Robert K. Rasmussen

Dean and Carl Mason Franklin Chair in Law, and
Professor of Law and Political Science

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dean@law.usc.edu
Phone: (213) 740-6473
Fax: (213) 740-5502
Room: 300

Robert K. Rasmussen joined USC Law as dean and Carl Mason Franklin Chair in Law in August 2007. Dean Rasmussen's scholarly expertise is focused on the interaction of market forces and corporate reorganization law, and his most recent work addresses fundamental changes in corporate reorganization practice. He teaches Contracts and Realities of Commercial Lending.

Dean Rasmussen earned his J.D. cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was comment editor of the University of Chicago Law Review, and his B.A. magna cum laude from Loyola University of Chicago. He clerked for the Honorable John C. Godbold, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and worked in the Civil Division Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, handling litigation in the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court before joining the Vanderbilt faculty. He also has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and University of Michigan law schools.

A widely cited scholar, Dean Rasmussen is the author or co-author of dozens of articles published in some of the country's leading law journals, including the Supreme Court Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the Michigan Law Review and the Yale Law Journal. He has played a role in shaping the jurisprudence in his field as the principal author of an amicus curiae brief on behalf of nine law professors in the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court case Bank of America v. 203 North LaSalle Street Partnership; was the principal author of an amicus curiae brief on behalf of three law professors in Integrated Telecom Express, Inc., a 2004 case decided by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals; and was the principal author of an amicus curiae brief on behalf of seven law professors in Owens Corning, a 2005 case also decided by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a member of the American Law Institute.

