University of Baltimore School of Law
Office Details
Awards and Honors
Award for Outstanding Achievement in Traditional Legal Scholarship
Education
J.D., Stanford University
A.B., Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges
Areas of Expertise
Economic Development
Land Use
Local Economic Development
Property
Urban Development
Biography
McFarlane’s research and teaching focus on areas of law related to economic development. Her scholarship examines the ways in which economic development is not a neutral policy that government can advance without addressing significant structural issues related to race, class and geography. Her most recent works have focused on how mixed income housing reflects social domination and seeks to manage discrimination and how constitutional doctrine should evaluate the propriety of inclusionary zoning in ways that account for developers’ role and influence on development decision-making. Professor McFarlane has also written on a range of topics including how norms of property law contribute to recurrent foreclosure crises, the insights of critical race theory for eminent domain and regulatory takings, and democratic theoretical justifications for community participation in economic development. She has been a visiting professor at Northeastern School of Law, Seattle University School of Law and University of Maryland School of Law.
Professor McFarlane has an A.B. from Harvard-Radcliffe and a J.D. from Stanford Law School where she was a member of the Stanford Law Review. She joined the University of Baltimore School of Law faculty after clerking for the Hon. A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and working as an associate at the Washington D.C. law firm of Wilmer Cutler and Pickering. At UBalt, she teaches courses in Property, Land Use, Local Government and Local Economic Development and is the former Associate Dean of Faculty Research & Development.