About Alicia J.
Alicia J. Davis combines business training and legal training in a career that moves between boardrooms and classrooms. She began her academic path at Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, where she earned a B.S. in Business Administration in 1989. She then took up law, receiving a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1995, and later completed an MBA at Harvard Business School, earning the degree in 1999.
After business school, Davis moved into the financial sector. She joined Raymond James & Associates in 1999 as a vice president, a role that put her on the commercial side of capital markets and corporate finance. Two years later she entered private practice as an associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where she worked on transactional matters and corporate clients.
By 2004 Davis had shifted into academia. She joined the faculty at the University of Michigan Law School as a professor of law. Her time in academia has run alongside recurring engagements in practice and industry. In 2021 she accepted an executive role as Chief Strategy Officer at Lear Corporation, signaling a return to operational leadership within a major manufacturing firm.
Davis is admitted to practice in Florida and the District of Columbia. She became a member of the Florida State Bar in 1999 and of the District of Columbia Bar in 2002. She also holds membership in the American Law Institute, a sign of sustained involvement in legal scholarship and professional networks since 2017.
Her career traces a pattern: early business experience, corporate and transactional law practice, and sustained academic work. That mix informs how she frames classroom work and scholarship. She brings to teaching practical examples from finance and corporate governance alongside doctrinal analysis taught in a law school setting.
Students and colleagues describe her classes as grounded in real-world transactions and strategic decision-making. She has supervised research that touches on corporate structure, regulatory compliance, and the legal implications of business choices. Her scholarly interests sit at the intersection of law and business, where statutory regimes meet commercial planning.
She currently teaches at the University of Michigan Law School. Her professional work centers on corporate strategy and transactional matters.
