Dr. Carol Liao is an Assistant Professor at the Allard School of Law and the
UBC Sauder Distinguished Scholarof the Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at the UBC Sauder School of Business. She is the
Director of the Centre for Business Law, a leading national research centre that also oversees the Business Law Concentration and two experiential learning programs at Allard Law, the Business Law Clinic and Corporate Counsel Externship.Prior to joining UBC, Dr. Liao was an Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, where she was awarded the 2016 Law Students' Society First Year Class Teaching Award.
Her research focuses on business law, corporate governance, corporate sustainability, law and economics, social enterprise law, and business ethics.Dr. Liao is the principal investigator of a SSHRC Insight Grant-funded project studying the evolution of Canadian and international corporate law and governance principles from an economic, social, and environmental sustainability lens. She is currently co-editing Innovating Business for Sustainability: Regulatory Approaches in the Anthropocene with Dr. Beate Sjåfjell of the University of Oslo and Dr. Aikaterini Argyrou of Nyenrode Business Universiteit (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2020), as well as two other books on sustainable business.
Dr. Liao is a past Bertram Scholar of the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research and Institute of Corporate Directors. She is a steering committee member of theThemis International Network of Female Business Scholars and a Canadian Climate Governance Expert of the Canada Climate Law Initiative led by Profs Janis Sarra and Cynthia Williams. She is a frequent media commentator on corporate law and governance issues, and has been interviewed by outlets such as CBC Radio One, CBC on the Coast with Gloria Macarenko, The Globe and Mail Report on Business, National Post, Financial Post, The Star, The Tyee, BC Business, Director Lens, Chatelaine, and Business in Vancouver Magazine.
Prior to academia, Dr. Liao was a senior associate in the New York Mergers &Acquisitions Group ofShearman & Sterling LLP, where she represented public and private multinational corporations in a variety of transactional and governance matters. On behalf of the firm, she also served as a legal researcher for the Office of the Prosecutor on location at theUnited Nations International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, and wasfeatured in theNew York Law Journalfor her pro bono asylum work.She is a former judicial clerk of the BC Court of Appeal.
