Janice C. Griffith

Biography

Janice C. Griffith is a Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School, and she previously served as the University’s Vice President for Academic Affairs. Her career spans several other universities including Georgia State University College of Law where she served as its Dean for a number of years; Quinnipiac University School of Law; and the University of Bridgeport School of Law. She was a visiting Scholar at Yale Law School, and an American Council on Education Fellow at Ohio State University. Before entering academia, Professor Griffith served in New York City’s government as Chief of the Fiscal and Securities Division in the Office of Corporation Counsel and as General Counsel and Assistant Administrator of the Housing and Development Administration. She was an associate with the Wall Street law firm of Hawkins, Delafield and Wood before holding these governmental posts.

Nationally recognized for her work in state and local government law, Griffith has published extensively in her area of expertise, including articles on the sharing economy, federalism, housing, public finance, land use, home rule, local government contract law, open space preservation, comparative urban law, transportation law, and regional governance. Griffith is one of the authors of multiple editions of a leading casebook entitled “State and Local Government in a Federal System”.

Griffith has held a number of positions with the American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law. In 2000, she received the Jefferson B. Fordham, Daniel J. Curtin, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award, the Section’s highest honor in recognition of outstanding contributions to the practice of state and local government law over an entire career. Griffith currently chairs the Section’s Committee on the Sharing Economy and is a member of its Resiliency Taskforce. In 2021, she chaired the American Bar Association’s Inaugural National Institute on Resiliency. Previously, she served as Chair of the Section and as a member of its Executive Committee for over ten years.

Griffith has also actively participated in the Association of American Law School’s (AALS) Section on State and Local Government Law. She served two terms as Chair of the Section and developed a number of the Section’s annual programs. She presently serves as the American Bar Association’s liaison to the AALS Section on State and Local Government Law.

Griffith received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and an A.B. degree from Colby College. She holds bar memberships in Connecticut and New York.

Education     

• University of Chicago Law School, JD
• Colby College, AB 

Selected Publications

Articles

• Evolution of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) into Multi-Functional Regional Roles, 106 Iowa Law Review 2241 (2021)
• Institutional Framework for Open Space Conservation, 4 Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy, Iss. 1, Art. 18, 235-87 (2020)
• The French Métropole: How It Gained Legal Status as a Metropolis, Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy, Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Art. 3 (2018),
• Equitable Access to Public Transport: Corridor Plans for Transit-Oriented Development in Soweto, South Africa and Boston, Massachusetts Compared, 1 J. COMP. URB. L. & Pol'y. 22 (2017). 
• Metropolitan-Wide Governance and an Innovation District: Smart Growth Reforms to Increase Economic Competitiveness in Warsaw, Poland, 63 STUDIA IRURIDICA 16 (2016).
• Barcelona, Spain as a Model for the Creation of Innovation Districts and Sustainable Social Housing without Spatial Segregation, Revista De Derecho Urbanístico y medio ambiente 251 [Journal of Law and the Environment], Year XLIX, No. 297 BIS (April-May 2015).
• Green Infrastructure: The Imperative of Open Space Preservation, 42 URB. LAW. 259 (Fall 2010/Winter 2011)
• Regional Governance Reconsidered, 21 J.L. & POL. 505 (University of Virginia, Fall 2005)
• Judicial Funding and Taxation Mandates: Will Missouri v. Jenkins Survive Under the New Federalism Restraints?, 61 OHIO ST. L.J. 483 (2000)
• Local Government Contracts: Escaping from the Governmental/Proprietary Maze, 75 IOWA L. REV. 277 (1990)

Books

• Daniel R. Mandelker, Judith Welch Wegner, Janice C. Griffith, Evan C. Zoldan, & Cynthia Baker, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN A FEDERAL SYSTEM (Carolina Academic Press, 9th ed. 2021)
• Daniel R. Mandelker, Judith Welch Wegner, Janice C. Griffith, Evan C. Zoldan, & Cynthia Baker, TEACHER’S MANUAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN A FEDERAL SYSTEM (Carolina Academic Press, 9th ed. 2021

Book Chapters

• Role of State Governments in the Sharing Economy, in CAMBRIDGE HANDBOOK ON LAW AND REGULATION OF THE SHARING ECONOMY 231-48 (Nestor M. Davidson, Michèle Finck & John J. Infranca eds., Cambridge University Press 2018)
• Transition from Faculty to Administrator and Transition Back to the Faculty, in TRANSITIONS BETWEEN FACULTY AND ADMINISTRATIVE CAREERS 67 Page 8 of 13 (Ronald J. Henry ed., Jossey-Bass Summer 2006) (New Directions for Higher Education, No. 134, Martin Kramer ed. in chief)

Media

The Sharing Economy: State and Local Regulatory Coordination Needed, 42 STATE & LOCAL LAW NEWS 8 (No. 2, Winter 2019)

Honors and Awards

• 2024 Alexander J. Cella Memorial Award, In Recognition of Outstanding Contributions to Suffolk University Law School as Exemplified by Commitment and Dedication to the Law Review
• 2020 recipient of Jefferson B. Fordham, Daniel J. Curtin, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award, American Bar Association (ABA), Section of State and Local Government Law (highest honor granted by the ABA Section of State and Local Government Law in recognition of outstanding contributions to the practice of state and local government law over an entire career) (awarded annually)
• Chair, ABA’s Inaugural National Institute on Resiliency, 2020-2021

Bar Admittance

• New York
• Connecticut