Veronica Root Martinez has had the pleasure of teaching at Notre Dame Law School since 2012, first as a visiting assistant professor, and then as a full-time member of the faculty.  She is the first Black woman to receive tenure at the Law School and the first Black woman to be internally promoted to Full Professor at the University.  

Martinez teaches Securities Litigation, Enforcement, & Compliance; Corporate Compliance & Ethics; Global Compliance Survey; Professional Responsibility; and Contracts. Her greatest professional joy is when her Contracts’ students begin to analyze cases like lawyers. 

Martinez writes about and researches issues related to professional and organizational ethics, drawing on scholarship from the areas of ethics, compliance, corporate and securities law, workplace law, and equity and inclusion. She investigates the institutional mechanisms that firms can utilize to (i) promote ethical norms within professional and organizational environments, (ii) improve long-term compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, and (iii) encourage the development of diversity and inclusion norms. Her scholarship has been published in a range of top journals, including the Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Cornell Law Review, as well as in other venues. 

Martinez is one of the nation’s foremost experts on corporate compliance and is the nation’s leading academic expert on the role of monitors and monitorships.  In 2021, she was appointed to a four-year term on FINRA’s National Adjudicatory Council.  She is the inaugural director of Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Ethics, Compliance & Inclusion, which is an interdisciplinary program that supports research focused upon critically examining significant instances of immoral behavior, misconduct, and discrimination within organizations for the purpose of producing tangible steps that organizations can take to prevent similar future behavior.

The Notre Dame Law School Class of 2021 selected Martinez as the recipient of the Captain William O. McLean Student Award.  In 2020, 2019, 2017 and 2015, the Notre Dame Black Law Students Association presented Martinez with the Charles F. Crutchfield Professorial Award.  Additionally, Martinez was the 2020 recipient of the Notre Dame Black Law Students Association’s Rebecca B. Ward Appreciation Award.

In 2021, Martinez was part of the University's All Faculty Team, and her scholarship was highlighted at a home football game.  In 2020, the University recognized Martinez's work as part of its International Women's Day celebration. In 2018, Martinez received an internal grant from the University for a project titled, "Reclaiming the dignity of work through varied methods of assessment." 

Before joining the law school faculty, she was a clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and an attorney at Gibson Dunn in Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and Georgetown University.