Carliss Chatman
Professor of Law
SMU Dedman School of Law
Corporate personhood
Corporate governance
Contracts
Ethics
Commercial law
Race & entrepreneurship
Scholarship examines how corporate personhood, contract structures, and governance norms reinforce racial capitalism and systemic inequality. Author of Corporate Human Trafficking, 102 Tex. L. Rev. 1263 (2024) (SMU Scholar; Texas Law Review), and co-author (with Carla L. Reyes) of Business Organizations: An Experiential Approach (Carolina Academic Press 2022). Earlier articles have appeared in the UCLA Law Review, the UC Irvine Law Review, the Washington & Lee Law Review, and the Michigan Journal of Race & Law; commentary has appeared in The Washington Post, CNN, Bloomberg Law, The Hill, and NPR. Chair of the Article 2 Committee of the American Bar Association Business Law Section; Academic Fellow at the Center for Retail Investors & Corporate Inclusion; Faculty Affiliate at Duke University’s Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. Recipient of the SMU Dedman Law BLSA Black Faculty of the Year Award (2024), the Lutie A. Lytle Outstanding Scholar Award (2023), and the AALS Derrick A. Bell, Jr. Award (2021). Previously practiced at Vinson & Elkins LLP and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.
Shane Goodwin, Ph.D., LL.M.
Professor of Practice in Finance, SMU Cox School of Business · Adjunct Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law
Executive Director, SMU Corporate Governance Initiative · Editor, Hilltop Forum & The Hilltop Docket
Corporate governance
Capital markets
Corporate finance
Mergers & acquisitions
Shareholder activism
Over 30 years of experience in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and investment banking as a practitioner, board member, and professor. Research and teaching on corporate governance, M&A, and shareholder activism, spanning capital markets and the law and economics of state corporate-law competition. Served as Governance Advisor to the Special Committee of Tesla, Inc.’s Board of Directors in connection with the 2025 CEO Performance Award, addressing fiduciary duties under Texas law (Tesla, Inc., Definitive Proxy Statement (Schedule 14A) (Sept. 17, 2025)). Testified before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs in support of Senate Bill 29 (signed May 14, 2025), which modernized the Texas Business Organizations Code. Served as an expert witness for Google in the remedy phase of United States v. Google LLC, No. 1:23-cv-00108 (E.D. Va.) (Oct. 2025). Before entering academia, spent nearly 25 years in corporate and investment banking, including at Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo Securities, and has held academic appointments at Columbia and Harvard. Recent commentary appears in Bloomberg, Fortune, the Securities Regulation Law Journal, and the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog. NACD Certified Director and Board Leadership Fellow.
Christine Hurt
Inaugural Alan R. Bromberg Centennial Chair in Corporate, Partnership, Business and Securities Law · Professor of Law
Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, SMU Dedman School of Law
Corporate governance
Securities regulation
Corporate tax
Business associations
Partnership law
Formerly the George Sutherland Chair at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University and professor and director of the Illinois Business Law & Policy Program at the University of Illinois College of Law. Co-pioneered the Interactive Citation Workbook (LexisNexis) in 1999 while directing the Legal Research and Writing program at the University of Houston Law Center. Lead author of the leading treatise on partnership law, Bromberg & Ribstein on Partnership. Researches and writes at the intersection of entity governance, fiduciary duties, and securities fraud. Served one term on the National Adjudicatory Council of FINRA. Teaches courses in business organizations, securities regulation, and corporate taxation. Earlier corporate practice at Baker Botts L.L.P. and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in Houston, Texas. Member of the American Law Institute (ALI).
Helmuth Ludwig
Professor of Practice for Strategy and Entrepreneurship · SMU Cox School of Business
Cox Executive Director, Hart Institute for Technology, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at SMU · Executive Fellow, Strategic Management Department, IESE Business School (Barcelona)
Corporate governance
AI governance
Board oversight
Cybersecurity
Strategy & technology
Professor of Practice for Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the SMU Cox School of Business, where he teaches MBA courses including Technology and AI Strategy, and Cox Executive Director of the Hart Institute for Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at SMU. Executive Fellow of the Strategic Management Department at IESE Business School in Barcelona. Serves on the boards of directors of Hitachi, Ltd. (audit committee), Myers Industries (nominating, governance, and audit committees), and Humanetics Group (board chair), and chairs the NACD North Texas Chapter; senior advisor to Bridgepoint LLC and Zscaler. An NACD Certified Director and Board Leadership Fellow. Before academia he spent his career at Siemens, serving as global Chief Information Officer until 2019, CEO of Siemens Industry North America until 2014, and President of Siemens PLM Software until 2010; earlier board service includes Circor International (chair), the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (chair), and Siemens entities. His recent scholarship on board oversight of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity includes Agentic AI and Corporate Governance (Directors & Boards, 2026) and How Boards of Directors Govern Artificial Intelligence (MIS Quarterly Executive, 2023). Engineering degree, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; M.B.A., University of Chicago; Doctorate, Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel.
