Debora L. Threedy
Lee E. Teitelbaum Endowed Professor of Law
Co-Director, Center for Innovation in Legal Education
Professor Threedy holds a J.D. from Loyola University of Chicago and a B.A. in theater from Beloit College. Prior to joining the faculty in 1986, she clerked for The Honorable Susan Getzendanner, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She practiced with Mayer, Brown & Platt in Chicago, specializing in banking and commercial litigation.
Professor Threedy's scholarship ranges across several substantive areas, but her focus is on issues of power and subordination in the context of gender, race and class. She advocates the use of “legal archaeology” as a method for uncovering embedded structures of power in the law; her legal archaeology case study of Alaska Packers Assoc. v. Domenico is quoted or cited in many first year Contracts casebooks.
Professor Threedy teaches contracts, contract drafting, law and literature, legal issues in archaeology, remedies, and feminist legal theory. She served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2003 to 2006 and as Acting Dean in 2004. In 2000, she was a recipient of the University of Utah Distinguished Teaching Award, the university's highest teaching honor. In the fall of 2002, she was a visiting professor at The James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona. She is also an actor, musician and playwright.
Scholarship Highlights
Works in Progress
The Subversive Sex: Women in Law and Theatre (under contract with Ashgate Publishing)
Book Chapters
A Fish Story: Alaska Packers’ Association v. Domenico, in Contracts Stories (Douglas G. Baird, ed., 2007)
Law Review Articles
Stumped (a play), part of the symposium, Stumped: The Story of Stump v. Sparkman, 81 UMKC L. Rev (forthcoming 2013)
Dancing Around Gender: Lessons from Arthur Murray on Gender and Contracts, 45 Wake Forest L. Rev. 101-29 (2010)
U.S. v. Hatahley: A Legal Archaeology Case Study of Law and Racial Conflict, 43 Am. Indian L. Rev. 1-75 (2010)
Claiming the Shields: Law, Anthropology, and the Role of Storytelling in a NAGPRA Repatriation Dispute, 29 J. Land Resources & Envtl. L. 91 (2009)
Legal Archaeology and Feminist Legal Theory: A Case Study of Gender and Domestic Violence, 29 Women's Rts. L. Rep. 171 (2008)
Legal Archaeology: Excavating Cases, Reconstructing Context, 80 Tul. L. Rev. 1197 (2006)
Selected Talks and Presentations
Dancing Around Gender: Lessons from Arthur Murray on Gender and Contracts, AALS Workshop on Women Rethinking Equality, Washington, D.C., June 21, 2011
- One
- Two
- Three
Symposium: Contract Law in Context: Identity, Power, and Contractual Justice Wake Forest University School of Law, March 26, 2010
Stumped, reader’s theater presentation and panel discussion, Assoc. for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, March 26, 2011
Claiming the Shields, presentation and panel discussion, Assoc. for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, March 26, 2011
Teaching Law in Archaeology: Perspectives from the Trenches, panelist, Soc'y for American Archaeology 74th Annual Meeting, Atlanta GA, Apr. 2009
Maternal/Fetal Conflict: From Infertility to Infanticide, chair/discussant, Assoc. for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Annual Conference, Boston MA, Apr. 2009
Using Narrative in Legal Scholarship, chair, roundtable discussion, Assoc. for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Annual Conference, Boston MA, Apr. 2009
The Third Crossing, reader’s theater presentation, Assoc. for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Annual Conference, Boston MA, Apr. 2009
The Pectol Shields, panelist, Utah State History Conference, Salt Lake City UT, Sept. 2008
Who Owns the Past? NAGPRA Metaphors, Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Annual Conference, Georgetown Law School, Mar. 2007
Who Owns the Past? A NAGPRA Case Study, Feminism and Legal Theory Workshop, Emory University School of Law, Oct. 2006
Chair, Panel on Legal Archaeology, Law & Society Annual Conference, Baltimore MD, July 2006
Legal Archaeology, AALS Section on Contracts, 2006 Annual Conference, Washington D.C., Jan. 2006
Legal Archaeology and Feminist Theory: Unearthing the Relics of Patriarchy, Feminism and Legal Theory Workshop, Emory University School of Law, June 2005
Professional Service
Community Service
Advisory Committee for the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure
ACLU of Utah, board of directors, vice-president
TheatreWorks West, board of directors
Entrada Institute, past president; past treasurer; board of directors
Utah Living With Fire, board of directors
Honors & Awards
S.J. Quinney College of Law Faculty Scholarship Award 2010
Interdisciplinary Teaching Grant 2008
University of Utah Research Grant 2001
Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Utah, 2000
Faculty Achievement Award, University of Utah, 1995
Faculty Fellow Award, University of Utah, 1994