Jens Drolshammer was born in Switzerland in 1944 as a Swiss citizen of Norwegian and German descent. He studied Law at the University of Zurich (1964-1968). He studied in the Année d’Etudes Supérieures, University of Geneva, at the Institute for International Affairs of the University of Geneva and the Hague Academy of International Law (1969-1970).
He was a Graduate Fellow at the University for Michigan Law School where he obtained a Master’s Degree (MCL) (1970-1971) and then worked on his doctoral thesis as a Visiting Scholar at the Law School of Harvard University (1971-1972); he wrote his S.J.D. thesis in antitrust at the University of Zurich (summa cum laude) (1972-1974).
He is admitted to bar of the Canton of Zurich and worked with Homburger Rechtsanwälte as an associate, founding and senior partner from 1975 to 2002. He made substantial contributions to the development of structure, strategy and clientbase of the law firm, one of the leading commercial law firms in Switzerland. He was “Leading lawyer” in antitrust, in Swiss-EU relationship and in corporate governance in Switzerland. 1981 to 2009 he was teaching law at the University of St. Gallen, mainly in the field of American legal culture, comparative law and the planning and structuring of the commercial transactions. From 1995 until 2009 he was a Professor of Law (Titularprofessor) at the University of St. Gallen in Anglo-American Law and the planning and structuring of legal transactions. In addition, he was the president of the Commission (up until January 2003) and founding member and a teacher of the postgraduate studies program “Executive Master of European and International Business Law, M.B.L.-HSG” and teacher in the Master of International Management program and a member of the management committee of the Institute for European and International Commercial Law at the University of St. Gallen until Summer 2010. 1999 and from 2003 to 2009 Drolshammer was a visiting research professor and senior fellow at the European Center for Law Research at Harvard Law School. He worked at the Center for Business and Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University as well. From 2003 he has carried advisory work through Drolshammer Strategy and Law Advokatur, an interdisciplinary network at the interface of the development of strategy and law for international companies, organizations and leading individuals in business, law and politics. Jens Drolshammer has regularly published, mainly on Swiss-EU matters, antitrust and commercial law. From 1997 he has gradually specialized and focused on the globalization and americanization of law and legal profession.
His major book publications are: A Timely Turn to the Lawyer? Globalisierung und die Anglo-Amerikanisierung von Recht und Rechtsberufen-Essays (2009); English as the Language of Law, An Essay on the Lingua Franca of a Shrinking World, with Nedim Peter Vogt (2003); Swiss Law Bibliography, English Language Materials on Swiss Law (with Nedim Peter Vogt) (2005); Internationalization of legal education and legal research- an agenda for an interdisciplinary education of international lawyers in the economy and in 2002; The Internationalization of the Practise of Law, (Editor with Michael Pfeifer) and authors (2001).
Drolshammer is militia officer in the Swiss army and has been in the military battalion commander and at the end of his military career a member of the Sachgruppe Strategie, advising the Joint Chef of Staff and the Chief of the army on strategic matters. He has been a member of the International Institute for Strategic studies for more than 25 years.