Megan McDermott

Associate Teaching Professor

Contact

megan.mcdermott@wisc.edu
608/890-2001
975 Bascom Mall, 8108 Law Building, Madison, WI, USA, 53706-1399

Education

A.B., Magna Cum Laude, Harvard College
J.D., Order of the Coif, University of California at Berkeley

Biography

Megan McDermott has been teaching doctrinal courses at University of Wisconsin School of Law since 2013. Past and current classes include Civil Procedure, Professional Responsibilities, Torts, and Bankruptcy.

Megan’s legal experience includes private practice at Covington & Burling, service as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and administrative practice with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. Megan has also served as a Law Clerk to Wisconsin’s former Chief Justice, Shirley Abrahamson, Staff Attorney for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, and a Hearing Examiner for Milwaukee County.

Prior to attending law school, Megan worked as a consultant to investment banks and an aide to Massachusetts Governor William Weld.

Megan writes and publishes in the fields of professional ethics, litigation practice and process, and bankruptcy, and her work has appeared in the Northwestern Law Review, the Utah Law Review, the Chicago-Kent Law Review, the University of South Carolina Law Review, the California Law Review Online, and the Wisconsin Women’s Law Journal.

Megan was the 2016 recipient of the Warren Burger Prize from the American Inns of Court, a writing competition designed to promote scholarship in the areas of professionalism, ethics, civility, and excellence. Megan also received the 2015 Gordon S. Sinykin Award of Excellence from the Wisconsin State Bar, for her public education work with the Our Courts Wisconsin program.

Scholarship & Publications

Law Repository

Activities

Megan McDermott's essay, "Greg Needs a Lawyer: Is He Getting an Ethical One?", was published in DePaul Law Review's symposium issue on the legal and ethical issues involved in the HBO show "Succession." Read the essay.
Megan McDermott's 10-chapter treatise on Wisconsin personal injury law was published by Matthew Bender in January 2024. In addition to comprehensively covering current tort law in Wisconsin, "Wisconsin Personal Injury" offers a historical perspective on how that law has evolved. The treatise also draws on McDermott's civil procedure background to provide practice tips to personal injury litigators.
Megan McDermott published "The FTX Bankruptcy: First Week Motions, Jurisdictional Squabbling and Other Unusual Developments" in the Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable Jan. 17, 2023. This was an invited submission addressing early developments in the FTX bankruptcy based on McDermott's prior work on crypto assets in bankruptcy. Read the article.
Megan McDermott presented "Digital Assets in Bankruptcy: Apparent Risks and Emerging Law" during an invited presentation for the International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group on May 12, 2022.
Megan McDermott's essay, "The Crypto Quandary: Is Bankruptcy Ready?," was posted to Northwestern University Law Review Online in July 2020. This essay will also be published in a forthcoming print edition of the law review.
Megan McDermott's essay, "The Crypto Quandary: Is Bankruptcy Ready?" is forthcoming in online and print editions of the Northwestern University Law Review. The essay explores the ways that digital assets such as Bitcoin are likely to complicate future consumer and business bankruptcies.