Education
B.A., Yale University
J.D., Harvard Law School
Background
Jennifer Taub is a legal scholar and advocate, devoted to making complex business law topics engaging inside and outside of the classroom. Her research and writing focuses on corporate governance, banking and financial market regulation, and white collar crime. Similarly, her advocacy centers on “follow the money” matters—promoting transparency and opposing corruption. She joined the faculty of Western New England University School of Law in fall of 2020.
Her book, Big Dirty Money: The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime (Viking) was published in 2020. Penguin Books published the paperback edition of Big Dirty Money in September 2021 with a new subtitle: Making White Collar Criminals Pay, and new preface and epilogue updates. Taub was a co-founder and organizer of the April 15, 2017, Tax March where more than 120,000 people gathered in cities nationwide to demand President Donald Trump release his tax returns. She is a professor of law at the Western New England University School of Law where she teaches Civil Procedure, White Collar Crime, and other business and commercial law courses, and was the Bruce W. Nichols Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School during the fall 2019 semester. She formerly was a professor at Vermont Law School.
An authority on the 2008 mortgage meltdown and related financial crisis, Taub is also an expert in white collar crime. In addition to Big Dirty Money, she is co-author with the late Kathleen Brickey of Corporate and White Collar Crime: Cases and Materials, 6th and 7th editions (Wolters Kluwer, 2017 and 2021). Relatedly, she has appeared on cable news programs including MSNBC’s Morning Joe, MSNBC’s Way Too Early, and CNN Newsroom to discuss the Special Counsel investigation into links between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign and the death of Bernie Madoff.
In the area of banking and financial market regulation, Taub’s book Other People’s Houses: How Decades of Bailouts, Captive Regulators, and Toxic Bankers Made Home Mortgages a Thrilling Business was published in May 2014 by Yale University Press. Recognized as accessible and informative, Other People’s Houses was honored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book as one of the 2015 finalists in the nonfiction category. Other People’s Houses was favorably mentioned by Nobel Laureate, Robert Shiller, in his 2015 edition of Irrational Exuberance. Taub testified as an expert before the United States Senate Banking Committee and a United States House Financial Services Subcommittee. She also co-organized a conference and co-led a panel discussion at the Financial Stability Law Workshop at the U.S. Treasury Department, hosted by the Office of Financial Research.
In addition to Other People’s Houses, Taub has written extensively on the financial crisis. Her publications include “The Sophisticated Investor and the Global Financial Crisis” in the peer-reviewed Corporate Governance Failures (UPenn Press, 2011) and a case study on AIG in Robert A. G. Monks and Nell Minow’s 5th edition of Corporate Governance (Wiley, 2011). In response to Roberta Romano, she presented and wrote “Regulating in the Light: Harnessing Political Entrepreneurs’ Energy for Post-Crisis Sunlight Hearings” (St. Thomas L. Rev. 2015). Additional works include the chapter “Delay, Dilutions, and Delusions: Implementing the Dodd-Frank Act” in Restoring Shared Prosperity (2013) and “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Banking,” in the Handbook on the Political Economy of the Financial Crisis (Oxford, 2012). She wrote entries on “Shadow Banking” and “Financial Deregulation” for the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor and Economic History (Oxford, 2013) and the chapter “Great Expectations for the Office of Financial Research,” in Will it Work? How Will We Know? The Future of Financial Reform (2010). In addition, she has published “Reforming the Banks for Good in Dissent” (2014). Her article, “The Subprime Specter Returns: High Finance and the Growth of High-Risk Consumer Debt,” was published in the New Labor Forum (2015). She recently wrote a book chapter on “New Hopes and Hazards for Social Investment Crowdfunding” in Law and Policy for a New Economy (Edward Elgar, 2017).
Taub’s corporate governance work often focuses on the role of institutional investors, including mutual funds. Her article “Able but Not Willing: The Failure of Mutual Fund Advisers to Advocate for Shareholders’ Rights,” published in the Journal of Corporation Law (2009) was presented at a conference jointly sponsored by the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and the Oxford Said Business School. Her article “Managers in the Middle: Seeing and Sanctioning Corporate Political Spending after Citizens United” was presented at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU and later published in the NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy (2012). Taub’s article, “Is Hobby Lobby a Tool for Limiting Corporate Constitutional Rights,” was presented at Harvard Law School and later published in a symposium issue of Constitutional Commentary on Money, Politics, Corporations, and the Constitution (2015).
Taub has also ventured into the area of legal education and pedagogy. This includes her article “Unpopular Contracts and Why They Matter: Burying Langdell and Enlivening Students,” published in the Washington Law Review (2013). She is a co-author with Martha McCluskey and Frank Pasquale of “Law and Economics: Contemporary Approaches,” published in Yale Law & Policy Review (2016). With McCluskey and Pasquale, Taub is a co-founder of APPEAL (the Association for the Promotion of Political Economy and the Law), a research network linking economists, legal scholars, and policy makers concerned with inequality and instability who view markets and the government as mutually constituted. She has also developed a model syllabus for a course on Financial Stability.
