Michael A. Heller is a Professor of Real Estate Law at

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

. He concentrates on property law. Heller coined the term ''"

tragedy of the anticommons The tragedy of the anticommons is a type of coordination breakdown, in which a commons does not emerge, even when general access to resources or infrastructure would be a social good. It is a mirror-image of the older concept of tragedy of the co ...

"'' while working as a law professor at

University of Michigan Law School The University of Michigan Law School (Michigan Law) is the law school of the University of Michigan, a Public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1859, the school offers Master of Laws (LLM), Master of C ...

in a 1998 ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...

'' article entitled "The Tragedy of the Anticommons: Property in the Transition from

Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 p ...

to Markets". Heller is a graduate of the

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

Sidwell Friends School Sidwell Friends School is a Quaker school located in Bethesda, Maryland and Washington, D.C., offering pre-kindergarten through high school classes. Founded in 1883 by Thomas W. Sidwell, its motto is ' ( en, Let the light shine out from all), al ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, and

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford La ...

. He worked as a

summer associate An associate attorney is a lawyer and an employee of a law firm who does not hold an ownership interest as a partner. Types Practicing attorney An associate may be a junior or senior attorney, but normally does not hold an ownership interest i ...

at the Washington, DC white shoe law firm of

Arnold & Porter Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP is an American multinational law firm. A white-shoe firm, Arnold & Porter is among the largest law firms in the world, by both revenue and by its number of lawyers. History Arnold & Porter was founded in 1946 ...

LLP. From 1994-2002, Heller taught at the University of Michigan Law School. He joined the Columbia Law School faculty in 2002.Michael A. Heller Columbia Law School Faculty Bio
/ref> Heller has focused on private property laws and international property dilemmas, publishing such articles as "The Liberal Commons" (with Hanoch Dagan), in the ''

Yale Law Journal The ''Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ), known also as the ''Yale Law Review'', is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students ...

'' in 2001, and "A Property Theory Perspective on Russian Enterprise Reform," in ''Assessing The Rule of Law in Transition Economies'', also in 2001. His "Tragedy of the Anticommons" has sparked a debate among

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

theorists that continues to be discussed today. In 2008, Heller's book, ''The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives'' was published.

References

External links

Michael Heller
AtGoogleTalks, August 19, 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Heller, Michael Harvard College alumni Stanford Law School alumni Columbia University faculty Living people Columbia Law School faculty University of Michigan Law School faculty Sidwell Friends School alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Arnold & Porter people