Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Ariel Porat served as an officer in the “8200” IDF Intelligence Corps unit for 5 years. He subsequently enrolled in law studies at Tel Aviv University’s Buchmann Faculty of Law, where he earned his LLB and direct JSD before performing post-doctoral studies at Yale Law School. His main research areas are torts, contracts, remedies, and law and economics.

He joined Tel Aviv University as a faculty member in 1990. From 2002 to 2006, he served as Dean of the Buchmann Faculty of Law, where he introduced a number of joint LLM programs and student exchange programs with leading schools abroad, and from 2013 to 2014 he chaired the University Strategic Steering Committee tasked with the academic restructuring of the University.

Driven by a deep sense of social responsibility, Porat conceived and launched a pioneering admittance program at TAU for students from Israel’s geographic and social periphery, and was additionally involved in other initiatives intended to widen the circle of educational opportunity for underrepresented groups in Israel.

Porat is Alain Poher Professor of Law at TAU and Associate Member and Fischel-Neil Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. He was also a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Columbia University, New York University, Stanford University, University of Toronto and the University of Virginia. He is a member of the American Law Institute, a former board member of the American Law and Economics Association and a former president of the Israeli Law and Economics Association. From 1997 to 2002, he was the Director of TAU’s Cegla Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the Law. He is the founder of the journal Theoretical Inquiries in Law and was its editor-in-chief in the years 1999-2003.

Porat is the author of four books and more than 90 articles published by the world’s leading academic presses and scholarly journals.

Photo: Yehonatan Zur