Hillary A. Sale, JD, was installed as the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law on March 25 in the Trial Courtroom, Room 309, of Anheuser-Busch Hall.
A law school alumnus, Coles served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri from 1894-98. He was a lecturer in the School of Law from 1904-10, once in the area of bankruptcy and once in constitutional law.
Coles also served for more than 30 years on the board of directors of the Law Library Association of St. Louis. In 1935, he began his first year on the bench as a judge on the Supreme Court of Missouri.
Sale succeeds Michael M. Greenfield, JD, as the Coles Professor. Greenfield now is the George Alexander Madill Professor of Contracts and Commercial Law. An expert in securities and corporate governance, Sale ranks among the nation’s best scholars, teachers and leaders in corporate law.
“Hillary’s substantial scholarship has become an essential part of the securities law field,” says Kent D. Syverud, JD, dean of the law school and the Ethan A.H. Shepley University Professor. “She also is a talented teacher who cares deeply about her students, while demanding that they live up to the high expectations she has for them.”
Sale is the author of numerous publications on securities and corporate governance issues. Two of her articles, “Delaware’s Good Faith” (2004) and “Securities Fraud as Corporate Governance: Reflections Upon Federalism” (2003), were selected by the Corporate Practice Commentator as among the top 10 corporate and securities law articles published in those years.
In 2005, she joined the authors of the Securities Regulation casebook, John C. Coffee Jr., JD, and Joel Seligman, JD, former WUSTL law dean. The 11th edition now is co-authored by Sale and Coffee. Sale also is a co-author with Coffee of the 2009 edition of Federal Securities Laws, Selected Statutes, Rules and Forms.
Among her professional affiliations, Sale is program chair of the DirectWomen Institute, an organization dedicated to educating women attorneys about public company boards.
Prior to joining the law faculty in 2009, Sale was a member of the Iowa College of Law faculty. She is a recipient of the University of Iowa President’s Collegiate Teaching Award.
She previously practiced law with WilmerHale LLP (formerly Hale and Dorr LLP) in Boston, where she specialized in corporate and securities litigation and internal investigations. She also served as a law clerk to Judge Richard S. Arnold of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
She earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree at Boston University.
Before earning a juris doctorate from Harvard University, Sale served as acting chief of staff, director of operations and legislative director to the former lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Evelyn F. Murphy; associate legislative director and fiscal analyst for the Massachusetts Municipal Association; and staff economist to the Massachusetts Special Commission on Tax Reform.