Michael A. Heller is a professor of real estate law at

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. The school was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The un ...

, specializing in property law. In 1998, while a professor at the

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

he published an article in the ''

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 ...

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

Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

to Markets." The idea he introduced in that article, the ''"

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 c ...

"'' (a term that he coined), 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, co ...

theorists that continues to this day. Heller graduated from

Sidwell Friends School Sidwell Friends School is a private, college preparatory, 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 ' (), alludi ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

, and

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (SLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Stanford University, a Private university, private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, Stanford Law had an acceptance rate of 6.28% i ...

. During law school, 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 in ...

at the Washington, DC, law firm of

Arnold & Porter Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, doing business as Arnold & Porter, is an American multinational law firm. It is a white-shoe firm and among the largest law firms in the world, both by revenue and by number of lawyers. Arnold & Porter was f ...

LLP. Heller taught at the University of Michigan Law School from 1994 to 2002, and joined the Columbia Law School faculty in 2002.Michael A. Heller Columbia Law School Faculty Bio
/ref> Heller’s scholarship has focused on private property laws and international property dilemmas. He published two articles on these topics in 2001: "The Liberal Commons" (with Hanoch Dagan) in the ''

Yale Law Journal ''The Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ) 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 at Yale Law School. The journal is one ...

,'' and "A Property Theory Perspective on Russian Enterprise Reform," in ''Assessing The Rule of Law in Transition Economies.'' Heller's book, ''The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives'', was published in 2008.

References

External links

* {{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