Nicholas Calcina Howson, the Pao Li Tsiang Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, is a former partner of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP who worked out of the firm's New York, Paris, London, and Beijing offices, and as a managing partner of the firm's Asia Practice based in the Chinese capital.

Howson has spent many years living in the People's Republic of China (PRC), both as a scholar and as a practicing lawyer based in Beijing. He writes and lectures widely on Chinese law topics, focusing on Chinese corporate law and securities regulation, the Chinese capital markets, Chinese legal history, and the development of constitutionalism in Greater China.

Howson has been a consultant to the Ford Foundation, the United Nations Development Programme, the Asian Development Bank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Chinese legislature, and various PRC government ministries and administrative departments in connection with the drafting of PRC statutes and regulations. He acts as a Chinese law expert or party advocate in US and international litigation and/or US government enforcement actions.

In addition to Michigan Law, he has visited and taught at the Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, and Harvard law schools. Howson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City and a designated foreign arbitrator for both the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission in Beijing and the Shanghai International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission. He is a former chair of the Asian Affairs Committee of the New York City Bar Association.