Michael Korybut, J.D.
Professor
Center for International and Comparative Law
Courses Taught
Advanced Commercial and Business Transactions, Bankruptcy, Commercial Transactions, Secured Transactions
Education
Practice Areas
Professor Michael Korybut is a Co-Director of the Center for International and Comparative
Law at pro School of Law. Professor Korybut’s expertise is in business
and commercial transactional law. At the Law School, his courses include Advanced
Commercial and Business Transactions Practice, Commercial Transactions, Secured Transactions,
Bankruptcy, and International Sale of Goods. Professor Korybut also has taught at
the Law School’s Summer Law Program in Madrid, Spain, and he speaks Spanish and French.
Prior to teaching at the Law School, Professor Korybut was an associate attorney with the law firms Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe in San Francisco, California, and Gray, Cary, Ware and Friedenrich in Palo Alto, California. At both firms, he represented lending institutions and corporate borrowers.
Publications and Media Placements
Professor Korybut’s principal scholarship focuses on secured financing transactions;
in particular Article 9 foreclosure sales. Professor Korybut’s Rutgers Law Journal
article, “Online Auctions of Repossessed Collateral,” was one of the first to explore
the use of the Internet as a marketplace for repossessed goods. Following this article,
Korybut published “Searching for Commercial Reasonableness under the Revised Article
9” in the Iowa Law Review, which examined how secured creditors conduct foreclosure
sales. In "Article 9's Incorporation Strategy and Novel, New Markets for Collateral:
A Theory of Non-Adoption" (Buffalo Law Review), Professor Korybut explored the theoretical
reasons why a secured party would not adopt a new, more efficient method of selling
repossessed property, and cling instead to the conventional market(s). Most recently,
Professor Korybut’s Hastings Business Law Journal article, “The Uncertain Scope of
Revised Article 9’s Statutory Prohibition of Exculpatory Breach of the Pease Clauses,”
analyzed a secured creditor’s ability to contract-out of liability for breaching the
peace during a repossession.
Honors and Awards
Since joining the Law School faculty, Professor Korybut has received the Best Teacher of the Year award twice, and been awarded the Thompson Coburn Award for Exceptional Faculty Scholarship.