans learning from steps being taken by commercial actors in the private sector that are creating formal relational contracts, particularly for complex, long-term, business relationships that are vulnerable to events outside of their control. This approach to contracting aims to create long-term partnerships that are built on common goals, guiding principles, and robust contractual governance structures.  

This webinar explores how a relational contracting approach might be used in advancing impact goals too and builds on conversations that were started at the 2023 IILWG/Grunin Center’s annual conference on Legal Issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing – in the US and Beyond. 

In this webinar, Professor Deborah Burand and David Frydlinger will return to this topic in greater depth and explore the role that formal relational contracts can play in supporting the achievement of social and environmental impact and address limitations of more traditional contractual approaches. They will cover topics such as:

• What are formal relational contracts and how do they differ from traditional contracts?
• What process should be used to create a formal relational contract? How can formal relational contracts or a relational contracting approach help contracting parties to respond to exogenous events that threaten to derail impact outcomes? 

After you watch the webinar, please fill out this survey and help us enhance future webinars. Thank you!

This event has been approved for 1 New York State CLE credits in the category of Areas of Professional Practice. The credit is both transitional and non-transitional; it is appropriate for both experienced and newly admitted attorneys.

**Please note that CLE credit is only available to attendees of the live webinar and is not available for those viewing the recording.**

1.9.24 Webinar Bibliography 

1. Harvard Business Review, "A New Approach to Contracts"
2. Frydlinger, David, and Oliver Hart, “Overcoming Contractual Incompleteness: The Role of Guiding Principles” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization
3. Burand, Deborah and Savell, Louise, “What can go right when things go wrong: Contracting for impact risk and impact opportunities,” Impact Entrepreneur Magazine (co-authored with Louise Savell) (October 2022)
4. 2023 Grunin Conference, Morning Plenary - A New Approach to Contracting: Building on Shared Values

Relational Contracting Webinar Panelists 

David Frydlinger 

David Frydlinger is a lawyer and partner at Cirio Law Firm in Stockholm. With 23 years of experience as a business attorney, David has extensive experience in building successful long term commercial partnerships, in the Nordics and internationally. He is the author and co-author of several books and articles, including the Harvard Business Review article “A new approach to contracts – how to build better long-term strategic partnerships”, written together with professor Oliver Hart and Kate Vitasek and the book “Contracting in the New Economy – Using Relational Contracts to Boost Trust and Collaboration in Strategic Business Relationships”, written together with Kate Vitasek, Tim Cummins and Jim Bergman.

David has a degree of Masters of Law and also a Master Degree in Sociology from Uppsala University. He is a member of the Swedish Bar Association.

Deborah Burand 

Deborah Burand is a professor of clinical law at NYU Law. She directs the International Transactions Clinic and is a Faculty Director of the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship at NYU Law. She writes and lectures on issues related to social entrepreneurship, sustainable finance, impact investing, social finance innovations, microfinance and microfranchising/social franchising. 

During 2010 - 2011 Prof. Burand served in the Obama Administration as general counsel to the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the development finance institution of the United States. She also has worked in the microfinance sector, most recently as executive vice president of strategic services at Grameen Foundation, a global microfinance network. Earlier in her career, she worked as a senior attorney in the international banking section of the Federal Reserve Board's legal division, and at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, first as the senior attorney/adviser for international monetary matters and later as the senior adviser for international financial matters. She also worked in private practice at Shearman & Sterling, where she advised bank advisory committees in the negotiation and implementation of Brady Bond deals that restructured the sovereign debt of Vietnam and Peru, and supported, on a pro bono basis, the development of the world's first debt-for-nature swap. 

She is an independent director on the board of MicroBuild (a proof-of-concept fund launched by Habitat for Humanity International that is aimed at growing the housing microfinance sector while expanding decent housing for the poor). She also is on the board of Calvert Impact Capital. Prof. Burand has been a consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Omidyar Network, and Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), among others. She also was the co-topic leader on finance for the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative. In 1993-1994, she was an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations (during which she was seconded to the International Monetary Fund and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), and is currently a member of the Council. She also is a member of The Bretton Woods Committee. She is a member of the Bars of New York and the District of Columbia. She earned her BA, cum laude, from Depauw University and a joint graduate degree, JD/MSFS with honors, from Georgetown University.