Biography
An expert in business law and finance, Karl Okamoto uses sophisticated empirical methods to investigate the most difficult problems in contemporary corporate law. He is also a nationally recognized expert in transactional skills training.
Okamoto is a pioneer in legal education, having launched the LawMeets® competitions, the premier "moot court" experience for students interested in a transactional practice. LawMeets® was recently profiled in The Wall Street Journal.
He also founded Apprennet (now known as Practice.xyz), a start-up that provides a video-based online learning platform for delivering simulations. The platform is used by various universities and businesses to provide hands-on learning to students and workers at scale. Okamoto was awarded a patent for the platform and its underlying teaching methodology..
Okamoto practiced with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis and at Dechert before working as a consultant for Soros Fund Management and becoming senior managing director for Atticus Capital LP, a leading hedge fund. He served as an executive officer and board member of Harvest Book Company LLC and on the board and chair of the compensation committees of Champps Entertainment Inc. and Cosi, Inc., two publicly traded restaurant companies.
Professor Okamoto previously served on the faculties of the Rutgers School of Law in Camden and the University of Alabama School of Law.
His research focuses on transactional skills pedagogy, as well as securities and corporate law. His articles include “The Price Effects of Event Risk Protection,” in Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, “Risk Taking,” in Cardozo Law Review, “After the Bailout: Regulating Systemic Moral Hazard,” in the UCLA Law Review, “Reputation and the Value of Lawyers,” in the Oregon Law Review, and “Oversimplification and the SEC’s Treatment of Derivative Securities Trading by Corporate Insiders,” in the Wisconsin Law Review. Two of Professor Okamoto’s articles have been chosen for republication in the prestigious Corporate Practice Commentator.
Professor Okamoto earned his JD at Columbia University School of Law.
He has served as the co-chair of the Business Law Education Committee of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section and on the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Minority Groups and co-organized the First Annual Asian Pacific American Law Professors’ Conference. He is a member of Bloomberg Law’s Corporate Transactions Academic Advisory Board.