Professor of LawFaculty Director, Center for Labor & Employment Law
J.D. Harvard Law SchoolB.A. Dartmouth College
Miriam A. Cherry teaches contracts, employment law, business associations, and a seminar on the future of work. Her scholarship focuses on these areas of law and their intersection with technology and globalization. Professor Cherry serves as the Faculty Director for the Center for Labor and Employment Law.* She is a member of the American Law Institute and served as the Chair of the AALS Contracts Section.
Professor Cherry joined the faculty after a decade at Saint Louis University Law School, where she served as Associate Dean for Research & Engagement and as Co-Director for the William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law. She was also a visiting researcher with the United Nations – International Labor Office in Geneva, Switzerland.
A prolific scholar, Professor Cherry has authored over 40 law review articles concerning employment, business, and contract law topics that have appeared in the Northwestern University Law Review, George Washington Law Review, Washington Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Georgia Law Review, Illinois Law Review, Tulane Law Review, and Colorado Law Review, among others. Her work has also published in peer reviewed journals and translated into French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Korean. Her scholarly articles can be found on SSRN. (link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=375811)
Professor Cherry has also written several books. Her popular contracts textbook, Contracts in the Real World, published with West Academic, entered its second edition in 2021. (link: https://faculty.westacademic.com/Book/Detail/334718) That same year she also published Work in the Digital Age with Aspen publishers, the first textbook to focus on the future of work. (link: https://www.aspenpublishing.com/Cherry-WorkintheDigtialAge) In 2016, Professor Cherry co-edited the book Invisible Labor (with Marion Crain and Winifred Poster), and in 2008 authored Global Issues in Employment Law (with Samuel Estricher).
Prior to academia, Professor Cherry clerked for Justice Roderick Ireland of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and Judge Gerald Heaney of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She also practiced transactional law in Boston, drafting and reviewing contracts in the context of mergers and acquisitions. She graduated from Dartmouth College, summa cum laude, and from Harvard Law School, cum laude.
Contracts In The Real World: Cases, Notes, Problems, and Materials (with Lawrence Cunningham) (West Academic 2018); Second Edition, 2021 (single authored).
Work in The Digital Age: Labor, Technology and Regulation (Aspen / Wolters Kluwer, 2021).
Invisible Labor Hidden Work in the Contemporary World (with Marion G. Crain & Winifred R. Poster) (University of California Press 2016).
Employment Status for “Essential Workers”: The Case for Gig Worker Parity, 55 Loyola L.A. L. Rev. 683 (2022).
Crowdwork, Conflicts of Law, and Global Supply Chains, 94 Tulane L. Rev. 183 (2020).
The Law and Policy of Big Data and People Analytics, 88 Colo. L. Rev. 961 (2017) (with Matthew Bodie, Marcia McCormick & Jintong Tang).
Dependent Contractors in the Gig Economy: A Comparative Approach, 66 Amer. Univ. L. Rev. 635 (2017) (with Antonio Aloisi).
Beyond Misclassification: The Digital Transformation of Work, 37 Comp. Lab. L. & Pol’y J. 577 (2016).
Cyber Commodification, 72 Md. L. Rev. 381 (2013).
A Taxonomy of Virtual Work, 45 Ga. L. Rev. 951 (2011).
Beyond Profit: Rethinking Corporate Social Responsibility after the BP Disaster, 85 Tulane L. Rev. 983 (2011) (with Judd Sneirson).
Clawbacks: Prospective Contract Measures, 94 Minn. L. Rev. 368 (2009) (with Jarrod Wong).
Working for (Virtually) Minimum Wage, 60 Ala. L. Rev. 1077 (2009).
Prediction Markets and the First Amendment, 2008 U. Ill. L. Rev. 833 (with Robert Rogers).
Tiresias and the Justices: Using Information Markets to Predict Supreme Court Decisions, 100 Northwestern U. L. Rev. 1141 (2006) (with Robert Rogers).
A Tyrannosaurus-Rex Aptly Named “Sue”: Using a Disputed Dinosaur to Teach Contract Defenses, 82 N. D. L. Rev. 295 (2005).
Whistling in the Dark? Corporate Fraud, Whistleblowers, and the Implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for Employment Law, 79 Washington L. Rev. 1029 (2004).