Publications

• Anti-Bankruptcy, forthcoming, to be published by The Yale Law Journal Company, Inc. in The Yale Law Journal (with Douglas G. Baird)
• International Commercial Law, Research Handbook in International Economic Law 271 (Edward Elgar Publishing Limited 2007) (Andrew T. Guzman and Alan O. Sykes, eds.)
• Bankruptcy Law Stories, editor, (Foundation Press 2007)
• The Story of Case v. Los Angeles Lumber Products: Old Equity Holders and the Reorganized Corporation, Bankruptcy Law Stories (Foundation Press 2007) (Robert K. Rasmussen, ed.)
• Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Odious Debt, and the Politics of Debt Relief, 70 Law & Contemp. Probs. 249 (Autumn 2007) (solicited for Symposium on Odious Debt)
• Where are All the Transnational Bankruptcies?: The Puzzling Case for Universalism, 32 Brook. J. Int’l L. 983 (2007) (solicited for Symposium on Bankruptcy in the Global Village)
• On the Scope of Managerial Discretion in Chapter 11, 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra _, _ (2007), http://www.pennumbra.com/issues/articles/155-4/rasmussen.pdf.
• Empirically Bankrupt, 2007 Columbia Business Law Review 180
• The Prime Directive, 75 University of Cincinnati Law Review 921 (2007) (with Douglas G. Baird) (solicited for Cincinnati Law & Business Symposium)
• Creating a Calamity, 68 Ohio St. L.J. 319 (2007) (solicited for Symposium on Commercial Calamities)
• Beyond Recidivism, 54 Buff. L. Rev. 343 (2006) (with Douglas G. Baird) (solicited for Symposium on Lynn LoPucki’s Courting Failure)
• Private Debt and the Missing Lever of Corporate Governance, 154 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1209 (2006) (with Douglas G. Baird)
• The Search for Hercules: Residual Owners, Directors, and Corporate Governance In Chapter 11, 82 Washington University Law Quarterly 1445 (2004) (solicited for the F. Hodge O’Neal Corporate and Securities Law Symposium)
• Secured Credit, Control Rights and Real Options, 25 Cardozo Law Review 1935 (2004) (part of Symposium on Threats to Secured Lending)
• Integrating a Theory of the State into Sovereign Debt Restructuring, 53 Emory Law Journal 1159 (2004) (solicited for the Symposium on Sovereign Financial Distress)
• Chapter 11 at Twilight, 56 Stanford Law Review 673 (2003) (with Douglas G. Baird)
• The End of Bankruptcy, 55 Stanford Law Review 751 (2002) (with Douglas G. Baird)
• The Four (or Five) Easy Lessons of Enron, 55 Vanderbilt Law Review 1787 (2002) (with Douglas G. Baird) (solicited for the Symposium on Convergence on Delaware: Corporate Bankruptcy and Corporate Governance)
• The Uneasy Case Against the Uniform Commercial Code, 62 Louisiana State University Law Review 1097 (2002) (solicited for the Hawkland Symposium)
• The Problem of Corporate Groups, A Comment on Professor Ziegel, 7 Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law 395 (2002) (solicited for the Symposium on Corporate Bankruptcy)
• Control Rights, Priority Rights, and the Conceptual Foundations of Corporate Reorganization Law, 87 Virginia Law Review 921 (2001) (with Douglas G. Baird)
• Whither the Race: A Comment on the Effects of the Delawarization of Corporate Reorganizations, 54 Vanderbilt Law Review 283 (2001) (with Randall S. Thomas) (solicited by the Vanderbilt Law Review)
• Timing Matters: Promoting Forum Shopping by Insolvent Corporations, 94 Northwestern Law Review 1357 (2000) (with Randall S. Thomas)
• Resolving Transnational Insolvencies Through Private Ordering, 98 Michigan Law Review 2252 (2000)
• Lawyers, Law, and Contract Formation: Comments on Daniel Keating’s ‘Exploring the Battle of the Forms in Action’, 98 Michigan Law Review 2748 (2000) (solicited for the Symposium on Empirical Research in Commercial Transactions)
• Boyd’s Legacy and Blackstone’s Ghost, 1999 Supreme Court Review 393 (with Douglas G. Baird)
• Free Contracting in Bankruptcy at Home and Abroad, The Fall and Rise of Freedom of Contract 311 (Duke University Press 1999) (Francis Buckley, ed.)
• Behavioral Economics, the Economic Analysis of Bankruptcy Law, and the Pricing of Credit, 51 Vanderbilt Law Review 1679 (1998) (solicited for the Symposium on The Legal Implications of Psychology: Human Behavior, Behavioral Economics, and the Law)
• A New Approach to Transnational Insolvencies, 19 Mich. J. Int’l L. 1 (1997)
• Skewing the Results: The Role of Lawyers in Transmitting Legal Rules, 5 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 375 (1997) (with Donald C. Langevoort)
• Why Linguistics?, 73 Washington University Law Quarterly 1047 (1995) (solicited for the Symposium on Law and Linguistics)
• The Economic Analysis of Corporate Bankruptcy Law, 3 American Bankruptcy Law Institute Law Review 85 (1995) (with David A. Skeel, Jr.) (solicited for the ABI Bankruptcy Reform Study Project)
• The Ex Ante Effects of Bankruptcy Reform on Investment Incentives, 72 Washington University Law Quarterly 1159 (1994) (solicited for the Interdisciplinary Conference on Bankruptcy and Insolvency Theory), reprinted in Financial Distress and Bankruptcy: Economic Issues (Nerenius & Santerus 1997) (Michelle White, ed.)
• An Essay on Optimal Bankruptcy Rules and Social Justice, 1994 Illinois Law Review 1
• A Study of the Costs and Benefits of Textualism: The Supreme Court’s Bankruptcy Cases, 71 Washington University Law Quarterly 535 (1993)
• Debtor’s Choice: A Menu Approach to Corporate Bankruptcy, 71 Texas Law Review 51 (1992), excerpted in Corporate Bankruptcy: Economic and Legal Perspectives (Cambridge 1996) (J.S. Bhandari & L.A. Weiss, eds.)
• Coalition Formation and the Presumption of Reviewability: A Response to Rodriguez, 45 Vanderbilt Law Review 779 (1992) (solicited for the Symposium on A Reevaluation of the Canons of Statutory Interpretation)
• The Efficiency of Chapter 11, 8 Bankruptcy Developments Law Journal 319 (1991) (solicited)
• Bankruptcy and the Administrative State, 42 Hastings Law Journal 1567 (1991)
• Introductory Remarks and a Comment on Civil RICO’s Remedial Provisions, 43 Vanderbilt Law Review 623 (1990)
• Guarantees and Section 548(a)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code, 52 University of Chicago Law Review 194 (1985)

