Curriculum Vitae
SSRN Working Papers
The Conglomerate Blog
Education
J.D. The University of Chicago Law School
B.S. Brigham Young University
Research
Professor Smith's research focuses on corporate and securities law, with particular emphases on Delaware corporate law and entrepreneurial finance. His work has appeared in many top law reviews, including Contracts as Organizations, 51 Ariz. L. Rev. 1 (2009) (with Brayden King), The Dystopian Potential of Corporate Law, 56 Emory L. J. 985 (2008); The Exit Structure of Venture Capital, 53 UCLA L. Rev. 315 (2005); The Critical Resource Theory of Fiduciary Duty, 55 Vand. L. Rev. 1399 (2002); and Toward a New Theory of the Shareholder Role: "Sacred Space" in Corporate Transactions, 80 Texas L. Rev. 261 (2001) (with Robert B. Thompson). His working papers can be downloaded at the Social Science Research Network.
Teaching
Professor Smith teaches courses that lie at the intersection of law and business. His current courses include Business Associations, Contracts, Corporate Finance, Law & Entrepreneurship, and Securities Regulation. In 2008 the BYU Student Bar Association awarded Professor Smith the First Year Professor of the Year. Also, while teaching at the University of Wisconsin Law School, Professor Smith was elected by the Class of 2006 as the Faculty Graduation Speaker.
Casebook
Professor Smith has co-authored (with Professor Cynthia Williams of the University of Illinois College of Law) an innovative and popular casebook entitled Business Organizations: Cases, Problems & Case Studies (Aspen Publishers 2nd ed. 2008).
The Conglomerate Blog
Professor Smith co-founded and contributes regularly to The Conglomerate, a group blog dealing with "business, law, economics, and society." The following are the most recent posts at The Conglomerate:
Experience
Prior to joining the law faculty at BYU, Professor Smith taught for five years at the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he also served as Associate Director of the Initiative for Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship (INSITE), and for six years at Lewis & Clark Law School. He has been a visiting professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, Arizona State University College of Law, and Washington University School of Law, and he has taught courses at universities in China, Germany, Australia, Finland, and France. Professor Smith is a member of the American Law Institute, and he has served as Chair of the Section on Business Associations of the Association of American Law Schools.
After graduating from law school and before entering academe, Professor Smith clerked for Judge W. Eugene Davis in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and was an associate in the Delaware office of the international law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he specialized in corporate and securities transactions. Professor Smith maintains a connection to the practice of law through occasional consulting, usually in litigation that lies at the intersection of corporate law and entrepreneurial finance.
Current Projects
Law and Entrepreneurship. Professor Smith is developing the field of "law and entrepreneurship." For the first steps, see Law & Entrepreneurship: Do Courts Matter?, 1 Entrepreneurial Bus. L. J. 353 (2006) (with Masako Ueda); and Entrepreneurs on Horseback: Reflections on the Organization of Law, 50 Ariz. L. Rev. 71 (2008) (with Darian Ibrahim). The next paper in the series -- Law and Entrepreneurial Opportunities (also with Darian Ibrahim) -- was presented at various conferences during the summer of 2008, including the Kauffman Summer Legal Institute in Laguna Niguel, California and a conference on "The Economics and Law of the Entrepreneur" sponsored by the Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth at Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Smith also assists other law and entrepreneurship scholars in organizing an annual series of Law & Entrepreneurship Retreats.
Empirical Study of Contracts. Professor Smith is interested in the contracts that define organizations. His study of venture capital contracts, The Exit Structure of Venture Capital, 53 UCLA L. Rev. 315 (2005), was selected as one of the Best Corporate & Securities Articles of 2006 in a poll of corporate and securities law professors by the Corporate Practice Commentator. His more recent article, Contracts as Organizations, 51 Ariz. L. Rev. 1 (2009) (with Brayden King), explores the application of organizational theory to the empirical study of contracts. Professor Smith served on the Planning Committee for the AALS Workshop on Transactional Law, a two-day event held at the 2009 Mid-year Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools.
Fiduciary Duty. As a Delaware lawyer, Professor Smith continues to pursue his longstanding interest in Delaware corporate law and his more general interest in fiduciary relationships. His latest project -- Unlimited Shareholder Power -- was presented, among other places, at the Spring 2009 Notre Dame Law School Symposium on "The Future of Fiduciary Duties in Corporate Law."
Comparative Corporate Governance. Professor Smith also has embarked on a comparative corporate governance project with Andreas Engert of the University of Munich. Professors Smith and Engert, together with Professor John Ohnesorge of the University of Wisconsin Law School, organized a series of panels on comparative corporate governance at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Law & Society Association in Berlin, Germany. All three professors, along with a number of others, presented papers on comparative corporate governance at the 2009 BYU Law Review Symposium, entitled "Evaluating Legal Origins Theory." Those papers will be published by the BYU Law Review.
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