David I. Walker

Biography

Professor David Walker is the recipient of BU Law’s Michael Melton Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence and Boston University’s Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching. His research lies at the intersection of taxation and corporate governance, with a particular focus on executive compensation. Recent projects include “Employer Losses and Deferred Compensation,” published in the Tax Law Review, and “Common Ownership and Executive Incentives: The Implausibility of Compensation as an Anticompetitive Mechanism,” published in the Boston University Law Review.

Professor Walker is a 1998 graduate of Harvard Law School and a recipient of Harvard’s John M. Olin Prize in Law and Economics. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Karen Nelson Moore of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, returned to Harvard Law School for a year as an Olin Fellow, and worked as an associate in the tax department at Ropes & Gray, where he had a general tax practice with an emphasis on executive compensation.

Prior to law school, Professor Walker enjoyed an interesting and varied career in the oil industry that included roles as a chemical engineer, crude oil trader, and assistant to the president of BP Oil Company, the US arm of British Petroleum. His undergraduate degree in chemical engineering is from Vanderbilt University.