Stephen Wilks is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University College of Law. He joined the College of Law after a four-year appointment at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law where he was the 2022 recipient of the James T. Barnes Sr. Memorial Faculty Scholar Award for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service. He has also held visiting and tenure-track appointments at three other U.S. law schools. Wilks’s cross-disciplinary research interests explore themes of governance and regulation within transactional spaces. He has examined government use of private payment networks to facilitate various forms of financial surveillance; the role of transnational networks in harmonizing critical segments of the world’s financial system; and the politicization of migrant remittance flows between developed and developing economies. His publication record includes a dozen manuscripts – consisting mostly of law review articles and peer-reviewed book chapters. Wilks’s work has appeared in specialty and flagship journals, including The Washington and Lee Law Review, The Harvard Journal on Racial and Ethnic Justice, The Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Dickinson Law Review, the Northwestern Journal of Law and Business, and the Supreme Court of Canada Law Review.

Wilks practiced law and gained his initial teaching experience in Canada. He holds a B.A. in history and a J.D. from Queen’s University; an M.S.W. from the University of Toronto; and an LL.M. and Ph.D. from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School. His doctoral dissertation, titled, “Swimming in the Crosscurrents: Rethinking the Dynamics of Remittance Regulation Within the Regulatory Dialectic of Networked Global Governance,” examined the politicization of regulating migrant remittances. During his studies at Osgoode Hall, he was awarded the Harry Arthurs Fellowship (2008), the Willard Estey Teaching Fellowship (2009-2010), and the Nathanson Fellowship (2010). Wilks teaches in the areas of Contracts, Commercial Law, and Business Enterprises.

Ph.D., Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
LL.M. (Securities Regulation), Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
J.D., Queen’s University at Kingston (Canada)
M.S.W., Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto
B.A. (History), Queen’s University at Kingston (Canada)