Michael Klausner teaches and writes in the areas of corporate law, corporate governance, and financial regulation. His research has included theoretical and empirical analyses of corporate governance, takeover defenses, standardization of contracts and corporate governance documentation, and bank regulatory reform. His most recent work includes empirical studies of officer and director liability, the securities class action litigation process, and a proposal for a market-oriented Community Reinvestment Act.

Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1997, he was a professor of law at New York University School of Law, a White House Fellow and deputy associate director in the Office of Policy Development in the White House, and a corporate law practitioner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C. and Hong Kong. He clerked for Justice William Brennan of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge David Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.