Troy McKenzie
- Dean
- Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law
- mckenzie@exchange.law.nyu.edu
- Vanderbilt Hall 406D • 212.998.6000
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Assistant:
Lucy Schwartzman ljs514@nyu.edu
212.998.6005
AREAS OF RESEARCH
Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Litigation, Civil Procedure, Class Actions, Complex Litigation, Federal Courts
Troy McKenzie is Dean and Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. He served as faculty co-director of the Institute of Judicial Administration (IJA) for over six years, as well as faculty co-director of the Center on Civil Justice. His research and teaching interests include bankruptcy, civil procedure, complex litigation, and the federal courts. He studies litigation and the institutions that shape it—particularly complex litigation that is resolved through the class action, bankruptcy, and other forms of aggregation. He is also a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference and the Council of the American Law Institute.
From 2011-15, McKenzie served, by appointment of the Chief Justice, as a reporter to the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States. From 2015-17, he took a leave of absence from NYU to serve in the US Department of Justice as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel.
McKenzie earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1997 from Princeton University and a law degree in 2000 from NYU, where he was an executive editor of the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Pierre N. Leval of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the NYU faculty in 2007, McKenzie was a litigation associate at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York.“‘Helpless’ Groups’”
Courses
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Bankruptcy
This is a general survey of U.S. bankruptcy law. The focus of the course will be business bankruptcy, although we will also consider consumer bankruptcy issues. Topics will include the theoretical justifications for bankruptcy law, the choice between liquidation and reorganization in business cases, limitations on creditors' ability to collect from a debtor, and the right to a discharge of debt. We will also consider the strategic choices presented by the bankruptcy system before and after the commencement of a bankruptcy case.
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Complex Litigation
This is an advanced procedure course covering disputes in which the ordinary assumptions of the civil procedural system prove inadequate or otherwise unsatisfactory. We will focus generally on problems arising from the aggregation of claims, including preclusion, choice of law, and jurisdiction. The course gives particular attention to class actions and also to multidistrict litigation practice. We will consider what attributes of disputes mark them as complex cases, the kinds of strategic choices available to lawyers handling these cases, and the economics of settlement. We will also discuss the role of bankruptcy and other schemes in resolving complex litigation.
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Procedure
This course examines the principles of civil litigation. Constitutional and statutory provisions governing jurisdiction and procedural protections are also considered, with an additional emphasis on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
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The Business of Law Seminar
This is a course about the legal profession as a business. We will evaluate the structure of current law firm practice, with a focus on the ethical and financial constraints under which law firms operate in the United States. The course will begin with a study of the historical development of the modern large law firm. We will investigate the peculiar ways in which law firms hire, evaluate, promote, and retain lawyers. We will also consider the rise over the last generation of the multinational law firm, and why some firms choose to grow to globe-spanning size while others retain a much smaller footprint. The role of technological innovation in shaping law firm organization will also be studied.
Publications
- "Judge Shopping," 13 J. Legal Analysis 341 (2021) (with Marcel Kahan)
- "Internal and External Governance in Complex Litigation," 84 Law & Contemp. Probs., no. 2, 2021, at 207
- "Getting to the Core of Stern v. Marshall: History, Expertise, and the Separation of Powers," 86 Am. Bankr. L.J. 23 (2012)
- "Toward a Bankruptcy Model for Non-Class Aggregate Litigation," 87 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 960 (2012)
- "Judicial Independence, Autonomy, and the Bankruptcy Courts," 62 Stan. L. Rev. 747 (2010)
Education
- JD, New York University School of Law, 2000
- BSE (Chemical Engineering), Princeton University, 1997
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