Eric Fink
Associate Professor of Law
Department: Elon University School of Law
Email: efink@elon.edu
Phone number: (336) 279-9334
Brief Biography
Eric Fink teaches civil procedure, professional responsibility, and employment law. He has also taught consumer law, labor law, cause lawyering, administrative law, and business associations. His research examines legal problems and institutions from a sociological perspective. In recent publications, he has addressed the effect of post-employment repayment obligations on employee mobility and exploitation, labor organizing among incarcerated workers, & worker self-management in public services.
Before joining the Elon faculty, Fink taught legal writing at Stanford Law School, and practiced law in San Francisco and Philadelphia. He has also taught at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and the Anglo-American College in the Czech Republic. He has a bachelor’s degree from The Johns Hopkins University, a master’s degree in sociology from the London School of Economics, and a law degree from New York University School of Law, and was a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Chicago.
In his free time, he enjoys fly fishing, playing guitar, and cooking.
Links
News & Notes
Education
- The Johns Hopkins University, B.A. (Sociology), 1984
- London School of Economics, M.Sc. (Sociology), 1985
- University of Chicago, doctoral study in Sociology, 1987-92
- NYU School of Law, J.D., 1997
Courses Taught
2022-23
Past
- Cause Lawyering
- Consumer Protection
- Labor Law
- Administrative Law
- Social Research & Law
- Business Associations
Current Projects
- State data trespass laws & workers' rights
- Open-source tools and materials for law teaching and legal scholarship
Grants Awarded
Publications
“Just When I Thought I was Out …”: Post-Employment Repayment Obligations, with Stuart Lichten, 25 Washington & Lee Journal of Civil Rights & Social Justice (forthcoming 2018)
Union Organizing & Collective Bargaining for Incarcerated Workers, 52 Idaho Law Review 953 (2016)
Federal Student Loan Servicing: Contract Problems and Public Solutions, with Roland Zullo, Jobs With Justice Education Fund (2014)
Sewer Syndicalism: Worker Control in Public Services, 14 Nevada Law Journal 444 (2014)
No Money, Mo’ Problems: Why Unpaid Law Firm Internships Are Illegal and Unethical, 47
University of San Francisco Law Review 435 (2013)
The Virtual Construction of Legality: ‘Griefing’ and Normative Order in Second Life, 21 Journal
of Law, Information and Science 89 (2011)
Law School and The Web of Group Affiliation: Socializing, Socialization, and Social Network Site Use Among Law Students, 27 John Marshall Journal of Computer and Information Law 325 (2010)
Liars and Terrorists and Judges, Oh My: Moral Panic and the Symbolic Politics of Appellate Review in Asylum Cases, 83 Notre Dame Law Review 2019 (2008); reprinted in 29 Immigration and Nationality Law Review 45 (2008); cited in Djadjou v. Holder, 662 F.3d 265 (4th Cir. 2011) and Zuh v. Mukasey, 547 F.3d 504, 513 (4th Cir. 2008)
Post-Realism, or the Jurisprudential Logic of Late Capitalism: A Socio-Legal Analysis of the Rise and Diffusion of Law and Economics, 55 Hastings Law Journal 931 (2004)
Union and Employee Access to Employer E-mail Systems Under Federal Labor Law, with Stuart
W. Davidson, in The CyberUnion Handbook: Transforming Labor Through Computer Technology (A. Shostak, ed., 2002)
Contributing Editor, The Developing Labor Law (P. Hardin, ed., 4th ed. 2001
Book Note, The Caribbean: New Dynamics in Trade and Political Economy, 28 NYU Journal of International Law and Politics 644 (1996)