Founded in 1924, the Academy of Legal Studies in Business (International) is an association of teachers and scholars in the fields of business law, legal environment, and law-related courses outside of professional law schools. Our nearly 1,000 members teach primarily in schools of business in colleges and universities, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Members come from all fifty states, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, England, and a number of other nations.
The Academy provides a forum for the exchange of ideas, and encourages support and cooperation among those who teach and conduct research in the field of legal studies. The Academy publishes two top-tier journals: the American Business Law Journal (ABLJ) and the Journal of Legal Studies Education (JLSE). Members receive hard copies of both journals and have electronic access to them via Wiley Online Library on the Members’ Only page.
Executive Committee
The Executive Committee is responsible for the governance, corporate oversight, and strategic direction of the Academy. Members have a fiduciary responsibility to the Academy and preserve the institution’s financial health while ensuring fulfillment of the Academy’s mission.
Kabrina Chang
Kabrina Krebel Chang is a Clinical Associate Professor of Business Law at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. She teaches Introduction to Business Law, Employment law, and Business, Justice, and Responsibility in the undergraduate program and Employment Law in the MBA program. Professor Chang’s research focuses on employment matters, in particular the future of work including the impact of social media on management decisions and employee rights, and disability issues. She has also written on corporate social advocacy. Her work has been published in academic journals, news outlets such at The New York Times, Quartz.com, Bloomberg, and The Boston Globe, and in magazines such as Forbes, Bloomberg, and Harvard Business Review. She is the co-author of Business and Society: Ethical, Legal, and Digital Environments with Cynthia Clark. Professor Chang has won several awards for her teaching and writing. Before she changed careers, Professor Chang was a trial lawyer in in private practice.
Elizabeth A. Brown
Liz Brown earned her B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard College, where she was a John Harvard Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School. She represented Fortune 100 companies for 13 years before joining the Bentley faculty, where she is a tenured professor. As a former litigation partner in an international law firm specializing in intellectual property, her experience with practical applications of law in business informs her award-winning teaching and research. Her specific interests include emerging technologies, data privacy legislation, the regulation of wearable sensor data, and the ethical resolution of conflicts between individual civil rights and corporate religious freedom. She is the author of Life After Law (2013) and the co-author of How to Leave the Law (2022).
Leora F. Eisenstadt
Leora Eisenstadt is Associate Professor of Legal Studies and the Murray Shusterman Research Fellow at the Fox School of Business at Temple University. She is the Founding Director of the Center for Ethics, Diversity and Workplace Culture (CEDWC). Leora’s areas of scholarship include employment law, race and the law, sex discrimination and sexual harassment, and whistleblowing. Her publications have appeared in the Georgia Law Review, the Emory Law Journal, and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, among others. Leora’s op-Eds and commentary have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the NY Post, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Dallas Morning News. Her scholarly work and teaching have earned her numerous teaching and best paper awards.
Leora received her J.D. from New York University School of Law, her B.A. from Yale University, and her L.L.M. in Legal Education from Temple University. Prior to joining Temple University, Leora practiced in the Labor & Employment Group at Dechert LLP.
Keith Diener
Dr. Keith William Diener is a tenured Full Professor at Stockton University in New Jersey where he teaches courses in law and ethics. He holds two doctoral degrees, in law and business ethics, and two masters’ degrees, in international law and philosophy from Georgetown University, Georgia State University, and George Washington University. He previously held visiting positions at the George Washington University and the Universidad de La Salle, and an Adjunct Professorship at the University of Maryland, Global Campus. Dr. Diener has published extensively on legal and ethical issues and received numerous research awards from national and international law and ethics organizations. He is the author of the book, The Lawyer’s Guide to Business Ethics (Routledge, 2022), and is a licensed attorney in New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
Alex Reed
Alex Reed is a Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. Before joining the Executive Committee, he served as an officer of both the Southeastern Academy of Legal Studies in Business and the ALSB’s Employment Law Section.
