Dean Mark D. West

Mark D. West joined the University of Michigan Law School faculty in 1998.

Mark West is the Nippon Life Professor of Law and the 17th dean of the University of Michigan Law School. He teaches Japanese Law, Criminal Law, and Enterprise Organization.

Dean West's research focuses primarily on Japanese law. He is the author or coauthor of five books, including Law in Everyday Japan and the casebook The Japanese Legal System. He has published dozens of articles and essays in Michigan Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the American Journal of Comparative Law, the Journal of Legal Studies, Law and Society Review, and (in Japanese) Jurisuto, Horitsu Jiho, and Leviathan, among others. His publications explore such diverse topics as shareholder derivative suits, the evolution of corporate law, the education and career development of Japanese lawyers, and the ways in which Japanese court opinions frame love, sex, and marriage.

Dean West joined the Michigan Law faculty in 1998. He served as director of the University's Center for Japanese Studies from 2003 to 2007, and as the Law School's associate dean for academic affairs from 2008 to 2013. He has been an Abe Fellow at the University of Tokyo and a Fulbright Scholar and Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science at Kyoto University.

Before entering academia, Dean West practiced law at the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York and Tokyo. He clerked for the Hon. Eugene H. Nickerson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He has a BA from Rhodes College and a JD from Columbia Law School.