Leigh Anenson

T. Leigh Anenson is Professor of Business Law at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. She is an Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Business Ethics, Regulation, and Crime (C-BERC) and an Affiliate Faculty to the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She is the Core Coordinator for the business law curriculum and helped form the Business Law Fellows Program. She serves as a faculty advisor to the Business Law Society. She was honored with the Smith School Distinguished Teaching Awards for the 2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2009-2010, 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2016-2017 academic years.

Professor Anenson is an internationally recognized scholar working in the area of American equity law and the related areas of remedies, private law, and jurisprudence. Equitable principles arise in a variety of commercial settings comprising unfair competition, contracts, corporate governance, and financial fraud. Professor Anenson’s pioneering research has focused on equitable defenses, including laches, unclean hands, and estoppel. Her studies have been building a theoretical foundation for these historic defenses in modern litigation.

One of her projects centers on current issues concerning the fusion of law and equity. She has several articles concentrating on the extension of the doctrine of unclean hands to bar legal remedies like damages. She also has a book on that subject, “Judging Equity: The Fusion of Unclean Hands in U.S. Law,” forthcoming at Cambridge University Press.

Her secondary research stream is interdisciplinary and involves pension law and policy. One of her recent articles, “Reforming Public Pensions,” was published as the lead article in the Yale Law & Policy Review. She has another lead article in the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, “Public Pensions and Fiduciary Law: A View from Equity,” on the subject of pension governance.

Professor Anenson’s research has earned numerous awards, including the two most prestigious international awards given by the Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB). (Ralph C. Hoeber Memorial Awards, 2005, 2006, 2007) (Holmes-Cardozo Awards, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009). Several of her articles have been published in the premier business law journal, as well as in journals at top law schools. Her research has been widely cited in academic articles, leading law textbooks, and court opinions.

Professor Anenson has held visiting fellowships in commercial equity law at the University of Cambridge, the University of Sydney, and the Australian National University. She is a former Staff Editor of the American Business Law Journal and Executive Articles Editor of the International Business Law Review. She is past President of the International Section of the ALSB as well as its Pacific Southwest Region. Professor Anenson was a recipient of the academy’s Early Career Achievement Award.

Prior to academia, Professor Anenson held positions in industry and law as an export manager, international business consultant, judicial attorney, and commercial litigator. She joined the Smith School faculty in 2007.