Victor DOROKHIN

Education

Victor Dorokhin obtained a Specialist degree in Law (equivalent to a Master's degree) from Saint Petersburg State University (2001). He subsequently carried out doctoral research there under Professor A. V. Polyakov, a leading proponent of the communicative theory of law, completing a dissertation titled "Richard Posner's Concept of Wealth Maximisation: Theoretical and Legal Aspects" (2019-2023). This research on the economic analysis of law of the Chicago School was supported by a two-year grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), under the project "Economic Analysis of Law of the Chicago School: A Normative Approach." His engagement with the Chicago tradition became the intellectual starting point from which his later critique of it developed.

Professional Appointments

Victor Dorokhin is a member of the Saint Petersburg Chamber of Advocates, with over two decades of practice, and has extensive experience across a wide range of commercial disputes, including intellectual property, international shipping, and insurance. From 2017 to 2022 he headed the Intellectual Property Office at Saint Petersburg State University, stepping away from private practice for that period, before returning to practice in 2022. Now based in India, he is engaged in developing his legal, business, and academic activities across the Asian region. He has also written articles and analysis for the Los Angeles Daily Journal on high-profile and complex questions of legal practice.

Research Areas

Dorokhin's work lies at the intersection of law, economics, and legal philosophy. His central contribution is the concept of "moral costs" - a category absent from conventional transaction cost theory, denoting morally significant burdens that remain structurally invisible at the moment of transaction because they generate no willingness-to-pay signal. His monograph Law, Morality and Economics (Edward Elgar, 2026) has been endorsed by scholars from across the legal-philosophical and economic spectrum, including John Finnis, Jules Coleman, Deirdre McCloskey, and Steven Medema. 

Drawing on Austrian economics (Hayek, Kirzner, Cordato), Petrażycki's psychological theory of law, and cognitive science, his research offers a critique of Richard Posner's wealth-maximization theory and proposes mutual legal recognition as an operational framework. 

His current work examines the limits of artificial intelligence in legal reasoning, considered through the lens of moral costs. His broader interests span intellectual property law, the economic analysis of law, and the philosophical foundations of legal order.