Jessica Dixon Weaver

Jessica Dixon Weaver is the Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law. She received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as Notes Editor for the Virginia Law Review. Professor Weaver is an expert in family law regulation (also known as child welfare law) and the intersection of race, gender, and family law. Her current research and scholarship focus is the impact of slavery laws, race, and gender on marriage and divorce in the antebellum era. She also theorizes about multi-generational living and intergenerational caregiving for elders and children.

Professor Weaver’s scholarship has been published in law journals at University of California - Berkeley, University of Virginia, William and Mary, Washington University, Fordham, Washington and Lee, and Tulane. One of her recent works-in-progress, Slavery and the Origins of Family Law, was selected for presentation at the inaugural Yale Law and Political Economy Conference in 2021. She is the co-author of three books, Family Law Simulations:  Bridge to Practice (West Academic, 2021), Contemporary Family Law, 6^th ed. (West Academic, forthcoming 2023), and Adoption Law:  Theory, Policy, and Practice, 3^rd ed. (Hein, forthcoming 2024). She serves on the Editorial Board of the Family Law Quarterly, a scholarly peer-reviewed journal of the ABA, and is a founding board member of the Lutie Legacy Society.

She has received numerous awards at SMU, including the 2019-20 and 2020-21 Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Research Fellowship from SMU Dedman School of Law, the 2019 Gerald J. Ford Senior Research Fellowship, and the 2020-21 Thomas W. Tunks Distinguished University Citizen Award. In April 2021, Professor Weaver graduated from the Stagen Leadership Academy’s inaugural Social Change Impact Leadership program. She is the chair of a university-wide Task Force on Social Justice and Equity, which is charged with exploring various ways that SMU can expand faculty research, scholarship, and student opportunities within social justice and equity movements.