Professor Yosifon teaches Business Organizations and Professional Responsibility. His scholarship focuses on corporate governance law and corporate social responsibility. He is the author of Corporate Friction: How Corporate Law Impedes American Progress and What To Do About It (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Yosifon’s scholarship has appeared in numerous law journals, and his opinion pieces have been published in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News.
Professor Yosifon joined the Santa Clara University Law School faculty in 2006. He was born and raised in New Jersey. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School (’02, magna cum laude), Carnegie Mellon University (’97, M.A., American Social History), and Rutgers University (’95, B.A., History and Philosophy, summa cum laude). After graduating law school, Yosifon served as a law clerk to the Honorable Patti B. Saris of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and worked as a litigation associate at the Boston firm of Ropes & Gray, LLP.
When not teaching and writing, Professor Yosifon enjoys practicing yoga, hiking, and coaching youth sports.
J.D., magna cum laude, Harvard Law School, 2002
M.A., Carnegie Mellon University, 1997
B.A., summa cum laude, Rutgers University, 1995
Business Law, Legal Ethics, Legal Theory
Articles
Moby-Dick as Corporate Catastrophe: Law, Ethics, and Redemption , 90 U. Cin. L. Rev. 372 (2021) | Link to Digital Commons
Corporate Law as An Existential Project, 88 Fordham L. Rev. 1801 (2020) | Link to Full Text
Opting Out of Shareholder Primacy: Is the Public Benefit Corporation Trivial?, 41 Delaware Journal of Corporate Law 461 (2017) | Link to Full Text
Is Corporate Patriotism a Virtue?, 15 Santa Clara Journal of International Law 265 (2016) | Link to Digital Commons
The Social Relations of Consumption: Corporate Law and the Meaning of Consumer Culture, 2015 Brigham Young University Law Review 1309 | Link to Digital Commons
The Law of Corporate Purpose, 10 Berkeley Business Law Journal 181-230 (2014) | Link to Digital Commons
Corporate Aid to Governmental Authority: History and Analysis of An Obscure Power in Delaware Corporate Law, 10 University of Saint Thomas Law Journal 1087-1122 (2013) | Link to Digital Commons
Consumer Lock-In and the Theory of the Firm, 35 Seattle University Law Review 1429-1467 (2012) | Link to Digital Commons
Towards a Firm-Based Theory of Consumption, 46 Wake Forest Law Review 447-468 (2011) | Link to Digital Commons
Discourse Norms as Default Rules: Structuring Corporate Speech to Multiple Stakeholders, (Symposium on Commercial Speech and Public Health), 21 Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine 189-228 (2011) | Link to Digital Commons
The Public Choice Problem in Corporate Law: Corporate Social Responsibility after Citizens United, 89 North Carolina Law Review 1197-1246 (2011) | Link to Digital Commons
The Consumer Interest in Corporate Law, 43 U.C. Davis Law Review 253-313 (2009) | Link to Digital Commons
Legal Theoretic Inadequacy and Obesity Epidemic Analysis, 15 George Mason Law Review 681-740 (2008) | Link to Digital Commons
Resisting Deep Capture: The Commercial Speech Doctrine and Junk-Food Advertising to Children, (Symposium: Food Marketing to Children and the Law), 39 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 507-602 (2006) | Link to Digital Commons
The Situational Character: A Critical Realist Perspective on the Human Animal, with Hanson, 93 Georgetown Law Journal 1-179 (2004) | Link to Digital Commons
Broken Scales: Obesity and Justice in America, with Benforado and Hanson, 53 Emory Law Journal 1645-1806 (2004) | Link to Digital Commons
The Situation: An Introduction to the Situational Character, Critical Realism, Power Economics, and Deep Capture, with Hanson, 152 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 129-346 (2003) | Link to Digital Commons
The Rise and Fall of American Posture, with Stearns, 103 American Historical Review 1057-1095 (1998) | Link to Full Text
Book Reviews
The Senses of Humor: Self and Laughter in Modern America, 33 Journal of Social History 683-685 (2000) | Link to Full Text
The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Christmas That Shows How It Was Transformed from an Unruly Carnival Season into the Quintessential American Family Holiday, 32 Journal of Social History 231-233 (1998) | Link to Library Catalog | Link to Full Text