Chunlin Leonhard

Professor Chunlin Leonhard teaches Evidence, UCC Article 2 (Sales), UCC Article 9 (Secured Transactions), Business Organizations and Pretrial Litigation at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. Prior to joining the Loyola faculty, she taught commercial law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law as well as Chinese law and legal system seminars for the summer program in Beijing. Over the years, she has taught U.S. Contract Law and other classes at multiple Chinese law schools including Peking University School of Transnational Law as a visiting professor.  

Professor Leonhard’s scholarship focuses on admissibility of scientific evidence in court.  She has been researching issues related to forensic neuropsychologists’ use of certain neuropsychological assessment tests (aka “malingering tests”), as “scientific evidence” to support their testimony that an examinee has malingered their non observable mental or physical symptoms. Professor Leonhard has argued against the admissibility of those tests as scientific evidence under the Daubert Standard because the tests have not been scientifically validated, and the tests suffer from fundamental statistical and methodological flaws. Her articles on this topic have been published in Georgia Law Review, one of the top ranked journals in the United States. 

Professor Leonhard has also examined contract law issues in cross cultural context as well as the impact of behavioral economics research on common law contract law. Her articles on the topic have been published in multiple law journals. She received a nine-month Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award for 2019-2020 to study Chinese contract law during the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 CE) in Beijing, China. 

Professor Leonhard began her legal career with the law firm of Latham & Watkins, LLP, in its Chicago office in 1996 after having clerked for one year for the Honorable Christopher J. Armstrong of the Massachusetts Appeals Court in Boston. She joined the Chicago office of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, LLP, in 1999 and was promoted to partner in 2006. Professor Leonhard grew up in central China and graduated from Shanghai International Studies University before moving to the United States in 1987. She received her juris doctorate degree, magna cum laude, from Boston University.