Professor of Law


Although the Student Bar Association has selected him four times as Faculty Member of the Year, Alan Weinberger humbly brushes it off.

“It’s expectations analysis,” he says. “Students come into law school with a vague sense of constitutional or criminal law but they have no expectations about property law or, if they have expectations, they’re negative. Then, when they find out it’s not as bad as they were expecting, they’re just delighted. It’s not me, you see. It’s the subject matter.”

The subject matter has interested Professor Weinberger since he was a boy. His grandfather was a real estate lawyer in New Jersey for 40 years. After graduating magna cum laude from law school, Weinberger spent a dozen years in private practice in Washington, D.C., and Detroit, representing institutional lenders, real estate developers, commercial landlords, foreign investors and contractors.

In his current research, Weinberger is conducting a study of a deed recordation tax for Missouri. Three-fourths of the 50 states have such a tax on commercial and residential real estate transfers, which can generate significant revenue. Missouri, however, is not one of them. “At a time when the state is facing severe budgetary shortfalls, it seems unfortunate to be leaving money on the table,” Weinberger says. “Once I quantify how much money Missouri could expect to derive from a tax like that, perhaps it could lead to a legislative proposal.”

Professor Weinberger has published articles in the area of preventive law, as well. His study of St. Louis-based corporate headquarters found that most would not comply with the requirements for effective corporate compliance programs. “The incentive for corporations to have compliance programs is that if an employee violates the law, the corporation is entitled to a dramatic mitigation of sentence,” he says. “But if you adopt an effective compliance program you run the risk of creating a corporate culture of watchfulness and companies are unwilling to send that message.”

Also within the area of preventive law, Professor Weinberger has published recently on compliance programs to prevent insider trading and violations of the federal securities laws. He has written and lectured on the erosion of the doctrine of caveat emptor and the origins of the presumption against mortgage prepayment.

“The great thing about property law is that everyone can relate to it,” he says. “We’ve all had some experience with it.”

In addition to his scholarship and teaching duties, Professor Weinberger serves as Associate Dean for Faculty and supervises the School of Law’s Corporate Counsel Externship Program.