Business Law

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, Professor of Law

Movies and television almost always show lawyers in a courtroom or preparing for litigation. But the reality is that much of legal practice is helping clients stay out of the courtroom in the first place. This is where the business lawyer comes in, helping clients ranging from mom-and-pop operations to S&P 100 publicly traded companies plan their activities to minimize legal exposure while accomplishing their business goals.

The faculty have designed Notre Dame’s Program of Study in Business Law to provide a roadmap for students interested in exploring the many career paths that a focus on business law offers. After completing their first-year courses, students considering business law are advised to take the two foundational courses that introduce them to varieties of state law legal forms available to businesses and the federal income tax laws that shape the financial outcomes for many business activities. With that introduction, students are then equipped to choose among the many advanced corporate law, tax law, and commercial law courses taught by the 10 full-time business law faculty, other full-time faculty who teach business law-related courses, and the numerous part-time business law faculty who bring their ongoing practice experience to the classroom. By graduation, students who pursue this program of study are ready to be legal advisors to businesses of all types and sizes.

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer joined the faculty as an associate professor of law in 2005 and became a full professor in 2011. He served as the associate dean for academic affairs from 2011 to 2015. He earned his A.B., with distinction and honors, from Stanford University in 1989 and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1994. While at Yale, he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics and served as business editor of the Yale Law and Policy Review and as an editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. Following graduation, he clerked for the Honorable Lowell A. Reed, Jr., United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He then joined Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, D.C., first as an associate and later as a member, where he concentrated on tax issues, particularly for nonprofit organizations. He teaches courses at Notre Dame Law School in not-for-profit organizations, business enterprise taxation, election law, and professional responsibility. He also lectures at the Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business on legal issues facing nonprofit organizations.