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Michael Korybut, J.D.

Professor
Center for International and Comparative Law

Courses Taught

Advanced Commercial and Business Transactions, Bankruptcy, Commercial Transactions, Secured Transactions

Education

B.A., Claremont McKenna College, 1985
J.D., Stanford Law School, 1990

Practice Areas

Professor Michael Korybut is a Co-Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at Â鶹´«Ă˝ School of Law. Professor Korybut’s expertise is in business and commercial transactional law. At the Law School, his courses include Advanced Commercial and Business Transactions Practice, Commercial Transactions, Secured Transactions, Bankruptcy, and International Sale of Goods. Professor Korybut also has taught at the Law School’s Summer Law Program in Madrid, Spain, and he speaks Spanish and French. 

Prior to teaching at the Law School, Professor Korybut was an associate attorney with the law firms Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe in San Francisco, California, and Gray, Cary, Ware and Friedenrich in Palo Alto, California. At both firms, he represented lending institutions and corporate borrowers. 

Publications and Media Placements

Professor Korybut’s principal scholarship focuses on secured financing transactions; in particular Article 9 foreclosure sales. Professor Korybut’s Rutgers Law Journal article, “Online Auctions of Repossessed Collateral,” was one of the first to explore the use of the Internet as a marketplace for repossessed goods. Following this article, Korybut published “Searching for Commercial Reasonableness under the Revised Article 9” in the Iowa Law Review, which examined how secured creditors conduct foreclosure sales. In "Article 9's Incorporation Strategy and Novel, New Markets for Collateral: A Theory of Non-Adoption" (Buffalo Law Review), Professor Korybut explored the theoretical reasons why a secured party would not adopt a new, more efficient method of selling repossessed property, and cling instead to the conventional market(s). Most recently, Professor Korybut’s Hastings Business Law Journal article, “The Uncertain Scope of Revised Article 9’s Statutory Prohibition of Exculpatory Breach of the Pease Clauses,” analyzed a secured creditor’s ability to contract-out of liability for breaching the peace during a repossession.

Honors and Awards

Since joining the Law School faculty, Professor Korybut has received the Best Teacher of the Year award twice, and been awarded the Thompson Coburn Award for Exceptional Faculty Scholarship.