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Portrait of Alison Peck

Faculty

Alison Peck

Robert M. Steptoe and James D. Steptoe Professor of Law Director of the Immigration Law Clinic Director of International Programs

Phone: 304-293-7249 Fax: 304-293-3762 Office: Room 123, WVU College of Law

Courses Taught

  • Administrative Law
  • Immigration Clinic
  • Property
  • International Law
  • Agricultural Law

Biography

Alison Peck teaches and writes in the area of global sustainable development, with special focus on immigration and environmental law. As director of the Immigration Law Clinic, she supervises students in litigating cases before the U.S. Immigration Courts and submitting immigration applications to the Department of Homeland Security. Her recent interests include writing narrative legal non-fiction and theorizing about the use of long-form narrative as an antidote to political polarization.

Professor Peck practiced international arbitration and commercial litigation with Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP in Washington, D.C. She clerked for Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge G. Federico Mancini of the Court of Justice for the European Communities. She received a J.D. from Yale Law School and an LL.M. in Agricultural Law from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville.

Publications

  • Legal Stories without Villains, 87 U. Pitt. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2026)
  • Widening the Historical Lens on US Immigration Policy, 140 English Hist. Rev. 196 (2025)
  • Re-Envisioning the Immigration Courts, Immigr. Briefings No. 21-10 (October 2021)
  • The Accidental History of the U.S. Immigration Courts: War, Fear, and the Roots of Dysfunction (University of California Press, May 2021)
    • Finalist - 2022 ABA Silver Gavel Awards for Media and the Arts
  • Standard Oil, Consolidation Coal, and the Roots of the Resource Curse in West Virginia, 124 W. Va. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2021)
  • Withdrawing from NAFTA, 107 Geo. L.J. 647 (2019)
  • Identity-Based Conflicts in Public Policy: The Case of Hydraulic Fracturing Policy in Pennsylvania, 79 U. Pitt L. Rev., Vol. 79, 2018
  • Re-Framing Biotechnology Regulation, 72 Food & Drug L. J. 314 (2017)
  • The Failure of Federal Biotechnology Regulation, 51 Valparaiso Univ. L. Rev. 483 (2017)
  • Editor, International Trade Law Profs Blog
  • Talking About Shale in Any Language, in Delivering Energy Law and Policy in the EU and the US: A Reader, Edinburgh University Press (July 2016)
  • The Aftermath of Alt v. EPA: Unresolved Tensions in Poultry Farm Pollution Control, 118 W. Va. L. Rev. 981 (2016)
  • The Cost of Cutting Agricultural Output: Interpreting the Capper Volstead Act, 80 Missouri L. Rev. 451 (2015)
  • Does Regulation Chill Democratic Deliberation? The Case of GMOs, 46 CREIGHTON L. REV. (2013)
  • Revisiting the Tea Party: Obesity and Food Consumption Laws in America, in SOCIAL SCIENTISTS EXPLAIN THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT: WITH A SELECTION OF PRIMARY DOCUMENTS (Roger Chapman ed., 2013)
  • Sustainable Development and the Reconciliation of Opposites, 57 ST. LOUIS U. L.J. 151 (2012)
  • Cows v. Capitalists: Visions of a Post-Carbon Economy (Review of SIMON FAIRLIE, MEAT: A BENIGN EXTRAVAGANCE), 8 J. FOOD L. & POL’Y 127 (2012)
  • Revisiting the Tea Party: The History of Regulating Food Consumption in America, 80 UMKC LAW REVIEW 1 (2011)
  • Leveling the Playing Field in GMO Risk Assessment: Importers, Exporters, and the Limits of Science, 28BOSTON UNIV. INT’L L.J. 241 (2010)
  • Toward an Advocacy Strategy for GMOAccountability, 21 GEO. INT’L ENVTL. L. REV. 371 (2008)
  • Standing for Protection of Collective Rights in the European Communities, 32 GEO. WASH. J. INT’L L. &ECON. 367 (2000)

Education

  • LL.M., University of Arkansas (Agricultural Law), 2008
  • J.D., Yale Law School, 1995
  • B.A., Butler University (Journalism, Spanish and French), 1992