William W. Clayton is a professor of law and the associate dean for Faculty and Curriculum at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. A nationally recognized business law scholar, Clayton’s research centers on corporate and securities law, with particular expertise in private markets and the governance of private equity funds.
Clayton’s work has shaped public discourse and policy, having been cited in US Securities and Exchange Commission rulemaking, comment letters, and amicus briefs relating to private investment funds. His articles have appeared in leading journals such as the Yale Journal on Regulation, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Harvard Business Law Review, and he is a contributing author to multiple research handbooks on private equity and venture capital.
Clayton received his bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford University in 2006, where he played NCAA Division I volleyball. He went on to earn an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2010 and a JD from Yale Law School in 2011, where he was an editor of The Yale Law Journal.
Before joining the BYU Law faculty in 2018, Clayton practiced corporate law at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and later specialized in private funds at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, both in New York City. He also served as executive director of the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law.
At BYU, Clayton teaches contracts, business organizations, and corporate finance courses. He is the founding director of the nationally recognized BYU Law Deals Academy—an immersive transactional law program in New York City for first-year students. The Deals Academy served as the model for BYU’s broader academy program, which has been ranked among the top law school innovations in the nation by Bloomberg Law. Clayton also co-directs BYU’s Global Business Law Program.