Thomas A. Smith

Thomas A. Smith is Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of corporations, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, banking, bankruptcy, compensation for mass torts, contracts, and law and economics. He has previously taught law on the faculties of the University of Colorado and the University of California, Davis, and as a visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Professor Smith previously practiced international corporate law with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. From 1987 to 1988, he served in the federal government as Senior Counsel and Economist to the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President.

Professor Smith earned his J.D. in 1984 from Yale Law School, where he was notes and topics editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1984 to 1985, he was a law clerk to Circuit Judge George E. MacKinnon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Professor Smith earned an A.B. in history and philosophy in 1979 from Cornell University, where he was a Telluride Scholar and a Harry S Truman Scholar. He attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where in 1981 he earned a B.A. with first class honors in philosophy and economics and was awarded the Henry Wilde Prize in Philosophy.

Professor Smith's scholarly publications include: "The Efficient Norm for Corporate Law: A Neotraditional Interpretation of Fiduciary Duty," 98 Michigan Law Review 214 (1999); "The Passion of Professor Fischel: Defending Milken's Financial Revolution," 22 Law & Social Inquiry 1041 (1997); "Institutions and Entrepreneurs in American Corporate Finance," 85 California Law Review 1 (1997); "A Capital Markets Approach to Mass Tort Bankruptcy," 104 Yale Law Journal 367 (1994); and "Four Faces of the Item Veto: A Reply to Tribe and Kurland," 84 Northwestern University Law Review 437 (1990) (with J. Gregory Sidak).