About Professor Brobst

Professor Jennifer Brobst joined the faculty in 2022 as an Assistant Professor. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2024. Her scholarly work primarily focuses on the intersection of health law and criminal law, as well as legal approaches to privacy, liberty interests, and the impact of science and technology. She serves as the author of the treatise North Carolina Admissibility of Evidence, and from 2019 - 2023 was the author of Criminal Offenses and Defenses in Alabama, both part of the state-practice treatise series from Thomson Reuters and available on Westlaw. Her article entitled Miranda in Mental Health was designated as one of the All Time Top Papers in Mental Health and Crime by the Social Science Research Network for the years 1997 – 2018. In 2018, while at Southern Illinois University School of Law, she was awarded the faculty’s Outstanding Scholar Award. Since 2020, she has extended her research interests to applications in international and national space law, including virtual presentations at international conferences in India and New Zealand and several book chapters.

For a number of years, Professor Brobst has engaged in service by providing training to interdisciplinary professionals, including expert witness training on medical and forensic scientific evidence, ethics training for information technology and business professionals, and to attorneys and judges on managing secondary traumatic stress in at-risk areas of legal practice. Her early practice experience is in litigation, both civil and criminal, in cases involving interpersonal violence. She is a former Chair of the Balance in Legal Education Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), which promotes wellness in the profession. In North Carolina, she was appointed by Governor Perdue to serve on the North Carolina Commission Against Domestic Violence, and by Speaker Hackney to serve on the North Carolina Commission for Mental Health, Developmental Disability, and Substance Abuse, where she served as Vice Chair of the Commission and Chair of the Rules Committee. She has continued to serve as one of the inaugural members of the Advisory Council to the National Crime Victim Law Institute in Portland, Oregon since 2014. 

Education

LL.M. (by thesis in international comparative law), Victoria University of Wellington School of Law, New Zealand, 2002; J.D., University of San Diego School of Law, 1996; B.A., University of Cape Town, Republic of South Africa, 1991 (distinctions in Social Anthropology and Archaeology dual majors)

Admitted

California, Indiana (retired), North Carolina, United States Supreme Court (all currently inactive) 

Experience

Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law (2022-present); Assistant and Associate Professor (with tenure since 2019), Southern Illinois University School of Law, cross-appointed in the School of Medicine Department of Medical Humanities and the Department of Public Health and Recreation (2014-2022); Visiting Professor (Evidence), Seattle University School of Law (Summer 2012); Legal Director, Center for Child and Family Health (consortium of Duke University Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and North Carolina Central University School of Law) and adjunct professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law (Durham, NC) (2006-2014); Visiting Professor and Clinical Supervising Attorney, Domestic Violence Clinic, North Carolina Central University School of Law (2004-2006); Statewide Training Institute Director, North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault (2001-2004); Adjunct Professor (Legal Writing in Torts), Victoria University of Wellington School of Law, New Zealand (2000-2001); Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, St. Joseph County, IN (1998-2000); Child Forensic Interviewer and Street Law Program Director, The CASIE Center (nationally accredited child advocacy center), South Bend, IN (1998-1999).

Teaching Interests

Evidence, Torts, Professional Responsibility, Health Law (Public Health Law, Mental Health Law, Privacy Law, Scientific and Medical Evidence, Consumer Protection), Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure.

Research & Publications

• Admissibility of Evidence in North Carolina, State Practice Series, Thomson Reuters (annually revised since 2012)
• Criminal Offenses and Defenses in Alabama, State Practice Series, Thomson Reuters (2019 - 2023)
• The Social and Legal Challenges of Technology (NY: Cambridge U. Press, forthcoming 2025)
• Frontier Mentalities and Legal Regulation in Outer Space in The Future of Outer Space Law (Anna Marie Brennan (ed), Oxford: Routledge (UK), forthcoming 2025)
• The Role of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Regulating Space Activities, in International Space Law in the New Space Era: Principles and Challenges (Sandeepa Bhat B., Dilip Ukey, & Adithya Variath (eds), Oxford U. Press (UK) 2024, ISBN 9780198909415)
• The Lawyer’s Duty to Understand the Disparate Impact of Technology in the Legal Profession, 20(1) U. St. Thomas L.J. 150 (2024)
• Legal Strategies to Preserve the Natural and Cultural Heritage of Space, in Space Tourism: Legal and Policy Aspects (Sandeepa Bhat B. (ed), Delhi: Routledge 2024, ISBN 9781032617954)
• Perilous Private Enforcement Strategies in the Realm of Reproductive Rights, 14 ConLawNOW 11 (2022) 
• Public Health Common Law in Space, in Fundamentals of National Space Laws (Prof. (Dr) Sandeepa Bhat B. & Dr Shouvik Kumar Guha (eds.), Thomson Reuters, 2022, ISBN 978-93-93702-83-8)
• Vicarious Liability for Systemic Risks of Sexual Violence in the United States:  Not A Modest Proposal, 99(3) U. Detroit Mercy L. Rev. 233 (2022)
• The Revelatory Nature of COVID-19 Compassionate Release in an Age of Mass Incarceration, Crime Victim Rights, and Mental Health Reform, 15 U. St. Thomas J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 200-258 (2021)
• Open and Unashamed in an Era of Consumer Protection:  Unconscionable Hospital Billing Practices and the Chargemaster Racket, 51 U. Memphis L. Rev. 861-916 (2021)
• Enhanced Civil Rights in Home Rule Jurisdictions:  Newly Emerging UAS/Drone Use Ordinances, 122 W. Va. L. Rev. 741-782 (2020)
• Book Review, 41(2) Hum. Rts. Q. 508-515 (2019) (Bernice Yeung, In a Day’s Work:  The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers (The New Press 2018))
• The Metal Eye:  Ethical Regulation of the Use of Technology to Observe Humans in Confinement, 55 Cal. W. L. Rev. 1-127 (2018)
• Mental Health in Prisons:  Treatment or Unconstitutional Interrogation? An Introduction to the 2016 National Health Law Moot Court Competition, 38 J. Legal Med. 1 (2018) (drafter of the 25th Annual Health Law Moot Court Competition problem and bench brief, Southern Illinois University Schools of Law and Medicine and the American College of Legal Medicine) 
• The Modern Penny Dreadful:  Public Prosecution and the Need for Litigation Privacy in a Digital Age, 96 Neb. L. Rev. 281-319 (2017) 
• Miranda in Mental Health:  Court Ordered Confessions and Therapeutic Injustice for Young Offenders, 40 Nova L. Rev. 387-423 (2016) 
• Why Public Health Policy Should Redefine Consent to Assault and the Intentional Foul in Gladiator Sports, 29 J.  Law & Health 1-54 (2015)
• Reverse Sunshine in the Digital Wild Frontier:  Protecting Individual Privacy Against Public Records Requests for Government Databases, 42 No. KY L. Rev. 197-316 (2015) 
• The Impact of Secondary Traumatic Stress Among Family Attorneys Working with Trauma-Exposed Clients:  Implications for Practice and Professional Responsibility, 10 J. Health & Biomed. Law 1-54 (2014) 
• The Prospect of an Unborn Victims of Violence Act in North Carolina, 28(2) N.C. Central L.J. 127-171 (2006)
• The Parental Discipline Defense in New Zealand:  The Potential Impact of Reform in Civil Proceedings, 27 N.C. Central L.J. 178-215 (2005)
• LL.M. published thesis, The Law Protecting Parental Corporal Punishment of Children:  New Zealand’s Legal Reform Options (2001) (on file with Victoria University Law Library and the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse)