Professor Leonard Sealy has spent almost 50 years studying and teaching law in Cambridge. A good proportion of this time has been occupied with matters relating to company law. As a scholar, teacher, author, law reformer and even draftsman Len Sealy's contribution to the refinement and improvement of structures, rules and most importantly ideas has been significant. Therefore the occasion of his retirement as the first S.J. Berwin Professor of Corporate Law in the University of Cambridge has afforded a number of leading company lawyers from around the world, many his former students or colleagues, an opportunity to address a series of important legal issues relating to companies and associated areas of commercial law and practice, in his honour.