Eric Orts

Eric is the Guardsmark Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he has taught since 1991. He is a tenured professor in the Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department with a secondary appointment in the Management Department. He also serves as the faculty director of the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership and faculty co-director of the FINRA/Wharton Certified Regulatory and Compliance Professional Program. His primary research and teaching interests are in business theory, corporate governance, environmental sustainability, securities regulation, and professional ethics.

Prior to joining Wharton’s faculty, Orts practiced law as an associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City and was a Chemical Bank fellow in corporate social responsibility at Columbia Law School. He has also taught and visited at a number of other leading business and law schools, including (in reversal chronological order): INSEAD (European campus); University of Pennsylvania Law School; NYU School of Law; Sydney Law School; Bren School Environmental Science and Management, University of California at Santa Barbara; Tsinghua University, School of Economics and Management; the University of Michigan Law School; and UCLA School of Law. He has been a visiting Fulbright professor in the law department of the University of Leuven, the Eugene P. Beard Faculty Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Ethics and the Professions, and a faculty fellow in the Center for Business and Government at the Kennedy School at Harvard.

Orts graduated Oberlin College (BA with honors in government and a minor in philosophy), the New School for Social Research (MA in political science), the University of Michigan (JD), and Columbia University (JSD). He is a member of the bar of New York and the District of Columbia, as well as an elected member of the American Law Institute, and he belongs to a number of other professional and academic associations. He is a founding board member of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability and serves on the editorial board of Business Ethics Quarterly. His academic work is widely published. Recent examples include Business Persons: A Legal Theory of the Firm (Oxford 2013; forthcoming in paperback 2015); “Privacy and Organizational Persons” (with Amy Sepinwall, forthcoming in Minnesota Law Review 2015); and “Climate Contracts” (Virginia Environmental Law Journal 2011).

Education

JSD, Columbia University, 1994; JD, University of Michigan, 1988; MA, New School for Social Research, 1985; BA, Oberlin College, 1982.

Career and Recent Professional Awards; Teaching Awards

MBA Excellence in Teaching Award for an Elective Course, 2011.

Academic Positions Held

Wharton: 1991present (named Guardsmark Professor in 2001); faculty director, Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership, 2007 to present; faculty codirector, FINRA at Wharton Institute, 2000 to present.  Visiting appointments:  Harvard University (Eugene P. Beard Faculty Fellow, Center for Ethics and the Professions); INSEAD (Economics and Political Science); University of Leuven (Fulbright Visiting Professor, law faculty);  University of Michigan Law School; NYU School of Law; UCLA School of Law; University of California Santa Barbara, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management; University of Sydney Law School; and Tsinghua University, School of Economics and Management (Freeman Foundation Visiting Professor).

Other Positions

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, associate attorney, 198890; Chemical Bank Fellow in Corporate Social Responsibility, Columbia University School of Law, 199091.

Professional Leadership

Founding board member, Alliance for Research in Corporate Sustainability, 2009present; editorial board, Business Ethics Quarterly, 2011present; consulting member, American Law Institute, 1997present.

Current research focuses on several projects: a forthcoming article on “Senate Democracy: Our Lockean Paradox and How to Solve It” (American University Law Review, 2019); a forthcoming article co-authored with Amy Sepinwall on “Collective Rights and the Court” (Washington University Law Review, 2019); completing a book under contract with Oxford University Press on “Rethinking the Firm,” an interdisciplinary sequel to “Business Persons: A Legal Theory of the Firm” (OUP 2013); and some contemplated research projects on topics such as financial regulation and economic inequality (with Christina Skinner) and theories of democracy and the business firm (with Helene Landamore). An original co-authored screenplay called “Missouri Conversion” is also available for any director producer interested to consider!