PUBLISHED:October 12, 2010

Baxter lectures at Wits University in Johannesburg, Oct. 20

Professor Lawrence Baxter will deliver the University of the Witwatersrand’s 12th Oliver Schreiner Memorial Lecture on Oct. 20 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Baxter’s lecture, entitled “Adaptive Regulation in the Amoral Bazaar,” will begin at 6 p.m., local time, in the Chalsty Center, at “Wits” University’s School of Law.

The lecture will review major developments in behavioral sciences in the generation since Baxter wrote the treatise that shaped administrative law in South Africa. He will discuss the application of complexity theory to regulatory policy and practices and urge the continued restoration of moral fundamentals to the markets.

The lecture follows Baxter’s participation in a Wits conference titled “Globalization and Governance: The challenges of globalization for constitutional and corporate governance,” taking place at Wits Oct. 14 to 16. There, he will deliver a paper titled “Exploring the WFO Option for Global Banking Regulation” and take part in a panel discussion on reform and the future of governance.

A professor of the practice of law, Baxter focuses his research on the evolving regulatory environment for financial services and beyond. Formerly a senior executive at Wachovia Bank and Wachovia Corp., he has consulted with federal government agencies and developed processes relating to financial institution supervision, enforcement and seizure that were implemented at the congressional and regulatory level. He writes about regulation, financial services, and technology, and blogs at The Pareto Commons.

A native of South Africa, Baxter began his academic career at the University of Natal, where he held tenure from 1978 to 1984, specializing in administrative law, and where he earlier received degrees in law and business, and a PhD in law and government regulation. He was a member of Duke Law School’s governing faculty from 1986 to 1995, and rejoined in 2009 after spending more than a decade in the private sector.