Faculty - University of Virginia School of Law

CONTACT
kerryabrams@virginia.edu
(434) 924-7361
Room WB388

ASSISTANT
Delores Clatterbuck

C.V.

Kerry Abrams

Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law
J.D., Stanford Law School, 1998
B.A., Swarthmore College, 1993

Kerry Abrams joined the University of Virginia faculty in 2005, was promoted to full professor in 2010, and is currently the Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Research Professor of Law. Her primary teaching and research interests are in the areas of citizenship law, immigration law, constitutional law, legal history and family law. Abrams has written numerous articles on the intersection of immigration law and family law, the history of immigration law, and the marriage equality movement. Her work has been published in many law reviews, including the California Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review and Vanderbilt Law Review.

Abrams is a graduate of Swarthmore College, where she earned a B.A. in English literature with highest honors. She attended Stanford Law School, where she was president of the Moot Court Board. After law school, she clerked for Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and practiced law for several years in the litigation department of the New York City law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler LLP. From 2002-05, she was acting assistant professor of lawyering at New York University School of Law.

Publications

"Citizen Spouse," 101 Cal. L. Rev. (forthcoming, 2013).

"The End of Annulment," 16 J. of Gender Race & Just . (forthcoming, 2013).

"Family History, Inside and Out," 111 Mich. L. Rev. (forthcoming, 2013).

"Plenary Power Preemption," 99 Va. L. Rev. (forthcoming, 2013).

"What Makes the Family Special?" 80 Chi. L. Rev. (forthcoming, 2013).

“Recognizing Polygamy” (in progress).

“A Legal Home: Derivative Domicile and Women’s Citizenship” (in progress).

"Family Reunification and the 'Unitary Family'" (with R. Kent Piacenti, in progress).

"Is Citizenship a 'Plenary Power'?" (in progress).

"Marriage Fraud," 100 Cal. L. Rev. 1 (2012).
SSRN

“Brief Amici Curiae of Professors of History, Political Science, and Law in Support of Petitioner, Flores-Villar v. United States” (with others), 91 B.U. L. Rev. 1497 (2011).
HeinOnline (PDF)

“Peaceful Penetration: Proxy Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage, and Recognition,” 2011 Mich. St. L. Rev. 139 (symposium issue).
SSRN | HeinOnline (PDF)

"The Hidden Dimension of Nineteenth-Century Immigration Law," 62 Vand. L. Rev. 1353 (2009).
SSRN | HeinOnline (PDF)

"Marriage as a Message: Same-Sex Couples and the Rhetoric of Accidental Procreation," (with Peter Brooks), 21 Yale J. L. & Human. 1 (2009).
SSRN | HeinOnline (PDF)

"Becoming a Citizen: Marriage, Immigration, and Assimilation," in Linda McClain & Joanna Grossman, eds., Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women’s Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

"Immigration Law and the Regulation of Marriage," 91 Minn. L. Rev. 1625 (2007). Reprinted in 12 Bender's Immigration Bulletin 1421 (2007).
SSRN | HeinOnline (PDF)

"Mae Ngai's Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004)," 25 L. & Hist. Rev. 428 (2007) (book review).
HeinOnline (PDF)

"Immigration Status and the Best Interests of the Child Standard," 14 Va. J. Soc. Pol'y & L. 87, (2006) (symposium issue).
HeinOnline (PDF)

“Polygamy, Prostitution, and the Federalization of Immigration Law,” 105 Colum. L. Rev. 641 (2005).
SSRN (PDF)
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