Katharine Silbaugh

Katharine Silbaugh is widely recognized for her pioneering work on gender, family and household labor, and adolescent interaction with the legal system. Her research highlights the economic and social value of work done within households; the complex relationship between families and institutions, such as employers, schools, and commercial entities; and the inadequacy of the legal framework supporting families and protecting youth. Her publications about the relationship between institutions and family address a range of legal systems including family law, employment law, urban planning, education law, election law, first amendment law, technology platforms, and controlled substances. She has intervened in policy matters including marriage equality litigation, anti-bullying law and policy, and tobacco and nicotine regulation.

Professor Silbaugh clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She later collaborated with Posner on a survey of sexual regulation, A Guide to America’s Sex Laws, published by the University of Chicago Press. She is co-author of The Essentials of Family Law (2009) with Katharine K. Baker. She also is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters, including the landmark article “Turning Labor into Love: Housework and the Law” for Northwestern Law Review. Professor Silbaugh contributed to the plaintiffs’ case in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts case that won the nation’s first same-sex marriage right in 2004. She has provided advice on anti-bullying legislation to the Berkman Center for Internet & Society’s Youth Meanness and Cruelty Project and serves on several education-related boards and committees. She served for 15 years as an elected representative in local government.

Professor Silbaugh joined the Boston University faculty in 1993, received tenure and a full professorship in 1998, and was named Law Alumni Scholar in 2007 and The Honorable Frank R. Kenison Distinguished Scholar in Law in 2024. She served as the associate dean for academic affairs from 2004 until 2006. She spent the 2006-2007 academic year and Fall 2009 as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, and was a visiting Professor of Law at Chuo University in Toyko in the Fall of 2007. She was elected to the American Law Institute in 2017, and named Brookline, Massachusetts’ “Woman of the Year” in 2022. She teaches Family Law; Youth and the Law; Education Law; and Torts. Professor Silbaugh was the recipient in both 2004 and 2021 of the Michael Melton Award for Excellence in Teaching.