Stephen Diamond

Stephen F. Diamond

Associate Professor of Law

Stephen F. Diamond teaches courses on business law, securities law, corporate finance, corporate governance, human rights, labor rights and the global economy.

Diamond’s research focuses on the legal and political institutions that shape global capitalism and the response of workers to that system. His recent papers have examined corporate governance, market structure, shareholder activism and insider trading. His research has been published in the Cambridge Journal of Economics, the International Review of Law and Economics, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance, Socialist Register, and The Journal of Corporation Law. He has also written for The Nation, Dissent, In These Times and Monthly Review. He regularly presents his research at academic conferences and workshops including at Berkeley, Harvard, Sciences Po, Stanford, Toronto, Washington, Wisconsin, Yale, and York.

Diamond is the author of Rights and Revolution: The Rise and Fall of Nicaragua’s Sandinista Movement based, in part, on fieldwork he conducted inside Nicaragua during the war against the U.S-backed contra forces. He is the co-editor of Human Rights, Labor Rights and International Trade, recognized as a standard text in international human rights law.

Diamond is the recipient of a SSRC/MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in International Peace and Security. He has been a visitor or fellow at Cornell Law School, Harvard’s Center for International Affairs, Stanford’s Center for Latin American Studies and U.C. San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy and its Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies.

Prior to joining the faculty, Diamond was an associate at Latham & Watkins in New York and at Wilson Sonsini in Palo Alto where he represented public corporations, startups, investment banks and venture capital funds. He is licensed to practice law in New York and California.

Diamond has frequently advised boards of directors, activist investors, labor unions, pension funds and entrepreneurs on a wide range of business and governance issues. He serves as a consultant and expert witness for law firms on a wide range of business and governance issues in both federal and state court proceedings. Diamond has a long history of engagement with the labor movement including as a rank-and-file member, officer or staff person in the Teamsters, IBEW, AFSCME, SEIU and the AAUP/AFT. He has also served on the boards of directors of two startup companies and a Nasdaq-listed technology company, where he chaired the compensation committee and served on the audit committee.

Education

J.D., Yale Law School, Symposium Editor, Yale Law Journal

Ph.D., M.Phil., Political Science, Birkbeck College, University of London, SSRC/MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in International Peace and Security

B.A., Development Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa

Areas of Specialization

Corporate Governance, Corporate Finance, Business Law, Securities Law, International Labor Rights, International Trade, International Finance, Comparative Corporate Law