Javier Paz Valbuena

Javi was a Departmental Lecturer in Law & Finance (2022-2025) and a doctoral researcher in the Faculty of Law. His research focused on government intervention in situations of corporate distress and its effects, particularly in terms of transfers of wealth among different stakeholders (including taxpayers and society at large). He is a dual-qualified lawyer in England & Wales (solicitor) and Spain (abogado). As Departmental Lecturer in Law & Finance for three consecutive years (2022-2025), being part of the teaching team for Corporate Finance Law, Principles of Financial Regulation, and Law & Economics of Corporate Transactions (BCL/MJur and MLF). He also served as Research Assistant for the Oxford Digital Assets Project and as Associate Editor for the Oxford Business Law Blog (OBLB).

Since May 2026, Javi is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Corporate and Financial Law at UCL Laws, where he is affiliated with the MLF and the Centre for Law and Finance.

Prior to embarking in his DPhil in 2020, Javi was a London-based investment and corporate finance advisor. Before then, he was an investment professional with a London-based pan-European real estate private equity firm. He also worked briefly for McKinsey in Madrid during his MBA. He began his professional career as a corporate/M&A lawyer with Uria Menendez in Madrid; he practised there from 2002 until 2009, being involved in some of the landmark transactions in the Spanish private equity market and in the first round of mergers of the Cajas de Ahorros.

Javi holds undergraduate degrees in Law (Licenciatura en Derecho) and Economics & Management (Licenciatura en ADE) from ICADE E-3, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, an MBA (Finance & Accounting) from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and an MSc in Taxation from the University of Oxford.