Cindy A. Schipani is the Merwin H. Waterman Collegiate Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Business Law at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. She recently served as the President of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. She is a past recipient of the Louis and Myrtle Moskowitz Research Professorship in Law and Business. Professor Schipani received her J.D. from the University of Chicago School of Law. She has held visiting appointments at the University of Michigan Law School, University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the University of Sydney Faculty of Law as a Parsons Fellow and Flinders University of South Australia as a Distinguished International Visitor. Professor Schipani has also spent a year on the faculty of the University of Hawaii School of Law. Before joining the faculty at the University of Michigan, she served as a Law Clerk for Justice Charles L. Levin of the Michigan Supreme Court. She has also practiced law with two major commercial law firms, Mayer, Brown in Chicago and Dickinson Wright in Detroit.
Professor Schipani’s primary research interests are in the area of corporate law and governance, with a focus on the relationship among directors, officers, shareholders and other stakeholders. Her research has included consideration of specific issues confronting directors of financial institutions, analysis of the corporate fiduciary duties of care and loyalty, issues of liability for environmental violations and ethical links between corporate governance and sustainable peace. She is also engaged in research involving pathways for women to obtain positions of organizational leadership. She has received numerous awards for her research, including the Academy of Legal Studies in Business National Award for Excellence and its Holmes-Cardozo Research Award. She is a frequent speaker on topics of corporate law and corporate governance, ethics and corruption (speaking annually at the Symposium on Corporate Crime at Cambridge University), and employment issues.
Professor Schipani teaches in undergraduate, MBA, Law School, and Executive Education courses. Her courses have included Corporate Governance, Law of Business Organizations, Legal Aspects of Entrepreneurship, and modules on Negotiation Skills, among others.