Essentials of the Legal Environment of Business

Don Mayer teaches law, ethics, public policy, and sustainability at the Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, where he is Professor of the Practice of Business Ethics and Legal Studies. His research focuses on the role of business in creating a more just, sustainable, and productive world. With James O’Toole, Professor Mayer has co-edited and contributed content to Good Business: Exercising Effective and Ethical Leadership (Routledge, 2010). He is also coauthor of International Business Law: Cases and Materials, in its sixth edition with Pearson Publishing Company. He has taught business ethics at St. Mary’s College of California, the University of Michigan, Manchester Global Business School, the University of Iowa, and Oakland University (Michigan). After earning a philosophy degree from Kenyon College and a law degree from Duke University Law School, Professor Mayer served as a Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps officer in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam conflict and went into private practice in North Carolina. In 1985, he earned his LL.M. in international and comparative law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Later that year, he began his academic career at Western Carolina University and proceeded to become a full professor at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, where he taught for many years before moving to the University of Denver. Professor Mayer has won numerous awards from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, including the Hoeber Award for best article in the American Business Law Journal, the Maurer Award for best article on business ethics (twice), and the Ralph Bunche Award for best article on international business law (three times). His work has been published in many journals and law reviews but most often in American Business Law Journal, the Journal of Business Ethics, and Business Ethics Quarterly.

Daniel Warner is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Washington, where—following military service—he also attended law school. After some years of civil practice, he joined the faculty at the College of Business and Economics at Western Washington University in 1978 where he is now a professor of business legal studies in the Accounting Department. He has published extensively exploring the intersection of popular culture and the law, for which publications he has five times received the College of Business Dean's Research Award for "distinguished contributions in published research." He served eight years on the Whatcom County Council, two years as its Chair. He has served on the Faculty Senate, on various university and college committees including chairman of the University Master Plan Committee; he has been active in state Bar Association committee work and in local politics, where he has served on numerous boards and commissions over 30 years.

George J. Siedel completed graduate studies at the University of Michigan and Cambridge University. Following graduation from law school, he worked as an attorney in a professional corporation before joining the faculty at the University of Michigan. Professor Siedel has been admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court and in Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. He has also served on several boards of directors and as Associate Dean of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Professor Siedel was a Visiting Professor at Stanford University and Harvard University, a Visiting Scholar at Berkeley, and a Parsons Fellow at the University of Sydney. He has been elected a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University's Wolfson College and a Life Fellow of the Michigan State Bar Foundation. As a Fulbright Scholar in Eastern Europe, he held a Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The author of numerous books and articles, Professor Siedel is the recipient of research awards from the University of Michigan (the Faculty Recognition Award) and the Academy of Legal Studies in Business (the Hoeber Award, the Ralph Bunche Award and the Maurer Award). The Center for International Business Education and Research selected a case written by Professor Siedel for its annual International Case Writing Award. He has also received many teaching awards, including the 2014 Executive Program Professor of the Year Award from a consortium of thirty-six leading universities committed to international education.

Jethro K. Lieberman is Martin Professor Emeritus at New York Law School, where for many years he served as dean for academic affairs. He taught in law schools for 33 years, at NYLS and at Fordham University School of Law. Before that, he was vice president at what is now the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) in New York. For nearly ten years, he was legal affairs editor of Business Week magazine. He practiced antitrust and trade regulation law at a large Washington law firm and was on active duty as a member of the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps during the Vietnam era. He earned his BA in politics and economics from Yale University, his JD from Harvard Law School, and his PhD in political science from Columbia University. He is the author of The Litigious Society (Basic Books), winner of the American Bar Association’s top literary prize, the Silver Gavel. Among his many other books are Liberalism Undressed (Oxford University Press) and A Practical Companion to the Constitution: How the Supreme Court Has Ruled on Issues from Abortion to Zoning(University of California Press). He is a long-time letterpress printer and proprietor of The Press at James Pond, a private press, and owner of the historic Kelmscott-Goudy Press, an Albion handpress that was used to print the Kelmscott Press edition of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the 1890s. For a complete bibliography, see www.jethrolieberman.com.