Adam MacLeod

Faulkner University > Faculty & Staff Directory > Adam MacLeod
Professor of Law
Department:Jones School of Law

Bio

Adam J. MacLeod is Professor of Law at Faulkner. He is also a Senior Scholar and former Thomas Edison Fellow at the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy at George Mason University and a Research Fellow of the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy. In 2012-2013, he was a Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is co-editor of the fourth edition of Christie and Martin’s Jurisprudence (West Academic 2020) and author of Property and Practical Reason (Cambridge University Press 2015) and other books. He has published more than one hundred articles, essays, and book reviews.

Professor MacLeod writes and speaks about the foundations of private law and private ordering. He teaches courses concerning property, intellectual property, jurisprudence, private international law, and private law theory. He is an instructor in the James Madison Program’s summer seminar on the Moral Foundations of Law. He speaks at events hosted by groups devoted to public education such as the American Constitution Society and the Acton Institute. And he has written in the Washington Post, Washington Times, National Review Online, New Boston Post, Public Discourse, and Law & Liberty.

Professor MacLeod received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Gordon College and his J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame Law School. After law school, he served as law clerk to Chief Justice Christopher Armstrong and Justice Benjamin Kaplan of the Massachusetts Appeals Court and to Chief Judge Lewis Babcock of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. He practiced law in the Boston area and has held appointment as a special Deputy Attorney General of Alabama. An Operational Auxiliarist in the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, he has served as a staff officer at the flotilla, division, and district levels and as State Liaison Officer to Alabama. Professor MacLeod lives in Montgomery, Alabama with the joys of his life, his wife and daughters.

SOME SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Books:

  • With George C. Christie and Patrick H. Martin, Jurisprudence: Text and Readings on the Philosophy of Law (4th ed., West Academic Publishing 2020)
  • The Age of Selfies: Reasoning About Right(s) When the Stakes Are Personal (Rowman & Littlefield 2020)
  • With Robert L. McFarland, Foundations of Law (Carolina Academic Press 2017)
  • Property and Practical Reason (Cambridge University Press 2015)

Book Chapters:

  • To Caesar (Only) What is Caesar’s, in Social Conservatism for the Common Good: A Protestant Engagement with Robert P. George (Andrew Walker, ed., Crossway 2022)
  • The Boundaries of Dominion, in Christianity and Private Law (Robert Cochran and Michael Moreland, eds., Routledge 2020)
  • The Substantial Burden Test in RLUIPA, in Zoning and Planning Law Handbook (Patricia E. Salkin, ed., West Publishing 2012)

Selected Academic Articles:

  • Vested Patents and Equal Justice, __ Catholic University Law Review __ (2023)
  • Opus as the Core of Property, __ Texas A&M Journal of Property Law __ (2022) (invited)
  • What Makes Property Liberal?, 84 Modern Law Review 1427 (2021) (peer reviewed)
  • Cyber Trespass and Property Concepts, 10 IP Theory 4 (2021)
  • Group Ownership and the Ends of Legal Artifacts, 13 Faulkner Law Review __ (2021) (invited)
  • Reply to Respondents, 13 Faulkner Law Review __ (2021) (invited)
  • Public Rights After Oil States Energy, 95 Notre Dame Law Review 1281 (2020)
  • Patent Infringement as Trespass, 69 Alabama Law Review 723 (2018)
  • Of Brutal Murder and Transcendental Sovereignty: The Meaning of Vested Private Rights, 41 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 253 (2017)
  • Metaphysical Right and Practical Obligations, 48 University of Memphis Law Review 431 (2017)
  • Tempering Civil Rights Conflicts: Common Law for the Moral Marketplace, 2016 Michigan State Law Review 643
  •  Strategic and Tactical Totalization in the Totalitarian Epoch, 5 British Journal of American Legal Studies 57 (2016) (peer reviewed)
  • Rights, Privileges, and the Future of Marriage Law, 28 Regent University Law Review 71 (2015) (invited)
  • Bridging the Gaps in Property Theory, 77 Modern Law Review 1009 (2014) (peer reviewed)
  • Universities as Constitutional Lawmakers, 17 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law Online 1 (2014)
  • Private Rights and Duties, 6 Faulkner Law Review 65 (2014) (invited)
  • Identifying Values in Land Use Regulation, 101 Kentucky Law Journal 55 (2012)
  • The Mystery of Life in the Laboratory of Democracy: Personal Autonomy in State Law, 59 Cleveland State Law Review 589 (2012)
  • Resurrecting the Bogeyman: The Curious Forms of the Substantial Burden Test in RLUIPA, 40 Real Estate Law Journal 115 (2011) (peer reviewed)
  • Empathy’s White Elephant: Responding to the Subprime Mortgage Crisis Without Denigrating the Poor, 9 Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy 283 (2011)
  • A Non-Fatal Collision: Where Religious Land Uses and Community Interests Meet, 42 Urban Lawyer 41 (2010) (peer reviewed)
  • A Gift Worth Dying For?: Debating the Volitional Nature of Suicide in Personal Property Law, 45 Idaho Law Review 93 (2008)
  • The Search for Moral Neutrality in Same-Sex Marriage Decisions, 23 BYU Journal of Public Law 1 (2008)
  • All for One: A Review of Victim-centric Justifications for Criminal Punishment, 13 Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law 31 (2008)