Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt

Biography

Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt is a Professor of Law and she also serves as the Chair of the Faculty Clerkship Committee. Professor Zehrt has taught a variety of courses at Belmont, including Civil Procedure I and II, Evidence, Professional Responsibility, Employment Law, and Employment Discrimination. She prefers a problem-based approach when teaching both Evidence and Professional Responsibility, and in the nine years she has taught Professional Responsibility at Belmont, students have achieved a 98.5% passage rate on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam as first-time test takers. Professor Zehrt also is a five-time recipient of the Best Professor Award, which is bestowed by Belmont Law’s students.

Prior to joining the faculty at Belmont, Professor Zehrt clerked for the Late Honorable Ira DeMent of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, and the Honorable C. Lynwood Smith, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Upon completion of her clerkships, Professor Zehrt practiced law with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP. in its Huntsville, Alabama office. At Bradley, she primarily participated in the firm’s employment and appellate litigation practice groups where she regularly represented clients in both federal and state courts at the trial and appellate level. She also demonstrated her commitment to perform pro bono work by representing for numerous years the Downtown Rescue Mission of Huntsville and the Community Action Agency of North Alabama.  

Professor Zehrt received her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Alabama School of Law graduating magna cum laude, and while in law school, she served as an Articles Editor on the Alabama Law Review, participated in the John A. Campbell Moot Court Competition, and was inducted into the Bench and Bar Legal Honor Society. Professor Zehrt later earned her Master of Laws degree from Georgetown University Law Center, graduating with Distinction and earning two Cali Excellence Awards for her studies in Disability Discrimination Law and Employment Discrimination, U.S. and International Perspectives. After graduating from Georgetown Law Center, Professor Zehrt taught Appellate Advocacy for three years at George Mason University School of Law. She is a member of the Alabama and District of Columbia bars.

Professor Zehrt was recently appointed as the Reporter for the Supreme Court of Tennessee’s Advisory Commission on the Rules of Practice and Procedure.

Areas of expertise: Employment law, professional responsibility  

PUBLICATIONS

Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt, Understanding the New Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, Nash. B. J., Aug. 2023, at 21.

Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt, Why Fifty: An Analysis of the Small Business Exemption Codified in the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, 84 Albany L. Rev. 275 (2022). | SSRN

Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt, Title IX and Title VII: Parallel Remedies in Combating Sex Discrimination in Educational Employment, 102 Marq. L. Rev. 701 (2019). | SSRN

Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt, A Special Delivery: Litigating Pregnancy Accommodation Claims After the Supreme Court's Decision in Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 68 Rutgers U. L. Rev. 683 (2016). | SSRN

Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt, Resolving the Great Divide in Pregnancy Discrimination, 14 Nash. B.J. 6 (July, 2014). | SSRN

Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt, Twenty Years of Compromise: How the Caps on Damages in the Civil Rights Act of 1991 Codified Sex Discrimination, 25 Yale J.L. & Feminism 249 (2014). | SSRN

• Selected for reprint, Tracy A. Thomas, ed., Women and the Law (Thomson Reuters 2015).

• Selected for reprint, Steven Saltzman, ed., Civil Rights Litigation and Attorney Fees Annual Handbook (Thomson Reuters 2015).

Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt, Retaliation’s Changing Landscape, 20 GEO. MASON U. CIV. RTS. L.J. 143 (2010). | SSRN

Lynn Ridgeway Zehrt, A Decade Later: Adarand and Croson and the Status of Minority Preferences in Government Contracting, 21 NAT’L BLACK L.J. 1 (2009). | SSRN