Professor Afra Afsharipour

Afra Afsharipour is Professor of Law and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at UC Davis School of Law. Professor Afsharipour researches in the areas of comparative corporate law, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, and transactional law. She uses comparative, empirical, economic and doctrinal methods in her work. Professor Afsharipour’s scholarship has been published in leading law journals, including the Columbia Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Georgia Law Review, Oklahoma Law Review, National Law School of India Review, and other leading journals. She is the author of the Handbook on Corporate Governance in India: Legal Standards and Board Practices (The Conference Board 2016).  Her book chapters have been published in books by leading presses, including Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. Professor Afsharipour has delivered numerous talks, nationally and internationally, on corporate law issues, and has been a visiting scholar in India and Taiwan. Consistent with her scholarly interests, she teaches courses in business associations, mergers and acquisitions, startups and venture capital, and antitrust.

Professor Afsharipour has been deeply involved in providing service to the legal scholarly community. She has served on boards and committees of the American Society of Comparative Law, as well as holding leadership roles in various sections of the American Association of Law Schools. In 2018 she was honored by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) with the Section on Business Associations Outstanding Mentor Award. In 2014 she was selected for the Lawyers of Color's 50 Under 50 list, a comprehensive catalog of minority law professors making an impact in legal education.

Prior to joining the UC Davis faculty, Professor Afsharipour was a corporate attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell in both New York and Menlo Park, CA. She advised clients on domestic and cross border mergers and acquisitions, public and private securities offerings, and corporate governance and compliance matters. She also maintained a robust pro bono practice, receiving the State Bar of California’s Wiley W. Manuel Award for Pro Bono Legal Services.

Professor Afra Afsharipour holds a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Cornell University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School (Harlan Fisk Stone Scholar), where she was an articles editor of the Columbia Law Review and a submissions editor of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.  After graduating from law school, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Rosemary Barkett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (1999-2000).