Professor Deborah R. Gerhardt

Deborah R. Gerhardt joined the University of North Carolina School of Law faculty in 2009 and serves as the Reef C. Ivey II Excellence Fund Term Professor of Law. She specializes in intellectual property law, with a particular focus on the intersection of law and creativity. Gerhardt teaches Arts Entrepreneurship, Art Law, Copyright Law, Trademark Law and Contracts. In 2018, Gerhardt was awarded UNC’s Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction. She has written many influential essays and articles on copyright, trademark and law and entrepreneurship. Her work has appeared in the Notre Dame Law Review, the Journal of the Copyright Society and Slate.

Prior to joining the faculty at UNC, Gerhardt clerked for the Honorable Judge John M. Manos in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and practiced in the intellectual property section at Jones Day Reavis & Pogue in Cleveland, Ohio. She earned her A.B. degree from Duke University and her J.D. degree cum laude from Case Western Reserve School of Law where she was the Executive Notes Editor of the Law Review.