Rate My Professor Lan Cao

Lan Cao is the Betty Hutton Williams Professor of International Economic Law at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, a position she has held since joining the faculty in 2013, where she also serves as Director of the International Law Program. In this role within the Law faculty, she teaches courses including Contracts I, Contracts II, Corporations, International Business Transactions, Public International Law, and International Trade. Prior to Chapman, Cao was Professor of Law at the College of William & Mary Marshall-Wythe School of Law from 2001 to 2013, including as Cabell Professor of Law from 2002 to 2003, and Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School from 1994 to 2000. She held visiting positions at the University of Michigan Law School in 2003 and Duke University School of Law in 1998. Her professional experience encompasses a clerkship for the Honorable Constance Baker Motley of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1988 to 1989, and associateships at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City from 1987 to 1988 and 1990 to 1993, focusing on commercial transactions, securities regulation, international joint ventures, trade, and litigation. Additionally, she was a Ford Foundation Scholar at New York University School of Law from 1991 to 1992, researching emerging legal orders and economic reforms in Eastern Europe, China, and Vietnam.

Cao earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1987, serving as Note Editor of the Yale Law Journal from 1986 to 1987, and her B.A. in Political Science from Mount Holyoke College in 1983, graduating magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and as Sarah Williston Prize Winner for the highest senior class grades. Her research in international economic law addresses law and development, rule of law, international trade, ethnic economies, and cultural dimensions of global issues. Key publications include the 600-page monograph Culture in Law & Development: Nurturing Positive Change (Oxford University Press, 2016); 'Dollar Trap and China’s Central Bank Digital Currency,' 25 Chapman L. Rev. 503 (2023); 'Ethnic Economies, Cultural Resources, and the African American Question,' 91 U. Cin. L. Rev. 303 (2022); 'Weaponizing Culture to Undermine International Women’s Rights,' 73 Hastings L.J. 233 (2022); 'Made in America: Race, Trade, and Prison Labor,' 42 N.Y.U. Rev. Law & Social Change 1 (2019); 'Pride and Prejudice in U.S. Trade,' 7 Notre Dame J. Int’l & Comp. L. 1 (2017); and 'Currency Wars and the Erosion of Dollar Hegemony,' 38 Mich. J. Int’l L. 101 (2016). She has received the honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Mount Holyoke College in 2023, the Michael Lang Award for Scholarly Excellence in 2022, Chapman University Fowler School of Law Unit Faculty Excellence Award in 2021, and was voted 1L Professor of the Year by Chapman's 2025 1L class in 2022-2023. Her scholarship appears in leading journals, and she contributes op-eds to The New York Times and The Washington Post on trade and Vietnam-related topics.