Professor Sarah L. Swan writes and teaches in the areas of state and local government law, torts, criminal law, and family law. Her research often explores issues of third-party responsibility, social justice tort theory, and local governance, with a particular interest in how concepts of third-party responsibility are mobilized and leveraged to further the competing goals of social control and social change. Professor Swan's scholarship regularly appears in the nation's leading law reviews, including the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, Duke Law Journal, and UCLA Law Review, among others.   

Prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers (Newark), Professor Swan was an Assistant Professor at Florida State University College of Law (2018-2022).  Professor Swan has also served as an Associate-in-Law and fellow at Columbia Law School (2015-2018) and previously practiced as a litigation associate for several years, specializing in the areas of insurance and commercial litigation.

Recent Articles:

The Plaintiff Police, 134 Yale L. J. __ (forthcoming 2024)

Public Duties for the New City, 121 Mich. L. Rev. 309 (2024)

Constitutional Backfires Everywhere, 25 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 311 (2023)

Constitutional Off-loading at the City Limits, 135 Harv. L. Rev. 831 (2022)

Exclusion Diffusion, 70 Emory L. J. 847 (2021)

Discriminatory Dualism, 54 Ga. L. Rev. 869 (2020)

Plaintiff Cities, 71 Vand. L. Rev. 1227 (2018)

Conjugal Liability, 64 UCLA L. Rev. 968 (2017)

Home Rules, 64 Duke L. J. 823 (2015)

• ADVANCED TORTS
• STATE & LOCAL GOV'T
• TORTS

• Constitutional Law (State)
• Criminal Law
• Family Law
• Torts