Mark Suchman Headshot
  • Research Professor
  • Staff
Joint Appointment
Professor of Sociology, Purdue University
Education
Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology, Stanford University
J.D., Yale Law School
A.B. in Sociology, Harvard University

Mark C. Suchman

  • Research Professor
  • Staff
Executive Director
ABF Researcher

Mark C. Suchman (he/him) is a Research Professor and Executive Director of the American Bar Foundation. Before joining the ABF in 2023, Suchman was a Professor of Sociology at Brown University, where he led the Sociology Department’s Work, Organizations, and Economy faculty.

Suchman has studied law and entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, business disputing practices, and patient privacy in the American healthcare system. His research has been supported by major grant-giving organizations, including the National Science Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Sociolegal Association, among others. His work has been featured in a number of scholarly journals, including the Academy of Management Review, the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, and Law & Social Inquiry.

Suchman has a long history of engagement with the ABF. He completed a Doctoral Fellowship at the ABF in his early career, advised the Board of Directors Research Committee from 2013 to 2016, and has served on the External Research Review Committee (the Wheeler Committee) since 2017.

Research Focus

The impact of law and legal institutions on organizational and economic life, with a particular focus on how legal conditions create—or foreclose—opportunities for innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological change.