Thomas A. Smith
Professor of Law
Professor Smith was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, where he studied philosophy and economics, and was notes and topics editor of the Yale Law Journal. He clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and taught law at the University of Colorado and the University of California, Davis, before accepting a position as senior counsel and economist on President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors. He then practiced with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., before returning to USD in 1992. He teaches and writes in the areas of corporations, contracts, bankruptcy, and law and economics. His publications include "The Efficient Norm for Corporate Law," Michigan Law Review; "A Capital Markets Approach to Mass Torts Bankruptcy," Yale Law Journal; Institutions and Entrepreneurs in American Corporate Finance (West Publishing); and (with J. G. Sidak) "Four Faces of the Item Veto," Northwestern University Law Review.
