David Blankfein-Tabachnick is a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School and a scholar of private law, taxation, and tax policy. He is a professor at Michigan State University (MSU) College of Law.
Professor Blankfein-Tabachnick has made contributions to bankruptcy, contract, property and intellectual property, taxation, and tort law. His work appears in selective law reviews and peer-edited journals, including the California Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, George Washington Law Review, Michigan Law Review, repeatedly in the Virginia Law Review, and the Cambridge University Press journal Social Philosophy and Policy. His scholarship has been the subject of engagement in leading law reviews, peer-edited journals, and academic monographs. His work has been reprinted in several anthologies, including Rawls and Law. His most recent publication addresses bankruptcy and optimal taxation and their role in intellectual property and innovation policy. His work on contractualism and private law is forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review.
Professor Blankfein-Tabachnick joined the MSU College of Law faculty in 2014. He has been a visiting scholar at the Yale Law School and a visiting faculty member at Penn State Law and Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a recurring visiting professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law, where he is a member of the founding faculty.
Professor Blankfein-Tabachnick has notable law journal leadership experience. In 2017, he was appointed faculty adviser to the Michigan State Law Review. Since his appointment, the journal has risen nearly 50 places in the W&L Law Journal rankings. Under his leadership, the journal has instituted its Visionary Scholar Series and the Law Review Symposium-Faculty Workshop Series. Additionally, he co-created and innovated the widely referenced 2006 Virginia Law Review Symposium, Contemporary Political Theory and Private Law.
An accomplished lecturer and popular teacher, he was honored with a university-wide award recognizing excellence in teaching from the University of Virginia. In 2021, he became the first Michigan State College of Law faculty member to receive the prestigious university-wide Michigan State Teacher-Scholar Award.
He has taught courses on bankruptcy, copyrights, contracts, criminal law, federal income tax, intellectual property, international relations, legal and political theory, property, property II, remedies, tax policy, torts, and trusts and estates.
An active and dedicated Michigan State faculty-community member, he has served on faculty appointments and diversity committees. He also has served as the MSU College of Law representative to the University Council and Faculty Senate. He served on the 2020–2021 MSU College of Law Dean Search Committee and repeatedly as chair of the Michigan State Faculty Appointments Committee in 2020–2021 and in 2021–2022. Additionally, he is a member of MSU College of Law’s intellectual property, information, and communications law program faculty.