James R. Hackney
Dean and Professor of Law
Education
Yale University, JD 1989
Bio
A forward thinker well ahead of the curve, Dean Hackney launched the law school’s first online programs for non-lawyers during his tenure as associate dean for entrepreneurial programs and research support (2013–2015) — recognizing early that law and regulation were becoming indispensable forces in fields including AI, health, human resources, intellectual property, privacy and compliance. When Northeastern President Aoun called on him to serve as chief of staff in 2016, Dean Hackney stepped into the university’s highest strategic circles, helping write Northeastern 2025 and co-chairing the Presidential Council on Diversity and Inclusion.
Dean Hackney’s intellectual reach is equally broad. He teaches and researches across a wide landscape, including intellectual history, torts, corporate finance, corporations, the mutual fund industry, law and economics, and theories of race in America. He is the author of two acclaimed books: Under Cover of Science: American Legal-Economic Theory and the Quest for Objectivity (Duke University Press, 2007) and Legal Intellectuals in Conversation: Reflections on the Construction of Contemporary American Legal Theory (New York University Press, 2012).
Before entering academia, Dean Hackney practiced as an associate at the prominent Los Angeles firm Irell & Manella. At Yale Law School, he served as book review and comment editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Fields of Expertise
- Corporate Law
- Economics and the Law
- Intellectual History
- Race and Racism and the Law
- Torts
Selected Works
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- Legal Intellectuals in Conversation: Reflections on the Construction of Contemporary American Legal Theory (New York University Press, 2012).
- Under Cover of Science: American Legal-Economic Theory and the Quest for Objectivity (Duke University Press, 2007).
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- “Regulating Through Financial Engineering: The Office Of Financial Research And Pull Of Models,” 50 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 695 (2019).
- “Guido Calabresi and the Construction of Contemporary American Legal Theory,” 77 Law and Contemporary Problems 45 (2014).
- “The Enlightenment and Financial Crisis of 2008: An Intellectual History of Corporate Finance Theory,” 54 Saint Louis University Law Journal 1257 (2010).
- Book Review: “On Markets and Regulation: Richard Posner’s Conservative Pragmatist Evolution,” 3 Law and Financial Markets Review 539 (2009).
- “Ideological Conflict, African American Reparations, Tort Causation and the Case for Social Welfare Transformation,” 84 Boston University Law Review 1193 (2004).
- “Law and Neoclassical Economics Theory: A Critical History of the Distribution/Efficiency Debate,” 32 Journal of Socio-Economics 361 (2003).
- “Law and Neoclassical Economics: Science, Politics and the Reconfiguration of American Tort Law Theory,” 15 Law and History Review 275 (1997).
- “The Intellectual Origins of American Strict Products Liability: A Case Study in American Pragmatic Instrumentalism,” 39 American Journal of Legal History 443 (1995).
- “A Proposal for State Funding of Municipal Tort Liability,” 98 Yale Law Journal 389 (1988).
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- “Oliver Wendell Holmes”, “Charles Sanders Peirce,” in Industrialization and Imperialism: 1800-1914, A Bibliographical Dictionary, ed. J. Bell (Greenwood Press, 2002).
- “Banking”, “Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation”, “Glass-Steagall Act,” in The Encyclopedia of the Great Depression and New Deal Vol. 1, ed. J. Ciment (M.E. Sharpe, 2001).
- “Duties of Fund Directors Under State Law,” in Fund Governance: Legal Duties of Investment Company Directors, ed. R. Robertson (Law Journal Press, 2005).
James R. Hackney
Dean and Professor of Law