Jacob Hale Russell

Professor of Law
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Jacob Russell I teach at Rutgers Law School. My courses include the introductory business law course (Business Organizations), first-year Property, a class on the regulation of capital markets (Securities Regulation), and an introduction to statistics and empirics for lawyers (Understanding Statistics). I also teach a rotating cast of seminars—on the history and politics of the corporation (Modern Capitalism and the Corporation), the rise of populism (Populism and the Law), and limited liability companies (Advanced Business Organizations, co-taught with Vice Chancellor Travis Laster).

Author photo credit: Adam F. Scales, Invisible Lens Photography.

My research asks when and how insights from social sciences can inform legal policy design. I have written skeptically about the use of "nudging" to improve retirement savings decisions, and questioned the way many legal policies interpret individual tastes and preferences. I am interested in intellectual history and am working on a research project about the evolution of ideas about the corporation, including debates over corporate social responsibility and personhood. I have written about changes in societal conceptions of which shareholders need protection and about how ideas about contracts came to influence not-for-profits, enhancing the power and status of donors. I also write about consumer protection and corporate governance. With my colleague Arthur Laby, I edited Fiduciary Obligations in Business, published by Cambridge University Press.

My most recent project, with my colleague Dennis Patterson, investigates skepticism, elites, and the misuse of expertise in public policy. The project developed out of a course we co-taught on populism in the spring of 2020 and again in 2022, and in a series of articles we wrote about the botched public discourse surrounding our pandemic response. Our book on the topic, Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism was published by MIT Press in March 2025. It has been named a "best book of the week" by The New Yorker. More reviews, essays, and information about the book are available on the book's website.

I was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering arts, culture, food, and cooking, before inexplicably giving up journalism to study securities regulation. I still occasionally write about issues that interest me, such as arguing for expanding the Supreme Court (before it became trendy).

You won't find me on Twitter, but you can always email me.