Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Christopher D. Hampson

Assistant Professor of Law

CV

SSRN

Phone:
352-273-0927

Expertise

Bankruptcy  • Contracts  • Corporations  • Secured Transactions  • 

About

Professor Hampson is an award-winning scholar of bankruptcy, insolvency, and the ethics of debt. His research focuses on how legal institutions can best serve our shared values during times of financial distress. He has written on a wide range of topics, from social enterprises and small businesses to debtors’ prisons and harsh debt collection practices. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in prominent law reviews across the country, including the Harvard Law Review, the Iowa Law Review, the Fordham Law Review, the American Bankruptcy Law Journal, and the Journal of Free Speech Law.

Professor Hampson’s scholarship has impacted both academics and practitioners. He is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s “40 under 40” and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judge’s “NextGen” cohorts. His work has also been cited by federal bankruptcy, district, and appellate courts — as well as two state supreme courts.

Prior to joining UF Law, Professor Hampson practiced law at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP in Boston, where he led litigation and transactional teams as part of the firm’s bankruptcy and financial restructuring group. His bankruptcy work included blockbuster chapter 11, appellate, and Supreme Court cases as well as a $1.6-billion securities litigation related to the Puerto Rico insolvency proceedings. His pro bono practice included eviction defense and asylum applications.

Prior to joining WilmerHale, Professor Hampson served as a law clerk for Judge Richard A. Posner on the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and worked at White & Case LLP in Miami.

Professor Hampson earned an A.B. from Harvard College in the comparative study of religion, magna cum laude with highest honors, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, and an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, where he was a Dean’s Fellow. During his time at Harvard Law School, he served as Articles Co-Chair of the Harvard Law Review. Professor Hampson is fluent in English and Spanish.

Education

A.B., Harvard College
J.D., Harvard Law School
M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School

Courses

  • Bankruptcy
  • Contracts
  • Law, Religion, and the Ethics of Debt (Seminar)

Publications

Legal Publications

  • Bankruptcy Fiduciaries, 110 Iowa L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025).
  • Defamation, Bankruptcy & the First Amendment, J. Free Speech L. 513 (2024).
  • The Small Business Prepack: How Subchapter V Paves the Way for Bankruptcy’s Fastest Cases, 92 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 851 (2024) (with Jeffrey A. Katz).
  • Harsh Creditor Remedies & the Role of the Redeemer, 92 Fordham L. Rev. 935 (2023).
  • Critical Theory & Commercial Law in the Sunshine, 75 Fla. L. Rev. F. 15 (2023).
  • Bankruptcy & the Benefit Corporation, 96 Am. Bankr. L.J. 93 (2022).
  • The New American Debtors’ Prisons, 44 Am. J. Crim. L. 1 (2017).
  • Note, State Bans on Debtors’ Prisons and Criminal Justice Debt, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 1024 (2016) (separate appendix published at 129 Harv. L. Rev. F. 153 (2016).

University of Florida Levin College of Law
309 Village Drive
PO Box 117620
Gainesville, FL 32611
(352) 273-0804
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The Florida Constitutional Law Endowment in memory of Justice Ben F. Overton was created by Judge Karen Miller in 2013. This fund supports lectures and presentations by Justices of the Florida Supreme Court at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

HISTORY

Justice Overton, who earned his B.S. in 1951 and his Juris Doctor in 1952 from the University of Florida, was the first merit appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Throughout his career he was active in legal education and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Levin College of Law through December 2012, the month of his death. Although he resided at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a continuing care retirement community developed in cooperation with UF, he also considered the Florida Supreme Court “home.” Among the high points of his later years was hosting Justices of the Florida Supreme Court in Gainesville and taking his class to Tallahassee to hear oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court.
Judge Miller, who earned her B.S. cum laude from New York University in 1974 and her Juris Doctor from New York Law School in 1977, served as Chief Administrative Law Judge of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, New York City’s business regulatory agency, before she retired to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Having accompanied Justice Overton on his excursions to Tallahassee and joined him in welcoming guests to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, she created the endowment in memory of Justice Overton to ensure that the Levin College of Law continues to have the funding necessary to continue and enhance the interaction between its students and the Florida Supreme Court.

 

Judge Miller remembered the event that motivated the endowment.

 

Prior to a dinner at the home of Dean Robert Jerry and Lisa Jerry shortly after Justice Overton’s death, Justice Barbara Pariente and I were discussing a suitable memorial. Justice Pariente, who had been Justice Overton’s colleague on the Florida Supreme Court and who understood the importance to him of the interaction between his students and the Court, suggested the outline of what has become the Overton lectures. Dean Jerry, who has since retired, as has Dean Emeritus Jon Mills, who assumed responsibility for implementing the Overton lectures, were very supportive from the beginning. Since Dean Mills’ retirement, Professor Timothy McClendon, who assisted both Justice Overton and Dean Mills teaching Florida Constitutional Law and who co-authored the recent Florida Constitutional Law casebook, has continued the Overton lectures with the support of Interim Dean Merritt McAlister and CGR director, Professor Danaya Wright.

Justice Overton was a devoted jurist, educator, and ethical leader of the Florida legal profession. The Overton Lecture Series brings Florida Supreme Court Justices to the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and serves to introduce students to the inner workings of the Court. CGR and the students of the College of Law extend our deepest gratitude to Judge Karen Miller for making the Overton Lectures possible in perpetuity.

You can watch an interview for the Florida Historical Society by Mary Adkins, professor emeritus of the UF Levin College of Law, with Justice Overton here.

Justice Overton was also interviewed for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Project and a transcript of his interview is available at the Smathers Library, and here.
Justice Overton sat on the Constitution Revision Commission of 1977-78 that proposed a right to privacy in the Florida Constitution. Although it failed as part of the Constitution Revision Commission recommendations, it passed in 1980 when proposed by the legislature. The bill was co-sponsored by our very own Jon Mills. The privacy provision prevailed by greater than 60%. Justice Overton then wrote a concurrence in a critical reproductive rights case in 1989 affirming that the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution included the right to obtain an abortion. That decision was overruled in Planned Parenthood of SW and Central Florida v. Florida. You can read about the role of Justice Overton, Jon Mills – director emeritus of CGR, and the history of the 1989 case here.