Edward Morrison

Professor Edward R. Morrison rejoined the Columbia Law School faculty in July 2014 as an expert in bankruptcy law and law and economics, including the causes and consequences of insolvency, both consumer and corporate. He teaches in bankruptcy law, law and economics, corporate reorganization and contracts. Over the course of a distinguished career, Morrison’s scholarship has addressed corporate reorganization, consumer bankruptcy, entrepreneurship and small business finance, financial derivatives, the regulation of systemic market risk, and foreclosure and mortgage modification.

His research has been recognized by the bankruptcy bench and bar and has received support from the National Science Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts, among other foundations. His current work studies patterns in inter-creditor agreements, the extent to which unexpected health expenditures cause defaults and consumer bankruptcy filings, the effects of bankruptcy law on entrepreneurship, and the costs and benefits of the bankruptcy code’s special rules for financial contracts such as repos.

In 2012, Morrison received the John Wesley Steen Law Review Writing Prize from the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI), along with Douglas Baird of the University of Chicago, for an article on the Dodd-Frank Act published in the ABI Law Review.

In addition to his work as a scholar, Morrison serves as a director of the American Law & Economics Association, is a conferee of the National Bankruptcy Conference, and has been appointed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. to serve as a member of the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules. He is currently an editor of the Journal of Legal Studies and was previously an associate editor of the American Law & Economics Review.

Morrison was a member of the Columbia Law School faculty from 2003 to 2012, serving as the Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law and Economics from 2009 to 2012 and as co-director of the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy. He most recently served as the Paul H. and Theo Leffmann Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Chicago Law School.

Before working in academia, Morrison clerked for Judge Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and for Judge Richard A. Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Professor Morrison graduated from the University of Utah in 1994 for his B.S. and obtained his M.A. at the University of Chicago in 1997. Accordingly, he achieved his J.D. at Chicago Law school in 2000 and where he also obtained his Ph.D. in Economics in 2003.