Todd Milbourn
Dean & Tolleson Chair in Business Leadership · Andrew H. Chen Endowed Chair in Financial Investments
Dean, SMU Cox School of Business
Corporate governance
Executive compensation
Corporate finance
Valuation
Credit ratings
The tenth dean of the SMU Cox School of Business. An expert on valuation, corporate finance, credit ratings, and corporate governance — including executive compensation and its effect on long-term shareholder value, corporate decision-making, and firm performance — he has been retained as an expert by private firms and the U.S. Department of Justice. Co-author of The Value Sphere: Secrets of Creating and Retaining Shareholder Wealth, with scholarship published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, the Journal of Accounting Research, the RAND Journal of Economics, Harvard Business Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review. Came to SMU from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, where over twenty-five years he was the Hubert C. and Dorothy R. Moog Professor of Finance and, most recently, deputy dean — expanding the Ph.D. program, launching specialized master’s programs, and helping establish four research centers. Previously taught finance at the London Business School and the University of Chicago. Ph.D. in finance (1995), Indiana University Kelley School of Business; B.A. in economics, finance, and mathematics (1991), Augustana College.
Christina M. Sautter
Professor of Law
Associate Dean for Research, SMU Dedman School of Law · Co-Founder, Secretary, and Board Member, Center for Retail Investors & Corporate Inclusion (RICI Center)
Retail investor rights
Capital markets
Corporate governance
Mergers & acquisitions
Transactional law
Doctrinal and theoretical research on corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, and retail-investor rights, including the impact of interstate charter competition on shareholder rights. Co-Founder, Secretary, and Board Member of the Center for Retail Investors & Corporate Inclusion, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Visiting appointments (2024–26) at the London School of Economics, the University of Edinburgh, Dublin City University, Bocconi University, and the University of Milan. Co-authored an SEC comment letter on the proposed predictive-data-analytics conflicts rule for broker-dealers and investment advisers, urging a narrower reach (Release Nos. 34-97990; IA-6353; File No. S7-12-23). Expert witness in litigation involving corporate structure, governance, and M&A. Author of Corporate Disenfranchisement, 17 U.C. Irvine Law Review (forthcoming 2027) (with Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci), examining legislative, regulatory, and private-ordering restrictions on shareholder rights; coined the “wireless investor” in Corporate Governance Gaming: The Collective Power of Retail Investors, 22 Nevada Law Journal 51 (2021). Co-author (with Franklin A. Gevurtz) of Mergers and Acquisitions Law (West Academic Publishing 2018) (Hornbook Series). Recent commentary appears in the Financial Times, Bloomberg Law, Texas Lawbook, Law360, The Deal, and the Columbia Blue Sky Blog. Earlier practice in the M&A Group at Shearman & Sterling LLP (now A&O Shearman); law clerk to the Hon. H. Emory Widener, Jr. (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit). Member, Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Securities Regulation.
Marc I. Steinberg
Rupert and Lillian Radford Chair in Law · Professor of Law
Editor-in-Chief, The International Lawyer and The Securities Regulation Law Journal
Securities regulation
Director & officer liability
Corporate governance
Legal ethics
Marc I. Steinberg is the Rupert and Lillian Radford Chair in Law and Professor of Law at the SMU Dedman School of Law, Honorary Visiting Professor at King’s College London Dickson Poon School of Law, and Honorary Fellow at the Asian Institute of International Financial Law at the University of Hong Kong. He directs the SMU Corporate Counsel Externship Program and is a former Senior Associate Dean for Research and for Academics; before SMU he taught at Maryland, Wharton, George Washington, and Georgetown, and has held visiting appointments at law schools in more than a dozen countries. A former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney and special projects counsel to the General Counsel, he clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, served as legislative counsel to U.S. Senator Robert P. Griffin, and advised Justice Arthur J. Goldberg on the federal advisory committee report on tender offers. He has been retained as an expert witness in matters including Enron, Martha Stewart, Mark Cuban, and the National Prescription Litigation, and has served on the FINRA National Adjudicatory Council. Author of approximately 50 books and 150 law review articles, he is editor-in-chief of The International Lawyer and The Securities Regulation Law Journal, an adviser to The Journal of Corporation Law, and a life member of the American Law Institute. He holds a J.D. from UCLA, an LL.M. from Yale, and his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.
