Michael Greenberger, JD

Michael Greenberger is a professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. He teaches a seminar on “Futures, Options, and Derivatives.”  

 

Professor Greenberger’s experience in financial market reforms spans over two decades. In 1997, Professor Greenberger left private practice to become the Director of the Division of Trading and Markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) where he served under CFTC Chairperson Brooksley Born. In that capacity, he was responsible for supervising exchange traded futures and derivatives. He also served on the Steering Committee of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets and as a member of the International Organization of Securities Commissions' Hedge Fund Task Force. After service at the CFTC, Professor Greenberger served as Counselor to the United States Attorney General in 1999 and then became the Justice Department's Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General. 

 

Professor Greenberger has served as the Technical Advisor to the United Nations Commission of Experts of the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System. He was also appointed to the International Energy Forum’s Independent Expert Group that provided recommendations for reducing energy price volatility to the IEF’s 12th Ministerial Meeting.

 

Professor Greenberger has frequently been asked to testify before Congressional committees on issues pertaining to dysfunctions within United States financial markets caused by complex and unregulated financial derivatives. He has also appeared in the media and at academic gatherings to discuss this subject, including appearances on CNN, ABC’s “World News Tonight,” the CBS Evening News, NBC Evening News, CNBC, MSNBC, The Jim Lehrer News Hour, NPR's "Fresh Air," PBS's "Frontline," CBS's "60 Minutes," and C-SPAN.

 

Most recently, in June 2018, Professor Greenberger published a working paper for the Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) entitled “Too Big to Fail U.S. Banks’ Regulatory Alchemy: Converting an Obscure Agency Footnote into an “At Will” Nullification of Dodd-Frank’s Regulation of the Multi-Trillion Dollar Financial Swaps Market.” The paper argues that an obscure agency footnote, promulgated as part of the Dodd-Frank Act implementation, puts the country at risk for another financial crisis.  Professor Greenberger discussed his paper with national media outlets, including the New York Times, Bloomberg News, and NPR.

 

Concurrent with his scholarship on financial reform, Professor Greenberger serves as the Founder and Director of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security (CHHS). CHHS works on a broad range of homeland security and emergency response issues for federal, state, and local governmental agencies, as well as universities and public health entities. CHHS has a staff of more than 35 professionals, many of whom are graduates of the Carey School of Law. More information about CHHS can be found at www.mdchhs.com.

 

Prior to entering government service, Professor Greenberger was a partner for over 20 years in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Shea & Gardner, where he served as lead litigation counsel before courts of law nationwide, including the United States Supreme Court.

 

Professor Greenberger is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Lafayette College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review. He is a Life Member of the American Law Institute and he has served on the Board of Governors of the D.C. Bar and as a board member of three nonprofit public interest organizations. Professor Greenberger has also served on the D.C. Circuit Advisory Committee on Procedures and as a mediator for the United States Courts for the District of Columbia.