Summer 2008 Faculty

Joseph A. Franco is Professor of Law and Director of the Business Law and Financial Services Concentration at Suffolk University Law School. He teaches securities regulation, regulation of investment companies, corporations and corporate finance. Prior to joining the faculty of Suffolk University Law School, he was an assistant general counsel for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., where he worked on legal policy and appellate litigation.  His work has been published in several leading journals on a variety of securities law topics.  Prof. Franco holds both an MA (in economics) and JD from Yale University, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame.  Prior to joining the staff of the SEC, he was engaged in mergers and acquisitions litigation as an associate with a large law firm in New York City.  He has served from time to time as an expert in major criminal and civil litigation securities matters both in the United States and the City of London Commercial Court. 

Christopher Gibson is an associate professor of law at Suffolk; he teaches and writes in the areas of international dispute resolution, international business transactions, Internet law, technology and intellectual property. Before joining Suffolk Law School, he was a partner in the London office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where he specialized in the areas of international dispute resolution, technology and intellectual property. Following law school graduation, Professor Gibson was as a law clerk to a federal district judge in the Northern District of California, then served as a Legal Assistant at the Iran-United States Claim Tribunal in The Hague and was later engaged in legal practice in San Francisco. Professor Gibson also served for four years as Senior Legal Officer for the United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva (Head of the "C" Claims Division), followed by a four year period as Head of the Electronic Commerce Law Section and Senior Legal Officer in the Arbitration and Mediation Center of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva.  He was a principal officer involved in WIPO's domain name work, including design of the dispute resolution procedures which ICANN adopted as the Uniform Domain Name Policy (UDRP).  Professor Gibson has lectured extensively on international dispute resolution, international business transactions, technology and intellectual property.  He received his law degree from University of California at Berkeley, a Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School at Harvard University, and his undergraduate B.A. from the University of Chicago.

Virginia A. Greiman served as Deputy Chief Legal Counsel and Risk Manager to Boston’s $14.6 billion Central Artery/Tunnel Project and several international infrastructure mega projects. Her prior experience includes appointments by the U.S. Attorney General as United States Trustee to the U.S. Department of Justice where she managed the successful  reorganizations of Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear power plant to file in the country, and the Bank of New England, the first bank holding company in the United States to seek chapter 11 relief.  She served as international legal counsel to the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the World Bank in Eastern and Central Europe and Asia on privatization, infrastructure development, and legal reform projects. She presently serves as Deputy Director and Chief Legal Counsel to the Department of Economic Development for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where she counsels on foreign direct investment, international trade and business development, and has teaching appointments at Harvard University Law School in trial advocacy and international public interest law and Boston University School of Law in International Business Agreements, Comparative Law, and International Project Finance.  She has lectured internationally and published extensively in the areas of corporate reorganization, international law and project finance.

Robert Keatinge is a Visiting Associate Professor at Suffolk University School of Law for the 2007-2008 academic year, and is Of Counsel to the Denver law firm of Holland & Hart LLP.  He practices in the areas of business organizations, taxation, and professional responsibility.  Mr. Keatinge has represented a wide variety of business organizations and their owners from small start-up companies to publicly traded corporations.  He has written and spoken nationally in the areas of business law, taxation and professional responsibility.  He is the co-author of Keatinge and Conaway on Choice of Business Entity (2007) and Ribstein and Keatinge on Limited Liability Companies Second Edition (2004) (both Thomson/West) as well as author of law review and other articles on business, tax, and professional responsibility.  He is a fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, a member of the American Law Institute, and is listed in the current Best Lawyers in America  in three specialties (Corporate Governance and Compliance Law, Corporate Law and Tax Law), Who’s Who in America, and other publications.  He is a current member of the ABA Business Law Section/National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) Joint Editorial Board on Unincorporated Business Organizations and the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers.  He is ABA Advisor to the NCCUSL Drafting Committee on Revisions to Uniform Limited Liability Company Act; and has been ABA Advisor to NCCUSL Drafting Committees on the Revision to the Uniform Limited Partnership Act (2001) and the Uniform Limited Liability Company Act (1996) and an ABA Section of Real Property Probate and Trust Law adviser on the Model Entity Transactions Act and a member of the Ad Hoc Subcommittee to Comment on the Revised Uniform Partnership Act.  He is Chair of the Colorado Bar Association Business Law Section and former chair of the CBA Taxation Section.  He is former chair of the Committees on Taxation and on Partnerships and Unincorporated Business Organizations of the ABA Business Law Section and of the Joint Editorial Board for the ABA/BNA Lawyer’s Manual on Professional Conduct.  He is a former Member of the American Bar Association House of Delegates.

Richard M. Perlmutter has been a Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School since 1976, teaching courses in Contracts, Contract Drafting, Remedies, Sports Law, and Negotiation for Lawyers. He is a cum laude graduate of Harvard University Law School and a magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University. Prior to joining the Suffolk Law School Faculty, Professor Perlmutter served as law clerk to the Justices of the Massachusetts Superior Court and engaged in the private practice of law in Boston, specializing in real estate, corporations, business regulations, acquisitions and health facilities law. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and of the Boston, Massachusetts and American Bar Associations and the Sports Lawyers Association. Professor Perlmutter has served as an arbitrator and consults regularly with several Massachusetts law firms within his areas of expertise on appellate and other matters. Professor Perlmutter has also served as a member of the faculty and director of the Institute in International Law at Lund University in Sweden and as faculty in the Suffolk Law School LL.M. for International Business Lawyers in Budapest, Hungary.

Michael L. Rustad is the Thomas F. Lambert Jr. Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School where is co-Director of the Intellectual Property Law Concentration.  He is the author of three editions of the E-Business Legal Handbook (Aspen Law & Business 2003) (with Daftary), Understanding Sales, Leases and Licenses in a Global Perspective (Carolina Academic Press 2008); Tort Law: Cases, Perspectives, and Problems (Lexis/Nexis, 2007) (with Galligan et. al.), Everyday Consumer Law (Paradigm Publishers, 2007).  He is the author of numerous law review articles on Internet Law, E-Commerce, and software licensing.  He was elected to the American Association of Law School’s Executive Committee on Tort Law & Insurance Compensation.  He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and serves on the Members Consultative Group on Software Licensing.

Jeffrey Wittenberg is a graduate of the Hastings College of the Law and a Full Professor at Suffolk University Law School.  In addition to being a featured speaker at numerous seminars on a variety of subjects, Professor Wittenberg has accumulated over thirty years of experience in teaching courses in Contracts, Sales Law and Products Liability.  He is the author of three editions of Contracts:  Contemporary Cases, Comments and Problems (with Closen and Perlmutter); Products Liability:  Recreation and Sports Equipment; Products Liability:  The Law in Mississippi; and Judges’ Guide to Damages (Massachusetts Law).  Professor Wittenberg’s most recent book, Sales Law Under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code is scheduled for publication in the fall, 2008.