Prof. Uri Benoliel
Prof. Benoliel is an Associate Professor of Law at the College of Law and Business.
His fields of expertise include: Franchise Law, Contract Law, International Business Transactions, and Empirical Legal Studies.
Prof. Benoliel received his J.S.D. from UC Berkeley, California (dissertation grade: High Honors). He graduated with an LL.M. (Stone Honors) from Columbia University, New York and an LL.B., cum laude, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Dean’s List honoree in every academic year).
Prof. Benoliel was awarded the Lady Davis Scholarship (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), the Wien Scholarship (Columbia University, New York), the Raneri Scholarship (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia), the Best Paper Award by the International Society of Franchising, and he also won a competition to represent the Hebrew University in a mock trial at the International Court of Justice in Hague.
Prof. Benoliel founded the first Israeli team to compete in the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. He also pioneered the way for the College of Law and Business to participate in the ICC’s International Commercial Mediation Competition for the first time, where the College placed first in the world out of 66 teams.
Prof. Benoliel was invited as a speaker to several leading legal conferences, among them the Annual Meeting of the American Law and Economics Association, the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, the Annual Conference of the European Association of Law and Economics, the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Law and Economics Association, the Annual Asian Law and Economics Association Conference, the Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Law and Economics Association, and the Annual Meeting of the Israeli Law and Economics Association.
Prof. Benoliel interned with the Vice President of the Supreme Court, Justice Theodore Orr. He then completed a clerkship with Theodore Orr, during the latter’s tenure as an arbitrator.
Books:
1) Disclosure Laws in the Digital Era: The Case of Franchising, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming)
2) Improving Legislation with AI: The UCC as a Case Study, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming)
Selected Articles:
1) How Artificial Intelligence Can Enhance Plain Language in the Restatements of Law, Tulane Law Review (forthcoming)
2) Reforming Disclosure Laws in the Age of AI, Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal (forthcoming)
3) Have Plain Language Laws Kept Up with the AI Revolution? An Empirical Test, 22 Berkeley Business Law Journal 108 (2025)
4) Messy Contracts, 2024 University of Illinois Law Review 893 (2024) (with Shmuel Becher)
5) Are Government Disclosure Databases Accessible to AI Developers? The Case of Franchising, 2024 University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy 201 (2024)
6) Hidden Contracts, 49 Brigham Young University Law Review 307 (2023) (with Shmuel Becher)
7) Dark Contracts, 64 Boston College Law Review 55 (2023) (with Shmuel Becher)
8) Have Disclosures Kept Up with the Big Data Revolution? An Empirical Test, 63 Boston College Law Review 1914 (2022)
9) Termination Without Explanation Contracts, 2022 University of Illinois Law Review, 1059 (2022) (with Shmuel Becher)
10) Sneak in Contracts, 55 Georgia Law Review 657 (2021) (with Shmuel Becher)
11) Law in Book and Law in Action: Readability of Privacy Agreements and the GDPR, in: Consumer Law and Economics 179 (SPRINGER, Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds.) (2021) (with Shmuel Becher)
12) Formalism versus Anti-Formalism in Contract Law: An Empirical Study, 90 UMKC L. Rev. 253 (2021)
13) Effects of Contract Ambiguity in Interorganizational Governance, 84 Journal of Marketing 147 (2020) (with Xu Zheng, David Griffith & Ling Ge)
14) The Impossibility Doctrine in Commercial Contracts: An Empirical Analysis, 85 Brooklyn Law Review 393 (2020)
15) Introduction to Franchise Law in Israel, 39 Franchise Law Journal 559 (2020) (with Gideon Fisher)
16) The Duty to Read the Unreadable, 60 Boston College Law Review 2255 (2019) (with Shmuel Becher)
17) Contract Interpretation Revisited: The Case of Severability Clauses, 3 George Washington Business & Finance Law Review 90 (2019)
18) Are Disclosures Readable? An Empirical Test, 70 Alabama Law Review 237 (2018) (with Vivian Zheng) (featured in Wall Street Journal May 1, 2018)
19) The Course of Performance Doctrine in Commercial Contracts: An Empirical Analysis, 68 DePaul Law Review 1 (2018)
20) Revisiting the Rationality Assumption of Disclosure Laws: An Empirical Analysis, 46 Hofstra Law Review (2018) (with Jenny Buchan & Tony Gutentag)
21) Are Disclosures Really Standardized: An Empirical Analysis, 62 Villanova Law Review 1 (2017)
22) The Commercial Agency Contract Law and its Partial Protection of Commercial Agents, 9 Hukim 51 (2017) [Hebrew]
23) The Interpretation of Commercial Contracts: An Empirical Study, 69 Alabama Law Review 469 (2017)
24) Good Cause Statutes Revisited: An Empirical Assessment, 90 Indiana Law Journal 1177 (2015) (with Adi Ayal)
25) Franchisees’ Optimism Bias and the Inefficiency of the FTC Franchise Rule, 13 DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal 411 (2015) (with Jenny Buchan)
26) Revitalizing the Case for Good Cause Statutes: The Role of Review Sites, 19 Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance 331 (2014) (Awith Adi Ayal)
27) Can Franchisee Associations Serve as a Substitute for Franchisee Protection Laws, 118 Penn State Law Review 99 (2014) (with Robert Emerson)
28) Distribution Contract Termination: Ambiguity in Present Law and the Need for Legislation, Hukim (2014) [Hebrew]
29) Are Franchisees Well-Informed? Revisiting the Debate over Franchise Relationship Laws, 76 Albany Law Review 193 (2013) (with Robert Emerson)
30) Criticizing the Economic Analysis of Franchise Encroachment Law, 75 Albany Law Review (2011-2012)
31) Rethinking the U.S. Supreme Court’s Abandonment Requirement in Mac’s Shell Service v. Shell Oil Products, 43 Rutgers Law Journal 77 (2011)
32) The Behavioral Law and Economics of Franchise Tying Contracts, 41 Rutgers Law Journal 527 (2010)
33) Reputation Life Cycle: The Case of Franchising, 13 Chapman Law Review 1 (2009)
34) The Expectation of Continuity Effect and Franchise Termination Laws: A Behavioral Perspective, 46 American Business Law Journal 139 (2009)
35) Rethinking the Distributor-Manufacturer Fiduciary Relationship: A Marketing Channels Perspective, 45 American Business Law Journal 187 (2008)
CONTRACT LAW
LAW AND ECONOMICS
CONSUMER PROTECTION LAW
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS
COMMERCIAL CONTRACTS