Ronald Brand

Professor Ronald A. Brand was the founding Director of Pitt Law’s Center for International Legal Education (CILE), its Master of Laws Program for Foreign Law Graduates (LL.M.), and its Doctor of Juridical Studies (SJD) program. He has taught in many countries around the globe and his scholarship is regularly cited throughout the world. He has regularly developed new programs, courses, and opportunities that allow Pitt Law students to engage in international law and legal education both in Pittsburgh and throughout the world. Brand's more than twenty books include: The 2019 Hague Judgments Convention (with Michael Coffee and Paul Herrup, Oxford University Press, 2023); Interim Measures in the United States in Aid of Arbitration (with Lawrence Newmann and Houston Putnam Lowrey, Juris Publishers, 2022); International Business Transactions Fundamentals (2d ed, Wolters Kluwer, 2019); Transaction Planning Using Rules of Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments (Hague Academy of International Law, Pocketbook Series, 2014); International Civil Dispute Resolution (with Charles Baldwin, David Epstein, and Michael Gordon, West Group, 2d edition, 2008); The 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements: Commentary and Documents (with Paul M. Herrup, Cambridge University Press, 2008); The CISG and the Business Lawyer: The UNCITRAL Digest as a Contract Drafting Tool, (with Mark Walter and Harry Flechtner, Oxford University Press, 2008); Forum Non Conveniens: Past, Present and Future, 3 CILE Studies (with Scott Jablonski, Oxford University Press, 2008); and Private Law, Private International Law, and Judicial Cooperation in the EU-US Relationship, (West 2005). His articles have been published in law reviews and journals at Cornell, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Georgetown, the University of Chicago, and in international journals around the globe.

Brand has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Universiteit Brussel, a Research Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bologna, a Visiting Scholar at the New York University School of Law, and a visiting professor at the University of Augsburg and the University of Ghent, among others. He has lectured on international trade and business law matters at universities in the U.S. and abroad. His excellence in the classroom has earned Brand both the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award, a University-wide honor, and the Law School's Excellence-in-Teaching Award. He has also received the Chancellor's Distinguished Public Service Award.

Brand has represented the United States at Experts’ Groups, Working Groups, Special Commissions, and the Diplomatic Sessions of the Hague Conference on Private International Law that produced both the 2005 Convention on Choice of Court Agreements and the 2019 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters, and continues with work on future conventions at the Hague Conference. For nearly two decades, he has worked with the U.S. Department of Commerce to develop Middle East law school curricula in international commercial law and arbitration, training students and faculty rom more than 50 law schools in over 20 countries in the Balkans, South Asia, and throughout the Middle East and North Africa.