Photo by Teddy Denton
Melissa is the author of the 2024 book Unjust Debts . Her work also has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Politics & Rights Review, The New England Journal of Medicine, Yale Law Journal, The Conversation, Raleigh News and Observer, among many other outlets. She is a frequent commentator in the news media on bankruptcy, debt, and commercial law. In 2021 and again in 2025, the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, appointed her to help design educational programming for federal courts. Her awards include the Grant Gilmore Award for scholarship from the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers, and the Byrd Award for creative teaching from the University of North Carolina School of Law. Jacoby has been elected to many professional organizations including the American Law Institute and the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers and was the 2016 Robert M. Zinman Scholar for the American Bankruptcy Institute. For over twenty years, Melissa was a tenured member of the faculty at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She currently at work on her next book and an educational initiative, The Gilmore Project.
Melissa lives mostly in North Carolina, and sometimes in New York City. Best contact information is here.
Recent Academic Positions
Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sullivan & Cromwell Visiting Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, Fall 2024
Congressional Testimony
Evading Corporate Accountability through Bankruptcy
Corporate Bankruptcy Forum Shopping
Hospital Billing and Collection Practices
Education
B.A. History, J.D. University of Pennsylvania
Selected Professional Service
Appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts to assist Federal Judicial Center with educational programming for bankruptcy judges (2021–2024; 2025-2028)
National Bankruptcy Conference (elected)
American College of Bankruptcy (elected)
American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers (elected)
American Law Institute (elected)
Former consultant, Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules, Judicial Conference of the United States
Zinman Scholar in Residence, American Bankruptcy Institute (Spring 2016)
U.S. Supreme Court Amicus Brief
Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., 15-649 (2016) (with J.C. Lipson)
Prior Jobs
Assistant/Associate Professor of Law, Temple University
Judicial clerkship with the Honorable Robert E. Ginsberg (U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois)
Judicial clerkship with the Honorable Marjorie O. Rendell (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit)
Senior staff attorney for the National Bankruptcy Review Commission and counsel for the National Bankruptcy Conference
(full CV here)