Business Law Scholar Adam Callister Appointed to William & Mary Law School Faculty

Adam Callister joins William & Mary Law School this summer after completing his Ph.D. in financial economics at the Yale School of Management.

Callister earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as symposium editor for the Yale Journal of Regulation, and holds a B.S. in mathematics from Brigham Young University, with minors in economics and Arabic.

Callister brings a rich blend of academic and practical experience. He has worked as a summer associate at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York and at Kirton McConkie in Salt Lake City, served as a legal research assistant and instructor, and completed an internship at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.

His teaching and research interests include securities regulation, business associations, corporate finance, law and economics, and empirical legal studies. His scholarship examines how legal rules operate within complex institutional settings, focusing on the interaction between regulation, market structure, litigation incentives and stakeholder behavior.

Drawing on tools from economics such as formal modeling, causal inference and natural language processing, Callister studies the incentive structures of securities fraud class actions and the regulation of information disclosure in capital markets more broadly.

“We are delighted to welcome another exceptional scholar to our faculty,” said A. Benjamin Spencer, Dean of the Law School and Trustee Professor. “Professor Callister’s wide-ranging interests and doctorate in financial economics will broaden the depth and reach of our business offerings in a number of ways.”

Callister’s work has reached wider audiences through recent media appearances, including a discussion of his research on the Business Scholarship Podcast and an article in ProMarket examining expert‑witness spending disparities in securities litigation.

Callister will be teaching Corporate Finance this fall and Mergers and Acquisitions next spring.

“I’m very excited to join the William & Mary faculty, live in Williamsburg, and teach business law,” Callister says. “There are so many fascinating interdisciplinary questions in business law, and I look forward to exploring them with students.”

Callister considers teaching and research in such an interesting area to be a dream come true.

“It’s like getting to share your favorite song with someone new every day,” he says. “I couldn’t ask for more.”