Wulf Alexander Kaal

Professor Wulf A. Kaal is a tenured associate professor of law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in downtown Minneapolis where he is also the Director of the Private Investment Fund Institute (PIFI). 

Kaal is a leading expert on private fund regulation and compliance in the United States and the European Union. His scholarship constitutes over 80% of the empirical and theoretical scholarship on private fund regulation in the United States. Using hand-selected databases that have industry-wide application, Professor Kaal applies empirical methods to investigate the effects of financial regulation across a wide spectrum of regulatory issues. His theoretical research focuses on the use of finance and economic theory to analyze and inform financial and regulatory policy. Applying both empirical methods and theory, Kaal is the most widely published proponent of Dynamic Regulation and associated regulatory applications.

Professor Kaal teaches Private Investment Funds - Practice, Regulation and Compliance; Federal Securities Regulation; Corporate Law; Partnership Law; Agency Law; International Finance; and European Union Law. He has previously taught at the University of Minnesota School of Law, Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, and Tilburg University Law School in the Netherlands.

Before entering the academy, Kaal was associated with Cravath, Swain & Moore LLP, in New York, Goldman Sachs in London, UK.

Kaal has published more than three dozen articles in the United States and Europe. His empirical and theoretical articles were published in leading peer reviewed law and finance journals such as the Journal of Alternative Investments and in American law reviews such as the Minnesota Law Review, the Washington & Lee Law Review, and he Wake Forest Law Review, among many others.

Kaal’s study on the effects of hedge fund registration requirements under Title IV of the Dodd-Frank Act has gained national attention and was covered in a Business Week article and other journals. He is the author of two books and book chapters on Investment Advisers and Investment Companies in the Securities Law Handbook Published by Edward Elgar and in the Handbook on Investment Funds published by Edward Elgar, among many others. His editorial work includes the Festschrift in Honor of Christian Kirchner, published by Mohr Siebeck.

He has also been a consultant to major corporations and private funds regarding various aspects of financial markets and regulation and regularly serves as an expert for expert networks. He is also a FINRA arbitrator.