John H. Schlegel
UB Distinguished Professor; Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar
Research Focus: American Legal Realism, Legal History of the American Economy, Corporate Finance, Economic Redevelopment of Rust Belt Cities
Links: Curriculum Vitae
Contact Information
526 O'Brian Hall, North Campus
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
716-645-2746
schlegel@buffalo.edu
John H. Schlegel taught in the corporate/commercial area of law. He was part of the faculty group that offered the financial transactions concentration, teaching both acquisition transactions and in the concentration’s program in finance in New York City. He also taught a two-semester seminar on regional economic development.
Schlegel was a member of the School of Law faculty from 1973 to 2025. For over 52 years, he championed reform in legal education through courses emphasizing real-world application, such as civil procedure based on actual cases and an innovative “contorts” class blending contracts and torts.
His scholarship was focused on the history of legal education and the activities in the 1920s and ’30s of a group of scholars at Columbia, Yale and Johns Hopkins universities known as the American Legal Realists. He critiqued conventional curricula and analyzed Buffalo’s economic stagnation in his book While Waiting for Rain. Rejecting bureaucratic roles, Schlegel prioritized mentoring and upheld UB Law’s tradition of academic freedom, leaving a lasting legacy as a bold, socially engaged educator.