Deborah R. Gerhardt is an Assistant Professor of Law at the UNC School of Law. She has published articles on copyright, trademark and plagiarism; and received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation to support empirical research on the issue of copyright publication. She is on the Steering Committee and chairs the Education Subcommittee for NC LEAP, a bar association committee dedicated to providing pro bono legal service for low wealth entrepreneurs. In 2007, Professor Gerhardt received the Outstanding Achievement Pro Bono Award for the Intellectual Property Section of the North Carolina Bar Association.
Prior to joining the faculty at UNC, Deborah Gerhardt served from 2005-08 as the Scholarly Communications Director for the UNC-Chapel Hill University Libraries and the director of the UNC School of Law intellectual property initiative.
Professor Gerhardt clerked for Judge John M. Manos for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and worked as an associate both at Jones Day Reavis & Pogue in Cleveland and at Hunton & Williams in Richmond, Virginia. She also taught as an adjunct professor at William & Mary Law School and served as associate director of the Intellectual Property Project at the University of Richmond School of Law.
She earned her A.B. degree from Duke and her J.D. degree cum laude from Case Western Reserve School of Law.
Professor Gerhardt teaches Copyright Law, Trademark Law, and a practical writing seminar in intellectual property strategies and transactions.