St. John’s Law School Welcomes Two New Faculty Members

July 13, 2009

Professors Keith Sharfman and Marc O. DeGirolami will join the faculty at the Law School in the Fall 2009 semester. 

Professor Keith Sharfman joins St. John’s as a Visiting Professor of Law from Marquette University Law School.  He will further bolster the Law School's strong program in bankruptcy.  Professor Marc O. DeGirolami joins St. John’s as an Assistant Professor of Law, bringing his strengths in the areas of criminal law, professional responsibility, and law & religion. 

Keith Sharfman
Visiting Professor of Law
B.A., Johns Hopkins University;
J.D., University of Chicago Law School

Keith Sharfman teaches and writes in the areas of antitrust, bankruptcy, commercial law, corporate finance, corporate reorganization, law and economics, and legal valuation.  He received a B.A. in economics and international relations from Johns Hopkins and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Frank Easterbrook of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then was an associate at Latham & Watkins, where he worked on a wide range of antitrust, bankruptcy, corporate finance, and intellectual property matters.

For more than a decade, Professor Sharfman has published extensively in a variety of scholarly journals. His articles include “Contractual Valuation Mechanisms and Corporate Law,” 2 Virginia Law & Business Review 53 (2007); “Judicial Valuation Behavior: Some Evidence from Bankruptcy,” 32 Florida State University Law Review 387 (2005); “Derivative Suits in Bankruptcy,” 10 Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance 1 (2004); “Valuation Averaging: A New Procedure for Resolving Valuation Disputes,” 88 Minnesota Law Review 357 (2003); and “Is It Ever Too Late for Innocence?,” 64 University of Pittsburgh Law Review 263 (2003) (with George C. Thomas et al.).

In recognition of his scholarship, the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges selected Professor Sharfman in 2006 as an American Bankruptcy Law Journal Fellow, and in 2007 he became a member of the Journal’s editorial advisory board.


Marc O. DeGirolami
Assistant Professor of Law
B.A., Duke University;
M.A., Harvard University;
J.D., Boston University School of Law;
LL.M., Columbia Law School

Marc DeGirolami comes to St. John’s from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, where he has been a Visiting Assistant Professor and Scholar- in-Residence.  He has also taught legal research and writing as an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School.   He will teach Criminal Law, Professional Responsibility, and Law & Religion at St. John’s.

Professor DeGirolami gradated cum laude from Duke University and received his J.D. cum laude from Boston University School of Law.  He holds a masters degree from Harvard University and an LL.M. from Columbia Law School, and is a candidate for a J.S.D. at Columbia.  While at Columbia, he was a James Kent Scholar and a Bretzfelder Fellow in Constitutional Law, and he won the Walter Gellhorn Prize awarded for the highest grade-point average in the class.  Following law school, he clerked for Judge William E. Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island and Judge Jerome Farris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  His professional experience includes service as an Assistant District Attorney in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Professor DeGirolami has already distinguished himself with a strong record of scholarly achievement.  His most recent articles are “The Problem of Religious Learning,” published in the Boston College Law Review, and “Culpability in Creating Criminal Necessity,” published in the Alabama Law Review.   He has also published articles in the Arkansas Law Review, the San Diego Law Review, and the St. John’s Law Review, among others.