About George L.
George L. Priest earned his B.A. from Yale University in 1969 and his J.D. from The University of Chicago Law School in 1973. Those credentials set the stage for a career at the interface of law and economic analysis. He moved from student to teacher and scholar, returning to academic life soon after completing his legal studies.
Early in his career he served as a lecturer and fellow in law and economics at The University of Chicago Law School in 1975. At the same time he was listed as an associate professor of law (on leave) from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. By 1979 he held a professorship at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Over the following decades he continued work that combined legal doctrine with economic reasoning.
In 2010 he was appointed the Edward J. Phelps Professor of Law and Economics at Yale Law School. That named chair recognizes a long engagement with questions about how legal rules shape behavior in markets and institutions. His academic appointments reflect a sustained interest in bringing empirical and theoretical tools from economics into conversations about law and policy.
His scholarship has consistently engaged subjects at the intersection of law and economics. He writes and teaches about how legal institutions influence incentives, allocation of resources, and regulatory outcomes. Those themes recur across articles and courses, and they inform classroom discussions as well as conference presentations and faculty seminars.
Colleagues and students have encountered him in large lecture halls and small seminars. His teaching profile includes core law and economics material and problems that require clear conceptual tools. He has supervised research and advised graduate and law students on projects that apply economic methods to legal questions.
He has spent much of his professional life in academic settings rather than in private practice. At Yale Law School he combines teaching responsibilities with ongoing research. His current work centers on law and economics, and he continues to teach and publish from that perspective.
He currently teaches and researches law and economics at Yale Law School.
