James L. Hunt

Visiting Professor of Law

Phone 717-241-3509

Expertise

Education

LL.M., Harvard Law School
J.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Law School
Ph.D. and M.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Biography

Professor James L. Hunt grew up in North Carolina and graduated from high school in Greenville. He received undergraduate (B.A.) and law (J.D.) degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in American history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also earned an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School. After law school, he clerked for Judge Robert F. Chapman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for one year and then practiced law with the firm Hunton & Williams (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) for five years.

He began teaching in the law school at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, in 1995 and has been teaching at Mercer’s business and law schools since 1998. Professor Hunt served as a Fulbright Scholar in Law in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2005–2006, where he was affiliated with the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. At Mercer, he has been a tenured professor since 2003, Professor of Law and Business since 2009, and was associate dean for Macon graduate business programs (M.B.A.) from 2016 to 2021. He was Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Law Department at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, during the 2021–2022 academic year, and was a member of Georgia Advisory Commission of the United States Commission on Civil Rights from 2020 to 2024.

Professor Hunt currently teaches business law subjects to undergraduate, M.B.A., and law students. His publications include two books, Marion Butler and American Populism (2003) and Relationship Banker: Eugene W. Stetson, Wall Street, and American Business, 1916-1959 (2009). His primary research interests are business law and legal history.

“Creating North Carolina Populism, 1900-1960, Part II: The Progressive Era Legacy, 1930-1960,” North Carolina Historical Review, XCVII (July 2020), 305-336.

“Creating North Carolina Populism, 1900-1960, Part I: The Progressive Era Project, 1900-1930,” North Carolina Historical Review, XCVII (April 2020), 168-199.

“The Constitution, Desegregation, and Public Opinion: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education,” North Carolina Central Law Review, 37 (2014-2015), 129-182.

Walter W. Austin, Linda L. Brennan, and James L. Hunt, "Legal Truth and Consequences for a Failed ERP Implementation," Journal of Cases on Information Technology, 13 (Issue 1, 2011), 37-56.

“Guaranty Trust: Morgan’s Broadway Baby,” Financial History, 90 (Spring 2008), 32-35.

“Who Pays for Accidents?: Accident Law in Florida, 1845-1886,” Florida Historical Quarterly, 82 (Fall 2003), 129-154.

“Thinking Like a Lawyer?: Two Southern Law School Exams from the 1870s,” Journal of Southern Legal History, 11 (2003), 107-114.

“Brown v. Board of Education After Fifty Years: Context and Synopsis,” Mercer Law Review, 52 (Winter 2001), 549-574.

“Law, Business, and Politics: Liability for Accidents in Georgia, 1846-1880,” Georgia Historical Quarterly, LXXXIV (Summer 2000), 254-282.

“’Ensuring the Incalculable Benefits of Railroads’: The Origins of Liability for Negligence in Georgia,” University of Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, 7 (Fall 1998), 375-425.

"Populism, Law, and the Corporation: The 1897 Kansas Supreme Court," Agricultural History, 66 (Fall 1992), 31-56.

"Law and Society in a New South Community: Durham County, North Carolina, 1898-1899," North Carolina Historical Review, LXVII (October 1991), 427-460.

"Private Law and Public Policy: Negligence Law and Political Change in Nineteenth Century North Carolina," North Carolina Law Review, 66 (January 1988), 421-444.

"A Survey of Southern History," [with John M. Dederer] Southern Historian, 8 (Spring 1987), 82-92.

"The Making of a Populist: Marion Butler, 1863-1895," North Carolina Historical Review, LXII (January 1985), 53-77; (April 1985), 179-202; (July 1985), 317-343.

"Using Legal History to Teach Law," Panel on Humanities and Law Teaching, Academy of Legal Studies in Business Annual Meeting, August 10, 2012, Kansas City, Missouri.

"Contested Spaces and Pluralist Legal Boundaries in the U.S. State of Georgia, 1700-2000," presented at the Critical Legal Conference Annual Meeting, September 10, 2011, Aberystwyth, Wales.

Chair and Discussant, Session on “Rights, Capital, and Capitalism,” Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, July 26, 2007, Berlin, Germany.

“Business Strategy and Litigation in the 1950s: The Case of Guttmann v. Illinois Central Railroad,” presented at the Economic and Business History Society, April 26, 2007, Providence, Rhode Island.

“Lawyers and the Promotion of the Rule of Law in the United States,” presentation to the Ukrainian Bar Association, Odessa, Ukraine, June 15, 2006.

“A Short History of American Political Parties,” paper presented at Wisconsin International University, Ukraine (Kyiv), February 22, 2006; also given at Khmelnytskyy National University, Ukraine, May 5, 2006, and the South Ukrainian Pedagogical University, Odessa, Ukraine, June 15, 2006.

“Issues in American Business and Economics Education,” paper given at the Conference on Ukrainian Economics Education, May 19, 2006, Lviv, Ukraine.

“The Rule of Law,” paper presented at KROK University, Kyiv, Ukraine, March 9, 2006; also given at Kyiv International University, February 16, 2006, and Khmelnytskyy National University, Khmelnytskyy, Ukraine, May 5, 2006.

“The Economics Education and Research Consortium M.A. Program at National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,” and “Innovation in Business Education: The MAPS Program,” papers presented at Belrusian State University Business Education Conference, Minsk, Belarus, April 19, 2006.

“National Identity and American Regionalism,” workshop and paper presented at American Studies Conference, National University Taras Schevchenko, Kyiv, Ukraine, April 4, 2006.

“What We Know and What We Don’t Know about National Economic Growth,” paper presented at Dnipropetrovsk National University, Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, December 12, 2005; also at Ternopil Institute of Social and Information Technology, Ternopil, Ukraine, December 16, 2005.

“Public Reaction to Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 1969-1971,” presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Association of American Law Schools, July 23, 2005.

“What Happened to Populism?: Current and Future Directions of Populist Studies,” presented at the Annual Mid-America Conference on History, October 1, 2004.

“Who Pays for Accidents? Accident Law in Florida, 1845-1886,” presented at the annual meeting of the Florida Historical Society, May 23, 2003.

“Assessment in Business Schools,” panel participant, Academy of Legal Studies in Business Annual Meeting, July 29, 2002.

“Coker v. Georgia,” paper presented at Georgia Death Penalty Conference, Georgia College and State University, April 8, 2002.

“The Need for Southern Legal History in the Law Schools,” presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Association of American Law Schools, July 25, 1998.

“Courts, Legislatures, and the Constitutional Conflict over Standards of Liability in the Nineteenth Century South,” presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History, October 18, 1997.

“Consensus, Conflict, and Confusion: Populism and North Carolina Historians, 1900-1990,” presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Historians in North Carolina, October 18, 1991.

James L. Hunt

Expertise

Education

Biography

Legal Statements