Faculty

A Leading Voice in Litigation and Law Firm Finance

Professor Maya Steinitz, who joins the full-time faculty at BU Law this fall, teaches civil procedure, international arbitration, international business transactions, and corporations.

Having developed an interest in law teaching from her early days as an undergraduate, Steinitz entered legal education on the faculty at Columbia Law School in 2009 after nearly a decade in litigation. “I love research, writing, and teaching, so academia seemed like a perfect choice,” she says. “Some of my areas of research—like international dispute resolution—evolved from my life experience (growing up in a conflict zone, in the case of that example). Other areas, such as third-party litigation funding, I stumbled upon serendipitously and they turned out to be both interesting and important and have captured my interest even though I never set out to be an expert on those topics.”

While finding an area of interest or path outside of law school can be intimidating, Professor Steinitz advises BU Law students to “try to have fun with your elective courses, don’t be too strategic.” She encourages them to “take the opportunity to get a well-rounded education and pursue interests that you may not have an opportunity to pursue once you leave school and the pressures of the so-called ‘real world’ limit your ability to engage broadly beyond what your work will demand.”

Prior to joining BU Law, Steinitz was a professor of law at University of Iowa College of Law, held a dual appointment as an associate-in-law and lecturer at Columbia Law School, and served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Tel Aviv University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, her alma mater.

During her time in private practice, Professor Steinitz worked as a litigation associate at Latham & Watkins LLP, and as a law clerk at Flemming, Zulack & Williamson LLP. From 1998 to 1999, she was a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Esther Hayut, current chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court.  

While at Latham and Watkins, Steinitz led the representation of the emerging government of Southern Sudan in drafting its national and sub-national constitutions, providing legal advice on various aspects of the Sudanese peace process. Described by The Deal as “one of the most ambitious international pro bono undertaking ever by a commercial law firm,” the project required participation of nearly fifty Latham and Watkins attorneys across the globe and established a model for “pro bono development of international rule of law.” James Kearney, a now retired New York partner at Latham and Watkins, ran the pro bono program at the time of the case. He told The Deal that Steinitz “combined extraordinary organizational capabilities necessary to pull a team of lawyers together with an understanding of local matters and history and an enormous energy to help the people of Southern Sudan.”

Professor Steinitz remains active in international dispute resolution, regularly serving as an arbitrator, expert, and counsel to law firms, litigation finance firms, NGOs, and the United Nations in international and domestic negotiations. In 2018, Steinitz testified before the New York Senate Standing Committee on Consumer Protection regarding consumer litigation finance, specifically bills S. 3911 and A. 8966 which aim to regulate the industry. She has also served as a member of the ICC Commission on Arbitration and on the inaugural bench of the Israeli-Palestinian ICC Jerusalem Arbitration Center.

In addition to her private practice, Steinitz has made several scholarly contributions to the fields of international arbitration, transnational litigation, dispute resolution, and law firm finance, with articles featured in leading law reviews and law journals published by Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, University of Pennsylvania Law School, University of Minnesota Law School, Vanderbilt Law School, Oxford University, Notre Dame Law School, and others. In 2019, she published The Case for an International Court of Civil Justice (Cambridge University Press) which covers cross-border mass tort litigation, and has been called a “must-read” by the American Journal of International Law. Her next monograph, Litigation Finance, Law Firm Ownership & the Future of the Legal Profession has been accepted for publication by Cambridge University Press.  

Professor Steinitz has also been interviewed and cited by several global news outlets, including CBS 60 Minutes, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NBC, NPR, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, Reuters, Bloomberg, Wired, The American Lawyer, and Ha’aretz. 

As she embraces the start of the fall semester at BU Law, Professor Steinitz hopes “to continue producing meaningful scholarship that speaks to broad audiences both within and outside of academia, to be the best teacher [she] can be, and to engage with others in the BU Law community as we go through transformative times for higher education.”

Professor Steinitz earned both an LLM and JSD in international law from New York University School of Law, as well as an LLB from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Outside of her legal work, Professor Steinitz likes to practice yoga, read, and watch films. She also enjoys cooking and baking, and of course, eating what she cooks and bakes.