Professor Odinet’s research focuses on commercial law, consumer finance, and property law, with an emphasis on digital/crypto assets, financial regulation, bankruptcy, and mortgage lending. His work has appeared in leading law reviews, and he is a co-author on several casebooks dealing with property, real estate, and commercial transactions. Additionally, his book titled ​Foreclosed: Mortgage Servicing and the Hidden Architecture of Homeownership in America was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. Professor Odinet’s courses include Property Law; Secured Transactions; Real Estate Law & Finance; Bankruptcy; Payments Systems; and Consumer Finance Law. During the fall 2023 semester, he will be a visiting professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.

In addition to his position at the law school, Professor Odinet holds secondary faculty appointments at the UI Public Policy Center and in the Finance Department at the UI Tippie College of Business. He has previously served as a MacCormick Fellow at the University of Edinburgh Law School in Scotland and as a visiting researcher at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) in Italy. 

Professor Odinet is active in a number of law reform organizations. He has served as a two-time commissioner with the Uniform Law Commission and as an advisor to a number of that organization’s study and drafting committees. He is currently serving as reporter for a Uniform Law Commission committee investigating the use of tokens and other crypto innovations in real estate transactions, as well as the associate reporter for a committee charged with drafting default rules for the management of tenancy-in-common real property. Professor Odinet is also an elected member of both the American Law Institute and the European Law Institute. 

In professional and academic circles, Professor Odinet is a fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and has held several leadership positions with the American Bar Association’s Section of Real Property, Trust & Estate Law. He has also chaired both the Commercial and Consumer Law Section and the Real Estate Transactions Section of the Association of American Law Schools. Professor Odinet currently serves as co-editor of the Annual Survey of Consumer Finance Law, which appears in the American Bar Association's The Business Lawyer publication.  

Prior to joining the Iowa Law faculty in fall 2020, Professor Odinet taught at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and at the Southern University Law Center. Before joining the academy, he practiced law in the business and finance group at Phelps Dunbar LLP. At LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center, he was editor-in-chief of the Louisiana Law Review and the recipient of the W. Lee Hargrave Award. 

LinkedIn: Christopher Odinet

Twitter: @ChrisOdinet

Phone: 319-467-4762

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Areas of Expertise:

• Property Law
• Commercial Finance
• Consumer Finance Law
• Real Estate Transactions
• Banking and Financial Regulation
• Crypto Transactions and Regulation