Alison D. Morantz
Alison D. Morantz
- James and Nancy Kelso Professor of Law
- Room N235, Neukom Building
Expertise
- Employment Discrimination
- Employment Law
- Public Policy & Empirical Studies
Biography
A scholar whose work has explored the law and economics of protective labor regulation, the enforcement of workplace safety laws, and legal history, Alison D. Morantz seeks to parse the real–world effects of legal and policy reform. Much of her recent empirical research examines the effects of unionization on mine safety and the intensity of regulatory scrutiny, the ways in which statistical techniques can be used to target the nation’s most hazardous employers, the consequences of permitting firms to opt out of workers’ compensation, and the impact of devolving enforcement authority from federal to state regulators.
Morantz is the principal investigator of multi–year research projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. In the spring of 2010, she was one of four experts appointed, at Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis’s request, to a federal panel that provided an independent analysis of the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s internal review following the explosion at Upper Big Branch Mine on April 5, 2010, that claimed 29 miners’ lives.
After receiving a BA summa cum laude from Harvard in 1993, Morantz earned an MSc from Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship; a JD from Yale Law School; and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. She subsequently clerked for Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and worked as a union–side labor lawyer and antidiscrimination advocate in Boston, before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2004.
Education
- BA Harvard University 1993
- MSc (Economics of Development) University of Oxford 1995
- JD Yale Law School 2000
- PhD (Economics) Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 2001
Related Organizations
Courses
Affiliations & Honors
- National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health – Research Contract No. 200–2009–28820 (2009–12). Designing a Pilot Program for Strategic Mine Safety and Health Improvements through the Use of Surveillance Data to Guide Targeted Inspection Activities. Principal Investigator. Award Amount: $619,814.
- National Science Foundation – Grant No. 0850636 (2009–11). Swapping Regulation for Litigation: The Effects of Workers' Compensation Opt–Out on the Injury Claims of Large Multi–State Firms. Principal Investigator. Award Amount: $207,974.
- American Society for Legal History – Surrency Prize (2007) (awarded for There's No Place Like Home: Homestead Exemption and Judicial Constructions of "Family" in Nineteenth–Century America, 24 LAW & HISTORY REVIEW 1 (Summer 2006)).
- Workers' Compensation Research Institute – John Jones Scholarship (2005). Awarded to scholars whose research will contribute to knowledge in the field of workers' compensation. Co–recipient (with Alexandre Mas). Award amount: $10,000.
- Center to Protect Workers' Rights – Small Study Grant No. 02–1–PS (2002–2003). Award amount: $20,000. New Methods for OSHA Enforcement in the Construction Industry. Co–investigator (with David Weil, Principal Investigator).
- National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Pre–Doctoral Fellowship in Aging and Health Economics (2000–2001) and Project Development Award (2001–2002).
- World Health Organization – sponsored study (2000–2001). Designing and Implementing an Effective Legal Strategy for the Enforcement of a Vaccine Purchase–Commitment Contract. Co–author (with Robert Sloane).
Professional Memberships & Research Affiliations
Massachusetts Bar- National Employment Lawyers Association
- Labor and Employment Relations Association
- American Economic Association
- American Law & Economics Association
- Society for Empirical Legal Studies
News
At Venture Capital Firm, Arguments About Whether A Partner Is Still Employed
The New York Times - Bits
Professor Alison Morantz spoke with the New York Times Nicole Perlroth about a sexual discrimination case with an outcome that will depend heavily on whether the plantiff was actually fired in retailiation for filing suit or dismissed for poor performance. In a sexual discrimination suit involving one of Silicon…
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