Presentations

• Presentation, “Anti-Bankruptcy,” Annual Meeting of the American Law and Economics Association, May 2009
• Presentation, “Anti-Bankruptcy: Hedge Fund Activity in Corporate Reorganizations,” Penn Corporate Roundtable, December 2007
• Presentation, “Where are all the Transnational Bankruptcies?,” Annual Meeting Of the American Law and Economics Association, May 2007
• Presentation, “Common Pools, Common Disasters and the Anti-Commons: Hedge Funds in Bankruptcy,” University of Amsterdam Conference on Hedge Funds, March 2007
• Workshop, “Where are all the Transnational Bankruptcies?,” Toronto Law School, February 2007
• Presentation, “Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Odious Debt and the Politics of Debt Relief,” Duke Conference on Sovereign Debt Restructuring, January 2007
• Workshop, “Where are all the Transnational Bankruptcies?,” Seton Hall Law School, January 2007
• Presentation, “Where are all the Transnational Bankruptcies?,” Brooklyn Conference on Bankruptcy in the Global Village, October 2006
• Presentation, “The Prime Directive,” St. John’s Law School, September 2006
• Presentation, “Empirically Bankrupt,” Annual Meeting of the American Law and Economics Association, May 2006
• Workshop, “Empirically Bankrupt,” Columbia Law School, April 2006
• Workshop, “Private Debt and the Missing Lever of Corporate Governance,” University of Colorado School of Law, January 2006
• Panelist, “The Many Kinds of Substance Over Form: Recharacterization, Equitable Subordination, Veil Piercing, Substantive Consolidation,” National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, November 2005
• Workshop, “Empirically Bankrupt,” Vanderbilt Law School, November 2005
• Workshop, “Private Debt and the Missing Lever of Corporate Governance,” University of Texas School of Law, October 2005
• Presentation, “The Past, Present and Future of Chapter 11,” Commercial Law League of America Annual Meeting, September 2005
• Commentator, Wharton Conference on Corporate Bankruptcy, May 2005
• Commentator, Panel on Arbitration, Spring Meeting of the ABA Business Law Section, April 2005
• Workshop, “Private Debt and the Missing Lever of Corporate Governance,” Columbia Law School, March 2005
• Workshop, “Private Debt and the Missing Lever of Corporate Governance,” Vanderbilt Law School, February 2005
• Commentator, AALS Debtor-Creditor Section, January 2005
• Work-in-Progress Presentation, “Controlling the Agents of Enterprise,” University of Chicago Law School, October 2004
• Commentator, F. Hodge O’Neal Corporate and Securities Law Symposium, April 2004
• Presentation, “Integrating a Theory of the State into Sovereign Debt Restructuring,” Georgetown Conference on Sovereign Debt, February 2004
• Workshop, “Corporate Governance, State-Contingent Control Rights, and Financial Distress,” Boalt Hall, February 2004
• Presentation, “Secured Credit and Control Rights,” Cardozo Conference on Threats to Secured Lending, April 2003
• Presentation, “The Uneasy Case Against the Uniform Commercial Code,” Annual Meeting of the American Law and Economics Association, May 2002
• Presentation, “The Uneasy Case Against the Uniform Commercial Code,” Hawkland Symposium, March 2002
• Presentation, Comment on Alder & Triantis, The Aftermath of North LaSalle Street, University of Cincinnati School of Law Conference on Bankruptcy in the New Millennium, March 2002
• Presentation, “The Four (or Five) Easy Lessons of Enron,” Vanderbilt Conference on the Delawarization of Bankruptcy Law, February 2002
• Commentator, Penn Law School Roundtable on Bankruptcy, December 2001
• Panelist, 2001 Eugene Murphy Conference on Corporate Law, Fordham Law School, November 2001
• Presentation, “Absolute and Relative Priority Reconsidered,” Joe C. Davis Law and Business Conference, March 2001
• Workshop, “Absolute and Relative Priority Reconsidered,” Boalt Hall, February 2001
• Workshop, “Absolute and Relative Priority Reconsidered,” Vanderbilt Law School, November 2000
• Comment, “Empirical Research and Law Reform,” Michigan Law School Symposium on Empirical Research in Commercial Law, February 2000
• Presentation, “Forum Shopping by Insolvent Corporations,” Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Schools, January 2000
• Presentation, “Boyd’s Legacy and Blackstone’s Ghost,” University of Pennsylvania LawSchool’s Bankruptcy Roundtable, December 1999
• Workshop, “Boyd’s Legacy and Blackstone’s Ghost,” University of Chicago Law School, August 1999
• Workshop, “Boyd’s Legacy and Blackstone’s Ghost,” Vanderbilt Law School, July 1999
• Presentation, “Promotion and Review of Clinicians,” Annual Meeting of Southeastern Association of Law Schools, July 1999
• Presentation, “Forum Shopping by Insolvent Corporations,” Annual Meeting of American Law and Economics Association, May 1999
• Workshop, “Forum Shopping by Insolvent Corporations,” University of Cincinnati Law School, May 1999
• Workshop, “Forum Shopping by Insolvent Corporations,” Vanderbilt Law School, February 1999
• Presentation, “The Pricing of Credit,” Vanderbilt Symposium on Behavioral Economics, March 1998
• Workshop, “Forum Shopping by Insolvent Corporations,” Georgetown Law Center, October 1997
• Presentation, “Contracting for Bankruptcy at Home and Abroad,” Donner Conference on Freedom of Contracting in Bankruptcy, February 1997
• Workshop, “A New Approach to Transnational Insolvencies,” University of Iowa Law School, September 1996
• Workshop, “A New Approach to Transnational Insolvencies,” University of California at Berkeley Law School, November 1995
• Workshop, “A New Approach to Transnational Insolvencies,” Duke Law School, October 1995
• Workshop, “A New Approach to Transnational Insolvencies,” Vanderbilt Law School, January 1995
• Workshop, “A New Approach to Transnational Insolvencies,” University of Michigan Law School, December 1994
• Presentation, “The Ex Ante Effects of Bankruptcy Reform,” Washington University Interdisciplinary Conference on Bankruptcy and Insolvency Theory, February 1994
• Presentation, “A Menu Approach to Corporate Bankruptcy,” Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, January 1994
• Presentation, “The Ex Ante Effects of Bankruptcy Reform,” International Workshop on Financial Distress, held at the Jonkoping International Business School, August 1993
• Commentator, Panel on Corporate Law, Annual Meeting of the European Association of Law and Economics, August 1993
• Workshop, “Social Justice and Optimal Bankruptcy Rules,” Indiana University School of Law, April 1993
• Presentation, “The Costs and Benefits of Textualism,” Annual Meeting of the Public Choice Society, February 1993
• Commentator, Panel on Bargaining in the Political Process, Annual Meeting of the Public Choice Society, February 1993
• Presentation, “A Menu Approach to Corporate Bankruptcy,” Annual Meeting of the American Law and Economics Association, May 1992
• Workshop, “A Menu Approach to Corporate Bankruptcy,” George Mason University School of Law, April 1992
• Workshop, “A Menu Approach to Corporate Bankruptcy,” Washington University School of Law, February 1992
• Workshop, “A Menu Approach to Corporate Bankruptcy,” Vanderbilt Law School January 1992
• Presentation, “Coalition Formation,” Vanderbilt Symposium on Statutory Interpretation, November 1991
• Presentation, “Civil RICO’s Remedial Provisions,” Vanderbilt Symposium on Civil RICO, February 1990

