Elizabeth Townsend Gard, PhD

Dr. Elizabeth Townsend Gard is the John E. Koerner Endowed Professor of Law; Founding Director of the Tulane Center for IP, Media & Culture, and Deputy Faculty Director, Masters of Jurisprudence Labor and Employment Law Program.

She specializes in Intellectual Property law, including copyright, trademark, and comparative intellectual property; and entrepreneurship, including social entrepreneurship, solopreneurs, and handcraft-entrepreneurs. In 2022, after years of teaching in the Tulane Masters of Jurisprudence in Labor and Employment Law program, she became its  Deputy Faculty Director. In that program, she has focused her teaching on the intersection of intellectual property and social media within the context of employment law and business practices across the country.   

Townsend Gard's philosophy combines theory and doctrine with immersive practice, both inside and outside of the classroom.  For the last decade, she has worked with students to teach skills needed to be successful in both a law practice as well as in the entrepreneurial world for the 21st century.   

She strongly believes in mentoring students. To that end, she has worked with more than 90 research assistants, and regularly works with students to think through how to make their own road and journey in the legal world.  She also has worked with students' projects in specialized internships at the Library of Congress, Internet Archive, and the Frick Collection, as well as sending students on research trips to Washington D.C., Paris, New York, Oxford, and Berlin.