In 2017, Taub received the Vermont Law School, Women’s Law Association Phenomenal Woman Award in the faculty category. She also served as chair of the Section on Financial Institutions and Investments. She received her BA degree, cum laude, from Yale University, with distinction in her English major; and her JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School where she was the Recent Developments Editor at the Harvard Women’s Law Journal (now called The Harvard Journal of Law and Gender). She was a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law for a short course in 2015 and a visiting fellow at the Yale School of Management during the 2016 spring semester. She was a visiting professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law during the 2019 spring semester.
Taub has written pieces for a variety of platforms including The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, CNN opinion page, Slate, the New York Times Dealbook, Dame Magazine, The Baseline Scenario, Race to the Bottom, Pareto Commons, The Conglomerate, and Concurring Opinions.
Jennifer’s personal webpage link is here: https://www.jennifertaub.com.
Scholarly Works
Books
Jennifer Taub & Kathleen Brickey, Corporate and White Collar Crime: Cases and Materials (7th ed. 2021)
Jennifer Taub, Big Dirty Money: The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime (2020), and in paperback, Big Dirty Money: Making White Collar Criminals Pay (2021).
Jennifer Taub & Kathleen Brickey, Corporate and White Collar Crime: Cases and Materials (6th ed. 2017).
Jennifer Taub, Other People’s Houses: How Decades of Bailouts, Captive Regulators, and Toxic Bankers Made Home Mortgages a Thrilling Business (2014), and in paperback (2015).
Book Chapters
Jennifer Taub, New Hopes and Hazards for Social Investment Crowdfunding, in Law and Policy for a New Economy: Sustainable, Just, and Democratic 165-88 (Melissa K. Scanlan ed., 2017). SSRN
Jennifer Taub, Shadow Banking System Financial Deregulation and Financial and Banking Promotion and Regulation, in Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor and Economy History 163-65 (Paul S. Boyer ed., 2013).
Jennifer Taub, Delays, Dilutions, and Delusions: Implementing the Dodd-Frank Act, in Restoring Shared Prosperity: A Policy Agenda from Leading Keynesian Economists 105-12 (Thomas I. Palley & Gustav A. Horn eds., 2013). SSRN
Jennifer Taub, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Banking, in Handbook of the Political Economy of Financial Crises 447-66 (Martin H. Wolfson & Gerald A. Epstein eds., 2013). SSRN
Jennifer Taub, There is No There There: Sophisticated Investors as the Guardians of Financial Stability, in Unfinished Mission: Making Wall Street Work for Us 43-50 (Am. for Fin. Reform & Roosevelt Inst. 2013).
Jennifer Taub, American International Group (AIG) Case Study, in Corporate Governance 235-52 (Robert A.G. Monks & Nell Mino eds., 5th ed. 2011). SSRN
Jennifer Taub, The Sophisticated Investor and the Global Financial Crisis, in Corporate Governance Failures: The Role of Institutional Investors in the Global Financial Crisis 188-216 (James P. Hawley, Shyam J. Kamath & Andrew T. Williams eds., 2011). SSRN
Jennifer Taub, Great Expectations for the Office of Financial Research, in Will It Work? How Will We Know? The Future of Financial Reform (Roosevelt Inst. 2010). SSRN
Ben S. Bench & Jennifer S. Taub, Bankruptcy, in Finance Ethics: Critical Issues in Theory and Practice 509-30 (John R. Boatright 2010).
Journal Articles
Jennifer Taub, Staking a Claim in a Post-Shareholder Primacy World (unpublished manuscript) (on file with author).
Jennifer Taub, Setting a Rogue to Catch a Rogue: Expanding the False Claims Act to Detect and Prosecute White Collar Crime (unpublished manuscript) (on file with author).
Jennifer Taub, Foreword, 43 W. New Eng. L. Rev. 1 (2021). Digital Commons SSRN
Martha McCluskey, Frank Pasquale & Jennifer Taub, Law and Economics: Contemporary Approaches, 35 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 297 (2016). SSRN Digital Commons
Jennifer Taub, The Subprime Specter Returns: High Finance and the Growth of High-Risk Consumer Debt, 25 New Lab. F. 68 (2016).
