Megan M. Carpenter
Associate Professor of Law
E-mail Professor Carpenter

Courses: Property I, Internet Law

Professor Megan M. Carpenter  joined the faculty of Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in 2007, where she teaches courses in intellectual property law. Before coming to Texas Wesleyan, she was a visiting associate professor of law at West Virginia University College of Law and a Doctoral Fellow at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada. Prior to teaching, Professor Carpenter was in private law practice at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, LLP (now K&L Gates), where she enjoyed a lively practice in the intellectual property practice group, representing technology, multimedia, and sports and entertainment clients in a variety of trademark and copyright issues, including prosecution, licensing, and enforcement of those clients’ intellectual property rights around the world. 

At Texas Wesleyan School of Law, Professor Carpenter is heading up the creation and development of the Center for Intellectual Property (CLIP).  Public service sits at the core of the mission of Texas Wesleyan School of Law – in fact, each student is required to complete at least 30 hours of pro bono legal services prior to graduation – and CLIP seeks to both support and exemplify that mission in the area of intellectual property and the arts.  CLIP seeks excellence and best-practices in intellectual property study by engaging theory with policy and practice – an understanding that theory is grounded in practical application, both of which together inform policy.  Through CLIP, students engage in dialogue with scholars and practitioners at the forefront of intellectual property issues, with the community through service and advocacy, and with each other in a context that supports their creativity and energy, as the world currency becomes one of content and information. 

Throughout her career, Professor Carpenter has engaged intellectual property law with underserved communities, from grassroots arts organizations to Native American interests, from beginning entrepreneurs to independent record labels.   She writes and publishes in the area of intellectual property.  Most recently, she published an article in The Trademark Reporter entitled, “Trademarks and Human Rights:  Oil and Water, or Chocolate and Peanut Butter?”  She is also in the process of completing a book chapter for a book on Law, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship.  Professor Carpenter also writes creatively; most recently, two of her creative works were published in the Legal Studies Forum.

Professor Carpenter received an LL.M. degree from the National University of Ireland at Galway in 2003, and her J.D. from the West Virginia University College of Law, where she was executive articles editor for the West Virginia Law Review, the fourth oldest law review in the United States. Professor Carpenter also earned a Master of Arts degree and Bachelor of Arts degree from West Virginia University, and a certificate from the Universidad Internacional Menendez y Pelayo in Santander, Spain.

 Selected Publications

Trademark and Human Rights: Oil and Water?  Or Chocolate and Peanut Butter? 99 Trademark Reporter 892 (2009).

Bare Justice: A Feminist Reconceptualization of Justice and Its Potential Application to Crimes of Sexual Violence in Post-Genocide Rwanda, 41 Creighton L. Rev. 595 (2008). [Hein]

Memoirs: River Rats, 32 Legal Studies Forum 673 (2008). [Hein] [LexisNexis]

The Lexical Heart, 32 Legal Studies Forum 137 (2008). [Hein] [LexisNexis]

Intellectual Property and Indigenous Peoples: Adapting Copyright Law to the Needs of a Global Community?, 7 Yale Journal of Human Rights & Development Legal Journal 51 (2004).  [Hein] [LexisNexis] [Westlaw]

Preserving a Place for the Past in Our Future: A Survey of Historic Preservation Law in West Virginia, 100 West Virginia Law Review 423 (1997).[Hein] [LexisNexis] [Westlaw]

Frequently Asked Legal Questions, North Central West Virginia Legal Aid Society, 2d. ed. (1997).