Faculty Profile: Christopher Coleman

Chris graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 1993. He then attended the University of Virginia where he received a master's degree in English literature. In 1997-98, Chris served as a VISTA volunteer at the Central Alabama Fair Housing Center in Montgomery, where he conducted research on housing discrimination and organized community education programs on fair housing issues. This experience sparked Chris's interest in the history of social justice movements in the South, a topic he went on to specialize in as a graduate student in history at Northwestern University. He received his master's degree in history in 2000.

While attending law school at Northwestern, Chris worked in the Children and Family Justice Center and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern's Bluhm Legal Clinic and was associate editor of the Northwestern University Law Review. He was awarded the John Paul Stevens Public Interest Fellowship, the Leonard S. Rubinowitz Fellowship and the Joan Marie Corboy Scholarship. He also studied International Human Rights at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. He graduated cum laude and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. Following law school, Chris clerked for the Honorable Joan Humphrey Lefkow on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

After returning to Nashville, Chris joined the firm of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, where he represented plaintiffs in antitrust and mass torts litigation. He has participated in the Harry Phillips American Inn of Court and the Young Leaders' Council and has served on the Board of Directors of the Young Lawyers' Division of the Nashville Bar Association, the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, and the Nashville Chapter of the American Constitution Society, for which he served as chapter President in 2008-09. He is co-author of "Social Movements and Social Change Litigation: Synergy in the Montgomery Bus Protest" published in Law & Social Inquiry in 2005. He is also the author several publications on the Affordable Care Act, including "Ongoing Barriers to Coverage Under the Affordable Care Act" published in Clearinghouse Review, and "NFIB v. Sebelius: An Uncertain Victory for the Affordable Care Act" and "The Affordable Care Act in 2014: Are You Ready?", both published in the Nashville Bar Journal. Chris is an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt Law School, where he teaches Poverty Law.

Chris is married to JuLeigh Petty, a Senior Lecturer at Vanderbilt University's Center for Medicine, Health and Society. They have two children, Sam and Lucy.