How Professor Christine Hurt Became Texas' Voice of Business Law

From transactional practice to Texas corporate reform, Professor Hurt blends scholarship, service, and strategy to guide students through a fast-changing legal frontier.

Christine Hurt is the Alan R. Bromberg Centennial Chair in Corporate, Partnership, Business, and Securities Law and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at SMU Dedman School of Law. A national expert in corporate tax law and securities regulation, she brings decades of scholarship, service, and leadership to the next generation of lawyers.

How does a first-generation college student from Lubbock, Texas, become one of the country’s most recognized voices in corporate governance? For Hurt, it started with an English degree and an interest in the way business transactions demand collaboration from both sides.

“I knew I wanted to be a professional person,” she said, “and I really liked writing. And, you know, reading Chaucer and reading the tax code are very similar.”

That love of language and logic led her to The University of Texas School of Law, where she and a group of other 1Ls co-founded the Texas Journal of Women and the Law and graduated with honors. She moved to Houston and found her niche as a project finance attorney.

“I felt like Lisa Simpson living in a Bart Simpson world,” she said with a laugh, explaining why litigation never quite suited her. “I didn’t really understand what people were fighting about.”

Academia was her calling. Since joining Texas Tech Law School in 1998, Hurt has taught at the University of Houston, Marquette University, the University of Illinois, Brigham Young University, and now SMU. At each stop, she has brought a mix of professional experience and institutional savvy that has helped her shape courses in law and the broader culture of legal education.

Her current work places her at the center of a corporate crossroads. When Elon Musk proposed moving Tesla’s corporate registration from Delaware to Texas, the legal world took notice—and so did Hurt. With few legal precedents in Texas corporate governance, she saw both a challenge and an opportunity.

“All of a sudden, a lot of people were talking about Texas law, but I knew they didn’t know anything about Texas law,” said Hurt. “I never set out to be an expert in Texas corporate law, but I thought, well, if anybody is going to write about Texas versus Delaware, it should be somebody who knows something about Texas law.”

Her resulting article, “Texas, Delaware, and the New Controller Primacy,” analyzes how Texas’ business-friendly ethos might evolve as major companies reincorporate under its jurisdiction. She became a key voice in debates around fiduciary duties, shareholder rights, and state regulatory reform.

“We’re at the beginning of a new era of Texas corporate law,” she said. “Hopefully there’s a place to have academic discussions that will shape how these new statutes are interpreted.”

That blend of timeliness and depth has defined Hurt’s scholarship for more than two decades. Her published work ranges from securities fraud to feminist critiques of corporate law.

She also continues to shape legal structures from within. As Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, she oversees curriculum planning. Her leadership extends beyond SMU—she also served a three-year term on the National Adjudicatory Council of FINRA, the financial industry’s independent regulatory body.

Innovation defines her approach. Long before digital learning was the norm, Hurt and her co-author gamified the Bluebook citation process to help students learn more effectively and launched the Interactive Citation Workstation in 1999. In 2004, she co-founded The Conglomerate, one of the first major business law blogs bridging academic insight and real-world debate.

In the classroom, she is known for making complex systems accessible. Her honors include the prestigious appointment as the Alan R. Bromberg Centennial Chair, a recognition of her contributions to partnership, business, and securities law. She is also a Founding Fellow of the American College of LLC and Partnership Attorneys.

Despite her national profile, Hurt remains grounded in her Texas roots.

“I had to leave Texas in 2003 to follow this weird dream of being a law professor,” she said. “I’m just so glad to be back, and I’m so glad to be here with our students and faculty.”

At a moment when Texas’ legal landscape is rapidly changing and SMU is investing deeply in faculty research and student success, Hurt plays a central role in both—helping shape a more informed, capable, and ethical generation of legal professionals.