Research project inspires interest in labor law for two students

Whether it's through a course, an inspiring professor or a student organization, law school can introduce students to areas of law they might not have been interested in otherwise. 

For two third-year students, it was working on an article about labor law that piqued their interest in that area. 

Travis Fiechter came into law school interested in criminal law. Alyssa Hare was interested in consumer law.

But they spent the summer working on a labor law article with Professor Ariana Levinson. 

“Federal Preemption of Local Right-to-Work Ordinances” argues that the right-to-work ordinances being enacted by counties and cities are preempted by a federal statute, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

The article will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Harvard Journal on Legislation.

And after spending months researching the article, Fiechter and Hare had the chance to travel to Cincinnati to see the Sixth Circuit argument in a Hardin County, Ky., case Oct. 18.

"Everyone should go to an appellate court hearing," Fiechter said. "I saw the general value of preparation because the court does notice."

For Hare, those months of research paid off when she realized that she knew many of the answers to the questions the judges had for the attorneys. 

"It was cool to be an expert," she said.