University of Utah : S.J. Quinney College of Law

Laura T. Kessler

Professor of Law

Laura T. Kessler, professor of law, joined the faculty Fall Semester 2001. Prior to joining the law faculty, Professor Kessler clerked for the Honorable Ronald L. Ellis in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, litigated class-action civil rights cases in Maryland, and served as a teaching fellow at Columbia Law School. Professor Kessler's main scholary interest is inequality and families. Recent publications include The New Frontiers in Family Law, Community Parenting, Transgressive Caregiving, and other articles exploring the inadequacies of current law and legal theory in respecting minority families and care practices. Her work has been cited or reprinted in Supreme Court amicus briefs, law school casebooks, edited anthologies, and numerous law review articles.

Professor Kessler teaches family law, comparative and international family law, employment discrimination, gender and the law, and seminars on select topics in discrimination law.  Professor Kessler is visiting at Maryland Law School in 2009-2010.

Scholarship Highlights

Book Chapters

New Frontiers in Family Law, in Transcending the Boundaries of Law: Generations of Feminism and Legal Theory (Martha Fineman ed., Routledge Press, forthcoming 2009)

Transgressive Caregiving, in Strange Bedfellows?: An Uncomfortable Conversation In Feminist And Queer Legal Theories (Martha Albertson Fineman, Jack Jackson & Adam Romero eds., Ashgate Press, 2009)

Is There Agency in Dependency? Expanding the Feminist Justifications for Restructuring Wage Work, in Feminism Confronts Homo Economicus (Martha Fineman & Terence Dougherty eds., Cornell U. Press, 2005)

Legal Writing

Getting Class, 56 Buffalo Journal of Law & Policy (2008)

Community Parenting, 24 Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 47 (2007)

Keeping Discrimination Theory Front and Center in the Discourse over Work and Family Conflict, 34 Pepperdine Law Review 313 (2007)

Paid Family Leave in American Law Schools: Findings and Open Questions, 38 Arizona State Law Journal 661 (2006)

Transgressive Caregiving, 33 Florida State University Law Review 1 (2005)

The Attachment Gap: Employment Discrimination Laws, Women''s Cultural Caregiving, and the Limits of Economic and Liberal Legal Theory, 34 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 371 (2001)

PPI, Patriarchy, and the Schizophrenic View of Women: A Feminist Analysis of Welfare Reform in Maryland, 6 Maryland Journal of Contemporary. Legal Issues 317 (1995)

Miscellaneous

Co-Organizer (with Martha Ertman), The New Frontiers in Family Law, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law, Salt Lake City, Utah (February 2008) (speakers: Kathryn Abrams (Berkeley), Penelope Andrews (CUNY), Mary Anne Case (Chicago), Michael Cobb (Toronto), Adrienne Davis (Washington University), Elizabeth Emens (Columbia), Martha Ertman (Maryland), Katherine Franke (Columbia), Janet Halley (Harvard), Laura Kessler (Utah), Melissa Murray (Boalt), Carol Sanger (Columbia), Jana Singer (Maryland))

Chair, Association of American Law Schools, Section on Women in Legal Education, Full-day program on Gender and Class: Voices from the Collective, New York, New York (January 2008).

Talks & Presentations

"Resuscitating Economic Harm in Discrimination Theory," LatCrit XIV Symposium, Panel on Reconnecting Political and Civil Rights with Economic Justice, Washington College of Law, American University (October 2009).

"New Frontiers in Family Law," Law and Society Annual Meeting, Legalities of Sexualities Panel, Denver, Colorado (May 2009).

"New Frontiers in Family Law," Feminism and Legal Theory Project 25th Anniversary Celebration, Emory Law School (November 2008)

"Transgressive Caregivers," University of Wisconsin Law School, Symposium, “Working from the World Up: Equality’s Future,” Madison, Wisconsin (March 2008)

"Community Parenting," University of Utah, Symposium on "The New Frontiers in Family Law, Salt Lake City, Utah (February 2008)

"Community Parenting," Emory Law School, Atlanta, Georgia (November 2007)

"Community Parenting," University of Maryland School of Law, Legal Theory Workshop (Sept. 2007)

Discussant, Panel on Cultural and Legal Cliteracy, Law & Society Association Annual Meeting, Berlin, Germany (July 2007)

Chair, Panel on Atypical Workers, Law & Society Association Annual Meeting, Berlin, Germany (July 2007)

Organizer, Presenter, and Chair, Children in the Post-Nuclear Family, 30th International Congress on Law and Mental Health, University of Padua, Italy (June 2007)

"Resuscitating Economic Harm in Discrimination Theory," Feminism and Legal Theory Project, Workshop on Understanding Class and Caste within a World of Global Inequalities, Emory Law School (May 2007)

"How A Focus On Class Can Build On and Add To Feminist Legal Theory Projects, Taking an Intersectional Approach," Buffalo Law School, ClassCrits Workshop, Buffalo, New York (January 2007)

"Paid Family Leave in American Law Schools: Preliminary Findings and Open Questions," Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, Section on Women in Legal Education Breakfast, Washington, D.C. (January 2007) (keynote address)

"The Transformative Potential of Multiple Parenting," Law and Society Annual Meeting, Following Marriage Panel, Baltimore, Maryland (July 2006)

Chair, "Roundtable-Building New Foundations for Worker Rights: Brainstorming a Strategy to Rebuild Worker Rights," Law and Society Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland (July 2006)

Chair/Discussant, "Building New Foundations for Worker Rights: Constructing Law," Law and Society Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland (July 2006)

"Care as Politics," Association for Research on Mothering, Caregiving and Carework: Theory and Practice Conference, York University, Toronto, Canada (May 2006)

"Keeping Discrimination Theory Front and Center in the Discourse over Work and Family Conflict," Pepperdine Law School, Balancing Career and Family: A Work/Life Symposium, Malibu, California (April 2006)

"Paid Family Leave in American Law Schools: Preliminary Findings and Open Questions," Panel on New Data and Research on the Workplace, Law and Society Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, Nevada (June 2005)

"Transgressive Caregiving," Feminism and Legal Theory Workshop, Feminist and Queer Legal Theory: Convergences and Departures, Emory Law School (April 2005)

"Caught Between the Waves: Navigating the Post-Second Wave Pre-Postfeminist Position," Panel on Coming of Age in the 1990s, Feminism and Legal Theory Project 20th Summer Celebration, University of Wisconsin Law School, Madison, Wisconsin (June 2003)

"Transgressive Caregiving," Conference on Subversive Legacies: Constructing the Future, University of Texas Law School, Austin, Texas (November, 2002)

"Work/family Conflict in the United States: Legal Developments, Challenges, and Open Questions," XII International Congress on Family Law, Havana, Cuba (September, 2002)

"Transgressive Caregiving," Law & Society Annual Meeting, Vancouver, Canada (May, 2002)

"Wage Replacement for Workers Taking Family Leave: Exploring Unemployment Insurance as a Solution," S.J. Quinney College of Law, 2001-2002 Downtown CLE Series (April, 2002)

"Cognitive Bias or Statistical Discrimination?: Building a Theory of Workplace Accommodation for Caregivers," Ideal Worker Project Cognitive Bias Working Group and Conference, American University, Washington College of Law (February, 2002)

Works in Progress

Transgressive Caregiving (monograph)