Rising stars join USC Law faculty

The USC Gould School of Law has recruited two new assistant professors, further enhancing the school’s prominence in business and intellectual property law.

Jonathan Barnett

Shmuel Leshem specializes in law and economics, focusing on game theory, and Jonathan Barnett is an expert on intellectual property, corporations and business organizations.

“USC Law has a history of hiring excellent young scholars who quickly become national leaders in their fields, and I think we’ve found two stars in Shmuel and Jon,” says Edward J. McCaffery, Dean and Carl M. Franklin Chair in Law.

Barnett comes to USC Law from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York, where he was an associate attorney handling private equity investments, private and public mergers and acquisitions, and a variety of financing transactions. He also taught antitrust and contracts and led an advanced antitrust analysis seminar at Fordham University School of Law in New York.

A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Barnett received his M.Phil. from Cambridge University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. His publications include “Shopping for Gucci on Canal Street: Status Consumption, Intellectual Property

Shmuel Leshem

and the Incentive Thesis” (Virginia Law Review, 2005); “Private Protection of Patentable Goods” (Cardozo Law Review, 2004); and “The Rational Underenforcement of Vice Laws” (Rutgers Law Review, 2002).

“I was attracted to USC by its sterling reputation for combining legal analysis with the best of social science scholarship and its faculty’s strong commitment to cultivating young scholars,” says Barnett.

Leshem is a recent J.S.D. graduate of the New York University School of Law. He also received a joint degree, magna cum laude, in law and economics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1997. In addition, he has an M.B.A. in finance from the Hebrew University and an LL.M. degree from NYU. Leshem’s current research focuses on a signaling theory of termination fees in mergers. His recent works include “Settlement Authority, Signaling and Contingent Fees,” and “Cross Ownership: Control and Competition in the Israeli Media” (with Yaron Ezrahi and Zohar Goshen) (The Israel Democracy Institute, 2003).

Leshem was attracted to USC for its strong interdisciplinary programs and reputation. He says he was particularly impressed by the close familiarity of faculty members from various disciplines with law and economics, as well as by the supportive and collegial atmosphere at the law school.