Graduated from the Law Faculty of the Leningrad State University (1987, studied in the same group with Dmitry Medvedev), postgraduate studies at the same faculty (1990), MPhil in Law (1991, thesis title: "Ownership and commodity-money relations").

Co-author of one of the most famous Russian textbooks on civil law (edited by A. P. Sergeev and Iu.

K. Tolstoy; among co-authors are Nikolai Egorov, Ilya Eliseev, Mikhail Krotov, Dmitry Medvedev, and others), and in 2001 was awarded the prize of the Russian government in Education.

He is also the academic supervisor of the Higher School of Economics Law Faculty since 2006 and the tenured professor since 2011.

In 1994, together with fellow students Dmitry Medvedev and Ilya Eliseev, established the consulting firm Balfort.