Jennifer Taub, Is Hobby Lobby a Tool to Limit Corporate Constitutional Rights? 30 Const. Comment. 403 (2015). SSRN
Jennifer Taub, Regulating in the Light: Harnessing Political Entrepreneurs' Energy for Post-Crisis Sunlight Hearings, 11 U. St. Thomas L.J. 438 (2014) Digital Commons
Jennifer Taub, Unpopular Contracts and Why They Matter: Burying Langdell and Enlivening Students, 88 Wash. L. Rev. 1427 (2013). SSRN
Jennifer Taub, Money Managers in the Middle: Seeing and Sanctioning Political Spending after Citizens United, 15 N.Y.U. J. Legis. & Pub. Pol’y 443 (2012). SSRN
Am. For Fin. Reform & Jennifer Taub, Policy Brief, Comment Regarding Determination of Foreign Exchange Swaps and Forwards, 27 S.A.F.E.R. (2010).
Am. For Fin. Reform & Jennifer Taub, Policy Brief, Comment Letter on Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Authority to Require Supervision and Regulation of Certain Nonbank Financial Companies, 26 S.A.F.E.R. (2010).
James Crotty, et al., Policy Brief, Regulations to End ‘Too Big to Fail’ Investment Banking, 14 S.A.F.E.R. (2010).
Jennifer Taub, Policy Brief, Dispelling the Top Ten Myths About Hedge Funds, 7 S.A.F.E.R. (2009).
Jennifer Taub, Policy Brief, Recommendations for Reality-Based Regulation of Hedge Funds and Other Private Pools of Capital, 6 S.A.F.E.R. (2009). SSRN
Jennifer Taub, Able but Not Willing: The Failure of Mutual Fund Advisers to Advocate for Shareholders’ Rights, 34 J. Corp. L. 843 (2009). SSRN
Jennifer Taub, Enablers of Exuberance: Legal Acts and Omissions that Facilitated the Global Financial Crisis (Working Paper, 2009). SSRN
Shorter Writings
Jennifer Taub, Joe’s Jubilee: Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan, Af-Am Point of View, Oct. 1, 2022, at 23.
Jennifer Taub, Keep It Moving: Biden’s Trillion Dollar Build Back Better Plan Promises Billions of Dollars for East-West Rail, Connecting Springfield to New Job Opportunities, Af-Am Point of View, Oct. 1, 2021, at 23.
Jennifer Taub, The Capitol’s Defenders in Their Own Words: Scenes from a “Peaceful” Protest, Wash. Monthly (July 29, 2021).
Jennifer Taub, How to Understand the Trump Tax Indictment, Wash. Monthly (July 2, 2021).
Jennifer Taub, Why Is Merrick Garland Defending Bill Barr’s Policies?, Wash. Monthly (June 15, 2021).
Jennifer Taub, Starting with Trump, It’s Time for a White Collar Crime Crackdown, Wash. Monthly (May 6, 2021).
Jennifer Taub, What Joe Biden Could Learn from Abraham Lincoln About White-Collar Crime, Wash. Monthly (Oct. 8, 2020).
Jennifer Taub, How America Should be Addressing Its 'Dirty Money' Problem Around White-Collar Crimes, According to a Legal Scholar, Bus. Insider (Oct. 7, 2020).
Jennifer Taub, Trump Among the Kleptocrats, Wash. Post (Sept. 3, 2020) (reviewing Tom Burgis, Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering The World (2020)).
Joshua A. Geltzer, Neal K. Katyal, Jennifer Taub, Laurence H. Tribe, Trump’s Authoritarianism in the Streets is Being Matched in the Courts, Wash. Post (June 4, 2020).
Jennifer Taub, Don McGahn Not Listening to Donald Trump Doesn’t Absolve the President of a Crime, Slate (Apr. 19, 2019).
Jennifer Taub, Is it Time to Impeach Trump?, Dame (Mar. 25, 2019).
Jennifer Taub, Trump Better Hope He Wins in 2020, CNN Op-Ed (Dec. 11, 2018).
Jennifer Taub, Remember Robert Mueller?, Slate (Nov. 7, 2018).
Jennifer Taub, Brett Kavanaugh and I Have a Lot in Common, CNN Op-Ed (Oct. 30, 2018).
Jennifer Taub, Trump’s Thumbing His Nose at the Law on Citizenship, CNN Op-Ed (Sept. 28, 2018).
Jennifer Taub, Why Trump Likely Won’t Collect the $20 Million He Claims Stormy Daniels Owes Him, Slate (Mar. 20, 2018).
Jennifer Taub, Mitch McConnell’s Big Gift to the Banks, CNN Op-Ed (Mar. 5, 2018).
Jennifer Taub, An Act Restoring Financial Transparency in Presidential Elections, Massachusetts Joint Committee on Election Laws (Sept. 6, 2017) (written testimony).
Jennifer Taub, Nightmare on Main Street: The Big Short and 99 Homes, New Lab. F., Fall 2016, at 126.
Jennifer Taub, Reforming the Banks for Good, Dissent (Summer 2014). SSRN
