LSBA Board of Governors

---

Professor 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. Prior to arriving at Tulane, he served on the faculty of LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center from 2004–09. In 2007, he was awarded the McGlinchey Stafford Associate Professorship there, and, in 2009, he served as acting vice chancellor for academic affairs.

He received a BA in 1997 from Tulane University and his JD in 2000 from Tulane Law School (Articles Editor for the Tulane Law Review). After graduating from law school, he clerked on the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for Judge James L. Dennis and then worked as an associate in the New Orleans law firm of Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann, LLC. He earned an LL.M. in 2003 from Trinity College, Cambridge University, on a Gates Fellowship.

During his career, Scalise has served on several law reform projects. He currently serves as reporter for the Louisiana State Law Institute’s Successions and Donations Committee, the Trust Code Committee, the Prescription Committee and the Committee on Aleatory Contracts/Signification of Terms. He also is a member of the Law Institute’s Council and a committee member of more than a dozen other subject-matter specific revision committees.

From 2013-15, 2017-19 and 2021-23, he was a member of the LSBA Board of Governors. From 2011-17, he served on the Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization, including as chair and vice chair.

In 2011, he was appointed as an appeals judge in cases contesting decisions made by the BP oil spill compensation system. He was elected as an associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. He is both a board member and the treasurer of the American Society of Comparative Law. 

He has written extensively on civil law topics, including successions and inheritance. He 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 to the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel and currently serves as both Louisiana state chair and as a member of its Board of Regents. In 2015, he received the Leadership in Law Award by New Orleans City Business. He has received the Felix Frankfurter Award for law teaching twice (2018 and 2024) and the John Minor Wisdom Award for the best civil law article published in the Tulane Law Review. Also in 2018, he assumed editorial responsibility for the annual pamphlet edition of the Louisiana Civil Code.

In 2019, Scalise was elected to the American Law Institute and was appointed by the Uniform Law Commission as reporter for the revision of the Uniform Disposition of Community Property at Death Act. Since 2021, he has served as reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s project on Uniform Conflict of Laws in Trusts and Estates.