University Service

• Member, Board of Directors, Initiative and Referendum Institute, 2007 to present
• Member, Budget Steering Group, September 2009 to present
• Member, Government and Community Relations Academic Advisory Council, September 2009 to present
• Member, Provost’s Council, 2007 to present
• Member, Urban Deans’ Council, 2007 to 2008

Professional Activities and Associations

• Member, American Bar Association, 1987 to present
• Board of Directors, American Law and Economics Association, 2007 to present
• Member, American Law and Economics Association, 1991 to present
• Member, American Law Deans Association, 2007 to present
• Member, Beverly Hills Bar Association, April 2009 to present
• Member, The Chancery Club of Los Angeles, May 2009 to present
• Member, Los Angeles County Bar Association, April 2009 to present
• Member, The State Bar of California, 1987 to present

Honors and Awards

• Fellow, American Bar Foundation, April 2009 to present
• Member, The American Law Institute, 2008 to present
• Member, Pacific Council on International Policy, November 2008 to present
• Order of the Coif

Miscellaneous

Principal author of Amicus Curiae Brief on behalf of nine law professors in Supreme Court case of Bank of America v. 203 North LaSalle Street Partnership, 119 S. Ct. 1411 (1999); principal author of Amicus Curiae Brief on behalf of three law professors in In re Integrated Telecom Express, Inc., 384 F.3d 108 (3d Cir. 2004); principal author of Amicus Curiae Brief on behalf of seven law professors in In re Owens Corning, 419 F.3d 195 (3d Cir. 2005).

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