Georgetown Law

Professor Abernathy works in the fields of federal civil procedure, civil rights, and comparative law. His most recent book, Law in the United States (West Academic, 2021) (with Professor Markus Puder) explores US law as a topic of comparative law and legal processes. He specializes in teaching American law to students from foreign legal backgrounds, as explored in “Law as an Item of Trade” in A Revolution in the International Rule of Law: Essays in Honor of Don Wallace Jr. (Borzu Sabahi ed., Juris Publishing, 2014). Professor Abernathy was the Fulbright Professor of Law in Egypt in 1983-84, served as director of Georgetown University Law Center’s summer programs abroad (in Florence, Italy, and Heidelberg, Germany) from 1987-2000, and often lectures at law schools abroad (Italy, Switzerland, Argentina, and Germany).Professor Abernathy is also the author of Civil Rights and Constitutional Litigation (West Publishing, multiple editions), the first edition of which was the first modern casebook on federal civil rights statutes. He authored or co-authored Supreme Court briefs in major civil rights cases while serving at the Southern Poverty Law Center, including the brief for Sharon Frontiero in Frontiero v. Richardson.