Dalia Tsuk Mitchell

Professor of Law and The John Marshall Harlan Dean's Research Professor of Law


Contact:

Office Phone: (202) 994-9320
2000 H St. NW Washington DC 20052

Professor Mitchell’s research focuses on the history of U.S. legal and political thought with particular emphasis on the role that groups and organizations played in legal scholars’ visions for the modern American state. Her book, Architect of Justice: Felix S. Cohen and the Founding of American Legal Pluralism, won the 2007 American Historical Association’s Littleton-Griswold Prize for the best book in any subject on the history of American law and society. 

In her most recent publications, including “Proceduralism: Delaware’s Legacy,” “Shareholder Wealth Maximization: Variations on a Theme,” “Business as Usual: Hobby Lobby and the Purpose of Corporate Rights,” and “From Dodge to eBay: The Elusive Corporate Purpose,” Professor Mitchell offers critical interpretations of corporate law and theory. She is currently working on a book exploring how modern corporate law supported the empowerment of the corporate elite. She is also the author of a casebook on corporate law.

Professor Mitchell joined GW in 2004. Previously, she was on the faculty of the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. She also held several fellowships, including a senior fellowship at the graduate program at Harvard Law School and the Samuel I. Golieb fellowship in legal history at NYU School of Law. In 2001, she was a fellow at the inaugural J. Willard Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History at the University of Wisconsin.


LAW 6401: Selected Topics in Constitutional Law: Law, Critique, and Social Change 

Books
Architect of Justice: Felix S. Cohen and the Founding of American Legal Pluralism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007). Winner of the 2007 American Historical Association’s Littleton-Griswold Prize for the best book in any subject on the history of American law and society

Casebooks
Corporations (Carolina Academic Press, 2018)

Book Chapters
Rewritten Meinhard
, in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Corporate Law (Kelli Alces Williams, Anne Choike, and Usha Rodrigues eds., Cambridge University Press, 2022)
Legitimating Power: A Brief History of Modern U.S. Corporate Law,
in The Research Handbook on the History of Corporate and Company Law 510-533 (Harwell Wells, ed., Edward Elgar Press, 2018)
From Tort to Finance: Delaware’s Sedative Duty to Monitor
, in Complexity and Crisis in the Financial System: Critical Perspectives on the Evolution of American and British Banking 121-148 (Matthew Hollow, Folarin Akinbami and Ranald Michie eds., Edward Elgar Pub. 2016)
Jews and American Legal Pluralism
, in Jews and the Law 321-346 (Marc Galanter, Ari Mermelstein, Suzanne Last Stone, Victoria Saker Woeste, and Ethan Zadoff eds., Quid Pro Press, 2014)
Legitimating Power: The Changing Status of the Board of Directors
, in The Embedded Firm: Labor, Corporate Governance, and Finance Capitalism 60-81 (Cynthia Williams and Peer Zumbansen eds., Cambridge University Press, 2011)
The Financial Determinants of American Corporate Governance: A Brief History
, in Corporate Governance: A Synthesis Theory, Research and Practice 19-36 (H. Kent Baker and Ronald Anderson eds., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010) (with Lawrence E. Mitchell)
Transformations: Pluralism, Individualism, and Democracy,
in Transformations in American Legal History: Essays in Honor of Professor Morton J. Horwitz 185-210 (Daniel W. Hamilton & Alfred L. Brophy eds., Harvard University Press for Harvard Law School, 2008)

Law Review Articles
Proceduralism: Delaware’s Legacy
,
University of Chicago Business Law Journal, vol. 2: 333-390 (2023)
Shareholder Wealth Maximization: Variations on a Theme
,
University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, vol. 24: 700-749 (2022)
Business as Usual: Hobby Lobby and the Purpose of Corporate Rights
,
2021 Columbia Business Law Review: 243-295 (2021)
From Vulnerable to Sophisticated: The Changing Representation of Creditors in
Business Reorganizations, New York University Journal of Law and Business, vol. 16: 123-183 (2019)
From Dodge to eBay: The Elusive Corporate Purpose
, Virginia Law and Business Review, vol. 13: 155-211 (2019)
The Import of History to Corporate Law
, in “Teaching Business Associations,” St. Louis University Law Journal, vol. 59: 683-701 (2015)
The End of Corporate Law
, in a symposium on “Corporate Governance and Climate Change,” Wake Forest Law Review, vol. 44: 101-127 (fall 2009)
Status Bound: The Twentieth Century Evolution of Directors’ Liability
, New York University Journal of Law and Business, vol. 5: 63-151 (spring 2009)
Shareholders as Proxies: The Contours of Shareholder Democracy
, in a Symposium on “Understanding Corporate Law through History,” Washington and Lee Law Review, vol. 63: 1503-1578 (winter 2006)
From Pluralism to Individualism: Berle and Means and 20th Century American Legal Thought
, Law and Social Inquiry, vol. 30(1): 179-225 (winter 2005)
Corporations without Labor: The Politics of Progressive Corporate Law
, The University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 151: 1861-1912 (summer 2003)
"A Double Runner”: Felix S. Cohen and the Indian New Deal
, in a Symposium on “Putting Law in Its Place in Native North America,” Political and Legal Anthropology Review (POLAR), vol. 25(1): 48-68 (summer 2002)
Pluralisms: The Indian New Deal as a Model, in a Symposium on “Legislating Morality: The Problem of Moral Rights and Legal Rights,” Margins: Maryland’s Interdisciplinary Publication on Race, Religion, Gender and Class, vol. 1(2): 393-449 (winter 2001)
The New Deal Origins of American Legal Pluralism
, Florida State University Law Review, vol. 29(1): 189-268 (fall 2001)

Blog Posts and Short Essays
Proceduralism: Delaware’s Legacy
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (September 8, 2023)
Shareholder Wealth Maximization: Variations on a Theme
, Oxford Business Law Blog (May 15, 2023)
Shareholder Wealth Maximization
, Financial History Magazine (March 2022): 22-25
The Elusive Corporate Purpose
, The CLS Blue Sky Blog: Columbia Law School Blog on Corporations and Capital Markets (2019)

Encyclopedia Entries
Felix S. Cohen,
an entry in Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (Roger Newman ed., Yale University Press, 2009)
Morris R. Cohen,
an entry in Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (Roger Newman ed., Yale University Press, 2009)
Legal Realism,
an entry in Legal Systems of the World: A Political, Social, and Cultural Encyclopedia (Herbert Kritzer ed., 2002)

Book Reviews
Review of James R. Hackney, Jr., Under Cover of Science: American Legal-Economic Theory and the Quest for Objectivity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), Law and History Review (2009)
Review of Felix S. Cohen, On the Drafting of Tribal Constitutions, edited by David E. Wilkins (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), The Registrar of Kentucky Historical Society (2008)

S.J.D., Harvard University, 1999

M.Phil (History), Yale University, 1998

LL.B., Tel Aviv University, 1992