Photo by Teddy Denton
I am the author of Unjust Debts, an accessible trade press book about bankruptcy and equality and limiting federal government power (yes all three), about which reviewers said mostly nice things. My shorter writings have been published by The New York Times, The Nation, Politics & Rights Review, The New England Journal of Medicine, Yale Law Journal, and The Conversation, among other outlets. My research projects and I have been cited in the news media with some frequency, and have won awards that give my mother something to brag about to friends and extended family.
In 2025, after holding a tenured faculty position at UNC-Chapel Hill for over two decades, I took emeritus status. A new book project is in the works, along with a broader teaching initiative. And, at the appointment of Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, I help design educational programs for federal judges, a three-year term that runs through 2028. I also am a Faculty Fellow for UNC’s Center for Banking and Finance. It is unclear how much law school teaching is in my future, but I welcome inquiries and will consider them on a case-by-case basis.
I continue to live 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 (emerita since July 2025)
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)