Biography

Before returning to Tulane as Professor Emeritus of Commercial & Private Law, Professor Ponoroff served as Professor and Dean at Michigan State University College of Law.  During that time, he successfully negotiated the agreement leading to the full integration of the College of Law with Michigan State.  From 2009 to 2016, he was the Samuel M. Fegtly Chair in Commercial Law at, and former Dean of, the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. Before that he was the Dean of Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, where he also held the Mitchell Franklin Professorship in Private and Commercial Law. Formerly, Professor Ponoroff was a partner with the Denver-based law firm of Holme Roberts & Owen (now Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP) specializing in corporate and commercial litigation.  

 Professor Ponoroff is the author or co-author of more than three dozen law review articles and essays, as well as seven books in the areas of business and consumer bankruptcy, contracts, and commercial law.  Professor Ponoroff served by appointment of the Chief Justice of the United States on the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules to the U.S. Judicial Conference and the Bankruptcy Judges Education Committee of the Federal Judicial Center.  From 1992 through 1994, he served as the Reporter to the Long-Range Planning Subcommittee of the Committee on the Administration of the Bankruptcy System of the Judicial Conference of the United States.   

 A graduate of Stanford Law School, Professor Ponoroff has previously taught as a visitor at the University of Michigan Law School, Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, and as a member of the faculty at the University of Toledo College of Law, where for two years, he also served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. He has received student-voted teaching excellence awards from four different law schools. 

 Professor Ponoroff is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.  He is the former Chair of the Committee on Graduate Legal Education of the ABA's Section for Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar and has previously served on the Board of Governors of the Arizona State Bar, the Board of Governors of the Louisiana State Bar Association, the Board of Directors of the American Board of Certification, the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Supreme Court Historical Society, and the Advisory Board of the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review.  In 2003, Professor Ponoroff was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy.