Daniel R. Fischel (born 1950) is the emeritus Lee and Brena Freeman Professor of Law and Business and former Dean of University of Chicago Law School, and a co-founder of Lexecon. He is a leading scholar of the regulation of financial markets and corporations, and a frequent expert witness on behalf of defendants in securities litigation.
Fischel graduated Cornell University in 1972, and received a M.A. in American history from Brown University in 1974. Fischel received his J.D. cum laude from Chicago Law in 1977, where he was comment editor of the law review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. After graduation, he clerked for Judge Thomas E. Fairchild of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Potter Stewart of the Supreme Court of the United States. He taught at Northwestern University Law School from 1980 to 1984, and joined the Chicago Law faculty in 1984.
As an expert witness, Fischel has testified on behalf of Charles Keating,[1] Ken Lay, and Jeffrey Skilling.[2] His work so upset plaintiffs' law firm Milberg Weiss that they engaged in a vendetta against Fischel and Lexecon, leading to a defamation suit by Fischel and Lexecon that led to a landmark Supreme Court decision about multi-district litigation (Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U.S. 26 (1998)) and a $50 million settlement.[3] The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the conviction of Joseph Nacchio over alleged insider trading of Qwest because Judge Edward Nottingham would not let Fischel testify on Nacchio's behalf.[4] Fischel's book, "Payback", argues that the prosecution of Michael Milken was unjust.[5]