Faculty Profile

Bates joined BYU Law School as an associate professor of law in July 2026. His research focuses on corporate and securities law, with a particular emphasis on investor protection. He uses empirical methods to highlight the ways legal structures both create and resolve risks to investors in the public and private capital markets. Professor Bates’s scholarship has been published or accepted for publication in the New York University Law Review and the Brigham Young University Law Review.

Before joining BYU Law, Bates was a research fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance. He holds a JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and won the John M. Olin Writing Prize in Law and Economics. Bates also holds a BS in finance magna cum laude from BYU.