Professor Arbel joined the University of Alabama in 2017. He earned his doctoral degree in law and economics at Harvard Law School, where he was both an Olin fellow and a Byse fellow. He holds a JSM degree from Stanford Law School, where he trained in socio-legal empirical analysis. Professor Arbel also earned a joint degree in Law and the Humanities (summa cum laude) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Before joining the faculty Professor Arbel was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Private Law at Harvard Law School and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Villanova University. Professor Arbel served as a clerk at the Supreme Court of Israel and a research fellow at the Israeli Democracy Institute. He taught an undergraduate section on the economics of contract law at the Department of Economics at Harvard University and received four awards for distinction in teaching.
In 2010, Professor Arbel founded an international consultancy firm where he served as a managing partner until he sold his stake in 2017. As part of his roles, he designed complex agreements, drafted contracts, hired employees, and served as a consultant to governments, law firms, trade organizations, and the European Union.
Professor Arbel’s scholarship appeared or is forthcoming in the Washington University Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Chicago Law Review Online, Southern California Law Review, Wake Forest Law Review, Alabama Law Review, and the peer-reviewed Journal of Empirical Legal Studies and the International Review of Law & Economics. His work focuses on commercial, consumer, and private law; his methodology combines doctrinal, economic, and socio-legal analysis.