Ji Li

Professor Li joined UCI Law in July 2019 as the John S. and Marilyn Long Professor of U.S.-China Business and Law. Prior to this appointment, he was a Professor of Law and a Zhuang Zhou Scholar at Rutgers University, where he also served as a member of the Associate Faculty of the Division of Global Affairs.

Professor Li received his Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy. After law school, he worked for several years at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York.

Professor Li’s teaching and scholarship cover a broad range of topics, including Chinese law and politics, international business transactions, contracts, comparative law, and empirical legal studies. He has published two books with Cambridge University Press: Negotiating Legality (2024) and Clash of Capitalisms (2018), both of which examine how Chinese multinational companies, including those owned by the Chinese state, adapt to U.S. legal and regulatory institutions. During the 2018-2019 academic year, Professor Li was in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is currently working on two book projects that investigate the interactions between China and the international legal order, as well as the ways transnational legal actors are coping with the U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry.