Alan Palmiter has a national and international reputation as a teacher and scholar about business law – corporate law, securities regulation, mergers and acquisitions, sustainable corporations, energy law, legal valuation. His research interests lie in “corporate sustainability” and “corporate democracy,” including corporate disclosures and responses to climate change, shareholder participation in corporate voting, and the role of institutional investors (particularly mutual funds) in corporate governance.

He has authored top-selling books used to teach Corporations and Securities Regulation (published by Aspen Publishers and West Publishing). His articles have been published both nationally and internationally, and eight of his articles have been selected and republished as among the best corporate/securities law articles of the year. He has hosted symposia at the law school on Corporate Governance and Climate Change, The Sustainable Corporation, Agency Theory: Still Viable? and Future of Financial Disintermediation.  

He is on the board of Wake Forest’s Center for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (CEES). He regularly lectures and speaks both here and abroad. He has also been a visiting law professor at Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia), the University of Michigan, the University of Padua (Italy), and the University of Bergamo (Italy). Before joining the Wake Forest Law faculty, he taught high school math in Medellín, Colombia, and practiced law with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in Washington, D.C. He was born in India and grew up in Bolivia and Toledo, Ohio.