Joseph Yockey
Overview
Professor Joseph W. Yockey is the F. Arnold Daum Chair in Corporate Law at the University of Iowa College of Law, where he teaches and writes at the intersection of artificial intelligence, law, business, corporate governance, compliance, and higher education. Professor Yockey is also the Director of Iowa Law’s Innovation, Business, and Law Center (IBL). His recent research focuses on the legal and institutional challenges created by AI, including AI governance, agentic AI, data governance, scholarly use of AI, and the impact of artificial intelligence on universities, lawyers, and business organizations. He also teaches “AI, Law, and Business” and serves on the University of Iowa’s Guidance for AI in Teaching and Learning committee.
Professor Yockey’s scholarship appears in leading law journals across the country, and he is the co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Social Enterprise Law. In 2026, he co-organized “When AI Acts: Law for the Agentic Future,” a symposium at Harvard Law School sponsored by the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and IBL. He has also been an invited discussant at the Harvard A(G)I Workshop and writes about AI, law, business, and higher education for The Paper Clip Problem (Substack).
Professor Yockey’s teaching has been recognized at both the collegiate and university levels. He was named the law school’s teacher of the year in 2012 and 2023, and he received the university-wide President and Provost Award for Teaching Excellence in 2022. He served as President of the University of Iowa Faculty Senate in 2020–21. He is also the advisor and co-founder of the law school’s First-Generation Lawyers student organization, work for which he received the University of Iowa Award for Outstanding First-Generation Student Advocacy in 2022.
Before coming to Iowa, Professor Yockey practiced corporate litigation at Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago. He is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, where he served as articles editor for the University of Illinois Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. After law school, he clerked for Judge John D. Tinder, formerly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Research areas
- Artificial Intelligence and the Law
- Corporate Law
- Compliance
- Social Enterprise
- Higher Education and the Law
Teaching areas
- Business Associations
- Securities Regulation
- Artificial Intelligence, Law, and Business
Professional affiliations and memberships
- Iowa Bar
- Illinois Bar
- Iowa State Bar Association—Council for the Section on Business Law
- Iowa Law School Foundation—Board of Directors
- Subject Matter Expert (Business Associations)—National Conference of Bar Examiners
Awards and honors
- President and Provost Award for Teaching Excellence (University of Iowa teacher of the year) (2022)
- Collegiate Teaching Award (College of Law teacher of the year) (2012, 2023)
- University of Iowa Award for Outstanding First-Generation Student Advocacy (2022)
