Dr. Philipp Ceesay, LL.M. (Harvard), né Scholz
Main Fields of Research
Corporate and Partnership Law, Succession Law and the Law of Obligations (in historical and comparative perspective), Foundation Law, Civil Procedural and Insolvency Law
Vita

Philipp Ceesay, born in 1989 in Leipzig as Philipp Scholz, studied law at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena from 2007 to 2013, including a one-year Erasmus exchange at Trinity College Dublin. From 2013 to 2016, he worked as a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Walter Bayer in Jena, where he earned his doctorate in 2014 with a dissertation on directors’ liability in stock corporation law. His dissertation, funded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), was awarded the dissertation prizes of Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Thuringian Working Group on Corporate Law (Thüringer Arbeitskreis für Unternehmensrecht). During his practical legal training (Referendariat) in Hamburg, Philipp worked as a part-time research assistant to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Reinhard Zimmermann at the Institute from 2016 to 2017.
After passing the Second State Examination, he pursued an LL.M. at Harvard Law School with scholarships from the ERP program and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). He then returned to the Institute as a Senior Research Fellow (wissenschaftlicher Referent) to complete his habilitation on a topic in succession law under the supervision of Prof. Zimmermann. In Michaelmas Term 2019, Philipp was the Max Planck Gildesgame Fellow at the Institute of European and Comparative Law and St Catherine’s College, Oxford. From 2019 to 2021, he served as Vice Chair of the Society for Young Civil Law Scholars (Gesellschaft Junge Zivilrechtswissenschaft e.V.) and co-organized the society’s 31st annual conference in Hamburg in 2021, together with Stefan Korch. Since 2022, Philipp has been a member of the Project Group on Digital Inheritance of the European Law Institute, working on proposals for harmonizing the cross-border administration of digital estates.
Philipp’s research focuses on corporate law and succession law. In his habilitation thesis, he examined the erosion and resilience of formal requirements in succession law from a historical-comparative and procedural perspective. His habilitation process at Bucerius Law School was formally initiated in October 2024.
Throughout his work on his habilitation, Philipp has continuously taught at Bucerius Law School, offering courses in comparative law and bar exam preparation in the areas of general contract law, sales law, property law, commercial law, as well as succession and family law. In the winter semester of 2021/2022, he also taught the corporate law specialization course (Schwerpunktbereich Unternehmensrecht) at the University of Jena. Philipp is currently serving as a substitute professor for private law at Leuphana University Lüneburg.