Jeffrey J. Haas

Professor of Law

Jeffrey J. Haas devotes his scholarship to understanding the movement and regulation of large sums of money in the financial markets. Professor Haas teaches corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, contracts, corporate finance, securities regulation, and mutual fund regulation.

Professor Haas previously practiced in the corporate securities arena, helping clients raise capital, purchase and sell businesses, and achieve other strategic goals. He uses the classroom to transfer his extensive knowledge base on the labyrinth of laws regulating the financial markets to his law students so that they can go out and assist corporate clients in such complex legal transactions as initial public offerings (IPOs).

He has always found corporate law intriguing and now finds it particularly relevant given the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and other major companies and the subsequent unnerving of investor confidence. “Given the scandals within corporate America and on Wall Street, there has been a tremendous focus placed on corporate governance and the policing of conflicts of interest. And rightly so. It’s unfortunate that investor confidence has to be shaken by what is essentially outsized greed,” he says.

This growing interest in corporate law has definitely spilled over into New York Law School, which is located just a few blocks from Wall Street and the financial markets, Professor Haas adds.

Professor Haas has since turned his attention to mutual fund law, which has become an especially hot topic for aspiring lawyers with some 60 percent of U.S. households and $7 trillion invested in mutual funds.

“Mutual funds are one of the most heavily-regulated financial products in the country. Yet, mutual fund regulation is an almost untapped area for new lawyers,” he says. “We’ve placed a number of students in law firms that are happy to have someone who knows anything about the subject. They need very bright, knowledgeable lawyers to help steer clients through the regulatory maze.”

He adds that New York Law School is one of only a dozen law schools in the country teaching a course on mutual fund regulation.

Professor Haas regularly writes about and acts as a commentator for the media, most recently authoring an article, “Nonprofit Directors’ Duties as Endowment Performance Declines” in the New York Law Journal (reprinted as “When the Endowment Tanks: Some Lessons for Nonprofits” in Business Law Today). He was a visiting professor at Cardozo Law School during spring 2002 and Florida State University College of Law in fall 2004. He also teaches Securities Regulation and Corporate Finance at the University of Pennsylvania Law School periodically.

Professor Haas is considered the leading legal authority on tracking stocks, having written “Directorial Fiduciary Duties in a Tracking Stock Equity Structure: The Need for a Duty of Fairness” in the Michigan Law Review. A member of the American Bar Association’s Committee on the Federal Regulation of Securities, he has provided media comment on tracking stocks and other securities law issues to over 60 different periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

An avid musician, Professor Haas keeps a drum set at the Law School. He grew up in both Chicago and Florida and now lives in Manhattan.