William S. Dodge, a leading expert on international law, international transactions and international dispute resolution, has been named the inaugural holder of the John D. Ayer Chair in Business Law, the University of California, Davis, School of Law announced this week.

This chair honors Professor Jack Ayer, a longtime teacher of bankruptcy and other commercial law courses at UC Davis School of Law. Dodge has taught at UC Davis since 2015.

“We are fortunate to have a scholar of the caliber of Professor Dodge,” Dean Kevin R. Johnson said. “This chair recognizes his scholarly, teaching and service excellence. We are indebted to the donors who made this chair possible.”

Dodge served as counselor on international law to the legal adviser at the U.S. Department of State from 2011 to 2012, and as co-reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law from 2012 to 2018. He is currently a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law and an adviser to the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Third) of the Conflict of Laws.

Dodge is co-author (with Detlev Vagts, Hannah Buxbaum, and Harold Koh) of the casebook Transnational Business Problems (6th ed. Foundation Press, 2019) and co-editor (with David Sloss and Michael Ramsey) of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge University Press, 2011), which won the American Society of International Law’s 2012 certificate of merit. He has more than 50 other publications in books and law reviews, and his articles have been cited more than 30 times in court opinions, including four times by justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dodge has received the Rutter Distinguished Teaching Award both at UC Davis and at UC Hastings, where he was previously the Roger J. Traynor professor of law. 

Dodge earned his bachelor’s degree in history, summa cum laude, from Yale University. After teaching English in Tianjin, China, he attended Yale Law School, where he was a notes editor of the Yale Law Journal, served as director of the Lowenstein International Human Rights Project, and earned his law degree.

Dodge clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. From 1993 to 1995, he was an attorney at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C.

Endowed professorships are funded by gifts that are invested as endowments to ensure ongoing scholarly and research support for successive endowed professorship holders through many generations. The professorships help UC Davis to attract and retain the best scholars and teachers from throughout the world.

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