Alex teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on negotiation and employment law and is a member of UGA’s Teaching Academy. His research focuses on employment discrimination, and his scholarship has appeared in such journals as the American Business Law Journal, Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law, and University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law. Alex considers it a privilege to serve an organization that has given so much to so many.
Philip M. Nichols
Philip M. Nichols is the Joseph Kolodny Professor of Social Responsibility in Business and a Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In general he studies the ways in which emerging economies change to enable broader ranges of relationships, but much of his research focusses on the nature of and control of corruption. He has worked in or with people and organizations in more than twenty countries on these issues. Phil has joyfully served as the president of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, as well as co-chair of the American Society of International Law’s Economic Law Interest Group and its Anti-Corruption Law Interest Group, and as co-chair of UN/CEFACT LG, a United Nations expert committee on trade facilitation and electronic commerce. Phil teaches international subjects and has received several teaching awards, including the Academy’s John Bonsignore Memorial Award. The ALSB has played a critical role in Phil’s life, and he is grateful for the opportunity to pay that forward.
Ruth Jebe
Ruth Jebe is emerita associate professor of legal studies at Boise State University’s College of Business & Economics. She earned her J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and practiced law in Stamford, Connecticut, focusing on real estate development, commercial and zoning construction, food service, and grocery retailing. Dr. Jebe earned a Master of Science in Management in 2004 and moved into academia, teaching at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business for twelve years. In 2016, she joined the College of Business and Economics at Boise State University. In recognition of her work in business ethics and sustainability, she was appointed the college’s first Robert V. Hansberger Endowed Chair of Business Ethics in 2022, a post she held until her retirement in 2025. She has taught courses in sustainability, sustainable business strategy, ethics, and the legal environment of business for both undergraduate and graduate students, including executive MBAs. Her research focuses on the nexus of public and private institutions in regulatory governance, both domestically and internationally, and especially as applied to sustainability issues. She has published articles in the George Washington International Law Review, the Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law, the Connecticut Journal of International Law, the American Business Law Journal, the Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal, the North Carolina Journal of International Law, and the University of Baltimore Law Review.
Tonia Murphy
After practicing law with a large firm in Indianapolis and at Eli Lilly and Company, Tonia Murphy has taught business law at the University of Notre Dame for thirty-three years. Murphy has earned teaching awards at Notre Dame and achieved national recognition for teaching and research, including the Charles M. Hewitt Master Teacher Award from the ALSB and four Hoeber Memorial Awards for Best Article in the Journal of Legal Studies Education. She served ten years as a Staff Editor of the American Business Law Journal and was Editor-in-Chief of the JLSE from 2010-2012. She is pleased to return as Editor for Volume 43.
Jehan El-Jourbagy
Starting in this role in 2024, the 100th Anniversary of the ALSB, Jehan also serves as an Associate Professor of Business Law & Ethics at Georgia College & State University.
Jehan has been an active member of the Academy since 2015 and is a past chair of the Ethics Section. She is also a past president of the Southeastern Academy of Legal Studies in Business (SEALSB) and has published in both the American Business Law Journal and the Journal of Legal Studies Education. She assisted the ALSB Blue-Ribbon Committee by drafting and presenting a report section on the Future of the ALSB and has been invited to share her thoughts on engaging students at the ALSB’s Business Law Career Clinic.
Jehan lives with her husband and four school-aged children in her hometown of Monticello.
Lara Kessler
Lara Kessler holds a B.A. in French from Northern Arizona University, an M.S.A. from Grand Valley State University, and a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School. She is a licensed attorney in Tennessee and a Certified Public Accountant (C.P.A.) in both Tennessee and Michigan.
Lara brings a diverse professional background, having served as a Captain in the United States Air Force, where she spent four years as an Assistant Staff Judge Advocate and worked as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Texas.
Currently, Lara teaches individual income tax and ethics at the undergraduate level and business law at the graduate level. In addition to her academic role, she works as a tax manager during the business season at a regional CPA firm.
She is honored and excited to serve as the new Chief Academic Officer (CAO) of such a wonderful organization, bringing her passion for education, ethics, and public service to the role.