Klaus J. Hopt studied law, economics and political science in Munich, Tübingen, Bilbao, Paris and New York as of 1959.
Eine Fallstudie zur Reform der Wahlkreiseinteilung in den USA.“) he qualified as a professor at the University of Munich in 1973 with a thesis on investor protection in banking law.
From 1995 until his retirement in 2008, Klaus J. Hopt was Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, where he continues to pursue his research today.
Among others, Hopt's former doctoral and post-doctoral students are Harald Baum, Li-Jiuan Chen-Rabich, Katrin Deckert, Andreas Fleckner, Stefan Grundmann, Brigitte Haar, Jan von Hein, Thomas von Hippel, Christoph Kumpan, Patrick C. Leyens, Hanno Merkt, Peter O. Mülbert, Katharina Pistor, Markus Roth, Heike Schweitzer, Felix Steffek, Georgios Triantafyllakis, Dimitris Tzouganatos and Marina Wellenhofer-Klein.
From 2003 to 2006, he served as Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Max Planck Gesellschaft and from 2003 to 2005 as a member of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Börse AG.