Sally Brown Richardson
A.D. Freeman Professor of Civil Law
Education & Affiliations
Biography
Sally Brown Richardson specializes in property law, community property law and comparative private law. She is currently serving as the Interim Dean of Tulane Law, and previously was the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs.
She specializes in property law, community property law and comparative private law. Her scholarship and teaching focus on how property and community property doctrines might be modernized to operate more effectively and efficiently given changes in society since their creation. In doing so, she compares how property and community property doctrines operate in both common and civil law jurisdictions, and she considers what the different legal systems might learn from each other to better address modern property issues.
Her scholarship and teaching focus on how property and community property doctrines might be modernized to operate more effectively and efficiently given changes in society since their creation. In doing so, she compares how property and community property doctrines operate in both common and civil law jurisdictions, and she considers what the different legal systems might learn from each other to better address modern property issues.
Richardson is an elected member of the American Law Institute. She serves as the Reporter for the Tenancy In Common Default Rules Committee for the Uniform Law Commission. Richardson also serves on the executive board for both the American Society of Comparative Law and the Association of Law, Property and Society. She is an active member of the Louisiana State Law Institute, serving on its council and a number of committees, including serving as the Reporter for the Property Law Committee.
In 2019 Richardson received Tulane University’s highest teaching honor, the President’s Award for Excellence in Professional and Graduate Teaching. In 2015, she was awarded the Felix Frankfurter Award for Distinguished Teaching, Tulane Law School's highest teaching honor. And in 2015-16, she was the Gordon Gamm Faculty Scholar, an award supporting early-career professors. Richardson became Vice Dean for Academic Affairs in 2019, helping the law school to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges. She was named Interim Law Dean in 2023 after the departure of Dean David Meyer.
Her work has been published in the American Journal of Comparative Law, North Carolina Law Review, University of Houston Law Review, Tennessee Law Review, Tulane Law Review, and the Louisiana Law Review. She is the author of the textbook Community Property in the United States (Carolina Academic Press 2015). Her article "Reframing Ameliorative Waste" was selected for the 2015 Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum. Richardson also blogs regularly for the PropertyProf Blog.
Before joining the Tulane Law faculty in 2012, Richardson practiced law at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Washington, D.C. She clerked for Judge W. Eugene Davis on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and before that worked as deputy communications director for then-U.S. Sen. Mary L. Landrieu.
Contributions
Selected Publications
An Exploration into Louisiana Enclosed Estate Doctrine, 94 Tul. L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2020)
Valuing Community Property Businesses: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Louisiana Law, 80 La. L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2019) (solicited article)
Privacy and Spouses in Louisiana: The Community Property Conundrum and Proposals for Reform, 92 Tul. L. Rev. 219 (2017) (solicited article)
Reframing Ameliorative Waste, 65 Am. J. Comp. Law 335 (2017) (selected for presentation at 2015 Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum)
Privacy and Community Property, 95 N.C. L. Rev. 729 (2017)
Abandonment and Adverse Possession, 52 Hous. L. Rev. 1385 (2015)
How Community Property Jurisdictions Can Avoid Being Lost in Cyberspace, 72 La. L. Rev. 89 (2011) (solicited symposium article)
Classifying Virtual Property in Community Property Regimes: Are My Facebook Friends Considered Earnings, Profits, Increases in Value, or Goodwill?, 85 Tul. L. Rev. 717 (2011)
Nonuse and Easements: Creating a Pliability Regime of Private Eminent Domain, 78 Tenn. L. Rev. 1 (2010)
Buried by the Sands of Time: The Problem with Peremption, 70 La. L. Rev. 1179 (2010)
Comment, Civil Law Compromise, Common Law Accord and Satisfaction: Can the Two Doctrines Coexist in Louisiana?, 69 La. L. Rev. 175 (2008)
Essays
Tribute to Thanassi: The Influence of Justinian on American Common Law Property, 78 La. L. Rev. 1111 (2018) (solicited essay)
Blogs
Assorted Posts, PropertyProf Blogs, http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/
Book Reviews
Review of Legalism: Property and Ownership, 68 Am. J. Comp. L. ___ (forthcoming 2020) (solicited book review)
The Intertwined Nature of Property and Regulation: A Book Review of Regulating Property Rights: The Transforming Notion of Property in Transnational Business Regulation, 5 Eur. Prop. L. J. 280 (2017) (solicited book review)
Chinese Takings, __ AM. J. COMP. LAW __ (forthcoming 2016) (solicited book review)
Books
Property as a Social Institution: Cases, Materials, and Problems (West Academic Publishing) (with Peter M. Gerhart, Michael Pappas) (forthcoming 2020)
Community Property in the United States (8th ed., Carolina Academic Press) (with William A. Reppy, Jr. and Cynthia A. Samuel) (2015)
General Publications
Throw Me Some Property Law, Mister! How Property Law Underlies New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Traditions, Nat. Assoc. App. Ct. Att’y (Spring 2019) (solicited contribution)
Adverse Possession: Acts, Time, and Faith, and What They Mean for Title Insurance Attorneys, ABA Title Ins. Lit. Committee Newsletter (Winter 2017) (solicited contribution)
