In July, Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech welcomed David Reiss as a clinical professor of law and research director of the Blassberg-Rice Center for Entrepreneurship Law. Based at Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island, Reiss will co-teach the Law School’s Entrepreneurship Clinic, marking the Law School’s first clinical offering in New York City. He will also teach in Cornell Law and Cornell Tech’s program in Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship.
Reiss’s hire is a milestone for the Blassberg-Rice Center, created with the support of a transformative gift fromFranci J. Blassberg ’77 and Joseph L. Rice III. The center supports entrepreneurship initiatives through clinical education and will offer pro bono legal services to entrepreneurs and small businesses across New York State.
“Cornell Law has a distinguished record of clinical service to the community, and we could not be more grateful to the Blassberg-Rice family for the support to extend our students’ experience and pro bono assistance to New York City,” noted Dean Ohlin.
Reiss joins Cornell Law from Brooklyn Law School, where he taught for over twenty years and founded the Community Development Clinic. He has been active in research and scholarship, serving as research director for Brooklyn’s Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship and as a research affiliate at the New York University Furman Center. He is also an expert on real estate and blockchain technology, serving on the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on Emerging Digital Finance and Currency. His forthcoming book, Paying for the American Dream: How to Reform the Market for Mortgages, will be published by Oxford University Press.
“Training excellent 21st century lawyers requires law schools to keep up with technological innovation while also maintaining a focus on lawyering fundamentals: research, writing, and advocacy,” said Reiss.
Reiss earned his B.A. from Williams College in 1989 and his J.D., magna cum laude, from NYU Law School in 1996. He worked as a corporate associate at Morrison & Foerster and Paul, Weiss before joining academia in 2003.
