Martha Ertman (born August 25, 1963) is an
American US law professor. She is the Carole & Hanan Sibel Research Professor of Law at the
University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...
's Francis King Carey School of Law. She is an expert in family law and writes about contracts within relationships using her own family of four parents and a child as an example.
Life
Ertman was raised in Virginia. She and her siblings were raised in Wellesley where her mother edited "Wellesley Magazine", taught and her father, Gardner Ertman, who was an architect designed their house, and the local library.
Ertman gained degrees at Wellesley and at Northwestern University.
She worked in Louisiana as a legal clerk for a District Court judge and a lawyer in Seattle. She entered academica as a visiting law faculty member at the
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
, the
University of Connecticut
The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...
and
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...
. She also laught law at the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...
and the
University of Denver
The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1864, it has an enrollment of approximately 5,700 undergraduate students and 7,200 graduate students. It is classified among "R1: D ...
.
In 2007 she moved to join the University of Maryland's Francis King Carey School of Law.
She married in 2009 to Karen Lash who she had met in 2006. She has a son named Oscar. Her wife was a legal consultant who had been an associate dean in a law school.
[ Her 2015 book, ''Love's Promises: How Formal and Informal Contracts Shape All Kinds of Families'' includes a description of this relationship between her son, his father and her wife. She defines the three of them living as joint parents as a "Plan B" family joined together by affection and contracts.][ The book was covered by the Washingtonian and ]Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
magazine.[
She is the Carole & Hanan Sibel Research Professor of Law at the University of Maryland's Francis King Carey School of Law.]
Works include
*''Rethinking Commodification: Cases and Readings in Law and Culture'', 2005
*''Love's Promises: How Formal and Informal Contracts Shape All Kinds of Families'', 2015[
*''Developing Professional Skills: Secured Transactions'', 2018
*''Contract Law: An Integrated Approach'' (co-author), 2020
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ertman, Martha
1960s births
Living people
American legal scholars
Northwestern University alumni
Wellesley College alumni
University of Maryland, College Park faculty