Jonathan Lipson

Professor of Law, Temple University
Jonathan Lipson holds the Harold E. Kohn Chair and is a Professor of Law at Temple University Beasley School of Law. He teaches Contracts, Bankruptcy, Corporations, Commercial Law, Lawyering for Entrepreneurship, International Business Transactions, and a variety of other business law courses. In addition to Temple, he has taught at the law schools of the University of Wisconsin (where he held the Foley & Lardner Chair), the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Baltimore.

His research focuses on corporate governance, restructuring, and contracting practices. He has published in many of the nation’s top law reviews, including those of the UCLA, Boston University, Notre Dame, and Southern California law schools. His work is frequently cited, including by the United States Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeals, as well as leading business courts such as the Delaware Supreme Court, the Delaware Chancery Court and the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. He is also a coauthor (with Macaulay et al.) of Contracts Law in Action, the nation’s leading casebook that takes a “law in action” approach to contract law.

An occasional empiricist, Professor Lipson has published two articles on the use of “examiners” in chapter 11 bankruptcies, the second of which won the Editors’ Prize as the best paper published in the American Bankruptcy Law Journal in 2016. His study of employment at the Trump Casinos in connection with their bankruptcies received widespread attention, and was noted in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Professor Lipson is a member of the American Law Institute, a Regent of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers, and is active with the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association where, from 2011 to 2017, he was Section Content Officer. He is now a member of the Section Council and the Corporate Laws Committee. He has also served as an expert in complex corporate reorganizations, including that of Enron Corp. His shorter works have appeared on, among others, The Huffington Post, Concurring Opinions, and Credit Slips. He also writes op-eds for the National Law Journal and USAToday. He is the founding editor of The Temple 10-Q, an electronic business law newsletter published by the Beasley School of Law.

Prior to teaching, Professor Lipson was a lawyer. From 1995-1999, he practiced corporate and commercial law in Boston, with the firm of Hill & Barlow. From 1992 to 1995, he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis. From 1990-1992, he practiced with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. While in practice, he was involved in several large and complex chapter 11 cases, including those of Healthco, Thinking Machines Corporation, and CIS Corporation.

He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, B.A., with honors (1986) & J.D. (1990), where he was a note editor of the Wisconsin Law Review.