Christine O'Brien
Professor - Business Law Department
Professor O'Brien is a graduate of Boston College, 1975, and Boston College Law School, 1978. She is a member of the Massachusetts and federal bars who practiced law at a Boston firm specializing in labor and employment law and interned at the National Labor Relations Board's Boston Office. She also taught at Bentley College where she received the Scholar of the Year award and was promoted to full professor in 1991. At Boston College, she currently is chair of the Business Law Department; has chaired the Educational Policy Committee, and served as the associate dean for the Undergraduate Division of the Carroll School of Management. Professor O'Brien served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Legal Studies Education and staff editor of the American Business Law Journal, both refereed journals of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, and also served as a voting member of the Executive Committee of the ALSB, and on its Research Committee. She is a past president of the North Atlantic Regional Business Law Association, and currently serves on that Association's Executive Committee, and on the board of editors of the Business Law Review.
Professor O'Brien has published on a broad array of business law topics. She has a long-standing research interest in employment discrimination and labor law, as well as accountant's liability and issues affecting the accounting profession. She has published articles about medical-legal topics including physician-assisted suicide, judicial estoppel in disability cases, international employment issues, and the law affecting fetal protection policies and other forms of gender discrimination in the workplace. She has also written articles about legal issues surrounding workplace use of e-mail and the Internet, no-rehire rules, the coverage of partners and shareholders under federal employment discrimination laws, and other legal issues relating to thresholds for coverage under federal antidiscrimination and other statutes; and about employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Professor O'Brien's work is frequently cited in the leading law journals and was cited in: an American Bar Association Task Force Report regarding regulation of the accounting profession; in the text of opinions by the United States Courts of Appeals for the Eighth and Tenth Circuits regarding after-required evidence in employment discrimination cases; in a New Jersey Supreme Court opinion regarding pregnancy discrimination, in a published memorandum to the Attorney General about Oregon's assisted suicide statute, and in a petition for certiorari in a case challenging Oregon's statute.
Professor O'Brien has taught the following courses: Business Law I, Business Law II, Introduction to Law and Legal Process, Labor Law, Labor and Employment Law, The Law of Business Organizations component of the MBA core, Law and Society, Law II/Business Law, and The Legal Environment of Business. She has published articles in the Journal of Legal Studies Education on pedagogical issues relating to integrating computerized research into the undergraduate business curriculum, methods of teaching the Uniform Commercial Code, and changes to the educational requirements for Certified Public Accountants.
Carroll School of Management
Fulton Hall 420C
140 Commonwealth Ave.
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
christine.obrien.1@bc.edu
phone: 617-552-0413
