Jonathan F. Harris is a nationally recognized expert in labor and employment law, contracts, and workforce development. His publications have appeared or are forthcoming in the Georgetown Law Journal (twice), California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal, Harvard Law Review Blog, California Law Review Online, Northwestern University Law Review Online, and New York City Law Review. His research has brought national attention to Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (TRAPs) that often require workers to pay large sums to leave their jobs.

Professor Harris has been a peer-reviewer for the Yale Law Journal and various academic presses, a senior fellow with the Student Borrower Protection Center, and a grantee of the University of California Student Loan Law Initiative. He is also a Faculty Fellow with the Temple Fox School of Business’s Center for Ethics, Diversity and Workplace Culture. His writing has been cited by federal entities including the FTC in its rule banning non-competes, NLRB, CFPB, and Senate Banking Committee. Major news outlets have quoted Professor Harris, including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, and Washington Post.

Before joining the Temple faculty, Professor Harris was an associate professor at Loyola Law School Los Angeles and an acting assistant professor at NYU School of Law. He is a past chair of the AALS Section on Labor Relations and Employment Law, as well as an executive committee member of the AALS Section on Employment Discrimination Law and Section on Poverty Law. He was a co-organizer of the Michael A. Olivas Writing Institute and is a member of the Mexican American Bar Association. Professor Harris clerked for Judge James E. Graves, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit while teaching at Mississippi College School of Law. He began his legal career as a Skadden Fellow, focusing on the intersections of employment and consumer law. Prior to that, he was a labor and community organizer.

Areas of Expertise

• Alternative Dispute Resolution New Tab
• Consumer Law  New Tab
• Contracts  New Tab
• Employment and Labor Law  New Tab
• Poverty Law  New Tab
• Public Interest  New Tab
• Worker Classification  New Tab 

Selected Publications

• The New Indentured Servitude, 115 Geo. L.J. (forthcoming 2027).  New Tab
• Consumer Law Meets the New Company Store (with Ben Kaufman), 73 UCLA L. Rev. (forthcoming 2026).  New Tab
• Credentialism at Work, 113 Geo. L.J. 1401 (2025).  New Tab
• Consumer Law as Work Law, 112 Calif. L. Rev. 1 (2024).  New Tab
• Economic Duress in U.S. Employment, 43  Compar. Lab. L. & Pol'y J. 557 (2023).  New Tab
• Unconscionability in Contracting for Worker Training, 72 Ala. L. Rev. 723 (2021).  New Tab 

Arrow-Large Icon Publications & Media Appearances New Tab 

Featured Commentary

San Francisco Chronicle 
Congress should protect AI company whistleblowers who have signed NDAs New Tab 
“When employees are the first to see danger, the law should encourage them to speak and protect them when they do.”
–Jonathan F. Harris, Associate Professor of Law at the Beasley School of Law, coauthored this op-ed.
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