Faculty

Lawrence Ponoroff, J.D.
Professor

Lawrence Ponoroff is both a professor at Wilmington University and professor emeritus at Tulane University Law School. He also served as professor and dean at Michigan State University College of Law, where he successfully negotiated the agreement leading to the full integration of the College of Law with Michigan State. From 2009 to 2016, Ponoroff was the Samuel M. Fegtly Chair in Commercial Law at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, where he was also dean. Additionally, Ponoroff served as the dean of Tulane Law School and held the Mitchell Franklin Professorship in Private and Commercial Law.

Earlier in his career, Ponoroff was a partner with Holme Roberts & Owen (now Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP), a Denver-based firm specializing in corporate and commercial litigation. He is the author or co-author of over 30 law review articles and essays and seven books focused on business and consumer bankruptcy, contracts, and commercial law. Ponoroff served by appointment of the Chief Justice of the United States on the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules to the U.S. Judicial Conference and the Bankruptcy Judges Education Committee of the Federal Judicial Center.

From 1992 through 1994, he was a reporter to the Long-Range Planning Subcommittee of the Committee on the Administration of the Bankruptcy System of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Ponoroff is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He has previously served on the board of governors of the Arizona State Bar and the Louisiana State Bar Association, the Board of Directors of the American Board of Certification, the Louisiana Supreme Court Historical Society, and the Advisory Board of the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review.

In 2003, Ponoroff was elected as an American College of Bankruptcy Fellow. A graduate of Stanford Law School, Ponoroff has taught as a visitor at the University of Michigan Law School, Wayne State University Law School (Detroit), and as a faculty member at the University of Toledo College of Law, where for two years, he was associate dean for Academic Affairs. He earned student-voted teaching excellence awards from four law schools.

Lawrence Ponoroff's Philosophy

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