Professor of Law and Judge Morris Stern Scholar
Chrystin Ondersma
Rutgers Law School
428
S.I. Newhouse Center for Law and Justice
123 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102
973-353-3018

Professor Ondersma is the Professor of Law and Judge Morris Stern scholar at Rutgers Law School.  Her scholarship considers human rights and social justice implications for laws and policies governing business and credit.  Her recent papers have been published in the North Carolina Law Review, Colombia Law Review Forum, the Colorado Law Review, and the Minnesota Law Review.  She received her J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School where she was an executive editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.  Prior to joining Rutgers, she clerked for the Honorable Michael Daly Hawkins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked as an associate in the Business Finance and Restructuring Department at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in New York. 

  • Biography
  • Publications
  • Courses Taught
  • Expertise
Biography

Professor Ondersma joined the faculty in Spring 2010. Her scholarship focuses on Bankruptcy and Commercial Law. She received her J.D. magna cum laude in 2007 from Harvard Law School where she was the recipient of a Goldsmith Academic Fellowship and an executive editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. From 2007 to 2008 she clerked for the Honorable Michael Daly Hawkins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty, she was an associate in the Business Finance and Restructuring Department at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in New York.

Publications

Stakeholder Syndrome: Does Stakeholderism Derail Effective Protections for Weaker Constituencies? (with Matteo Gatti) (forthcoming N.C. L. Rev.).

Can A Broader Corporate Purpose Redress Inequality? The Stakeholder Approach Chimera (with Matteo Gatti) 46 Iowa J. Corp. Law 1 (2021).

Dispossession and the Need for an Abolitionist Approach to Survival Debt, 120 Columbia L. Rev. Online 8 (2020), available at https://columbialawreview.org/content/borrowing-equality-dispossession-a....

“Ending Dispossession Through Student Loan Collection – Polices & Polling,” Report, The Justice Collaborative Instute (Aug. 5 2020).

“A Bailout That Excludes Immigrants Hurts Everyone,” The Appeal, The Justice Collaborative Institute (June 4, 2020).

Tackling Issues in Consumer Credit: The Role of Human Rights, in Human Rights, Consumer Law and Vulnerable Consumers, Routledge Press (2020)).

Human Rights and Insolvency, in Elgar Research Handbook on Corporate Restructuring (2020)).

A No-Contest Discharge for Uncollectible Student Loans (with Matthew Bruckner, Dalie Jimenez, and Brook Gotberg, 91 U. Colorado L. Rev. 183 (2019)).

Small Debts, Big Burdens, 103 Minn. L. Rev. 2211 (2018)).

Consumer Financial Protection Now: Mandatory Arbitration and Human Rights (Cornell Int’l. L. J. 2017).

Debt Without Relief: An Empirical Study of Undocumented Immigrants, 68 Rutgers U. L. Rev. 1799 (2016) (solicited for symposium edition).

 A Human Rights Approach to Consumer Credit , 90 Tulane L. Rev. 373 (2015).

 A Human Rights Framework for Debt Relief, 36 U. Pa. J. Int’l L. 269 (2014).

A Human Rights Framework for Debt Relief,” 36 U. Pa. J. Int'l L. 269 (2015)

Shadow Banking and Financial Distress: The Treatment of ‘Money-Claims’ in Bankruptcy,” 2013 Columbia Business Law Review 79

Undocumented Debtors,”45 Mich. J.L. Reform 517-560 (2012)

Are Debtors Rational Actors? An Experiment,” 13 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 279 (2009)

Employment Patterns in Relation to Bankruptcy,” 83 Am. Bankr. L.J. 237 (2009) 

Courses Taught
  • COMMERCIAL LAW
  • DEBT & INJUSTICE
  • DEBTOR AND CREDITOR
  • LAW & INEQUALITY
  • Secured Credit
Expertise
  • Bankruptcy
  • Commercial Transactions