Ronald J. Scalise, Jr. is the John Minor Wisdom Professor of Civil Law at Tulane University Law School. He joined the Tulane Law faculty in 2009 and held the A.D. Freeman Professorship from 2009-18. He served as vice dean of the law school from 2012-16. From 2004-09, he served on the faculty of Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center; in 2007, he was awarded the McGlinchey Stafford Associate Professorship there and, in 2009, served as acting vice chancellor for academic affairs.
He received a BA degree in 1997 from Tulane University, his JD degree in 2000 from Tulane Law School (articles editor for the Tulane Law Review), and an LLM in 2003 from Cambridge University (Trinity College). He was admitted to practice in Louisiana in 2000.
Ronald served on the LSBA’s Board of Governors from 2013-15 and from 2017-19. From 2011-17, he served on the Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization, including as board chair and vice chair.
He serves as reporter for the Trust Code Committee, the Prescription Committee and the Committee on Aleatory Contracts/Signification of Terms of the Louisiana State Law Institute. He is a member of the Law Institute’s Council and a member of the Successions and Donations Committee and several other subject-matter-specific revision committees.
In 2011, he was appointed as an appeals judge in cases contesting decisions made by the BP oil spill compensation system. In 2012, he was elected as an associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. As a board member of the American Society of Comparative Law, he has written extensively on civil law topics and is the primary author for the annual updates for five volumes in the Louisiana Civil Law Treatise series on property and obligations. In 2014, he was elected as an academic fellow of the American College of Trusts and Estate Counsel. He received the New Orleans City Business Leadership in Law Award in 2015. In 2018, he received the Felix Frankfurter Award for law teaching and the John Minor Wisdom Award for best civil law article published in the Tulane Law Review. Also in that year, he assumed editorial responsibility for the annual pamphlet edition of the Louisiana Civil Code. In 2019, he was elected to membership in the American Law Institute.