Lisa Lukasik

Biography

Professor Lisa Lukasik’s teaching and scholarship reflect her 20-plus years of experience in education law. She regularly teaches Public School Law, Special Education Law and Torts in addition to a course on Education as a Human Right in the law school’s study-abroad program at Cambridge University. She also serves as the Director of the Richardson Family Education Equity Clinic.

Lukasik has received multiple teaching awards. She earned the 2022 and 2020 Pro Bono Professor of the Year Award, the 2018 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 2011-2012 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research based upon her contributions to legal scholarship in the area of public-school law.

She has engaged in significant pro bono service in support of public education and the rights of children in public schools. In May 2023 she was inducted into North Carolina’s Pro Bono Honor Society based on her pro bono service on behalf of children with disabilities seeking to protect their educational rights. She was twice nominated and confirmed by the State Board of Education to serve as a State Hearing Review Officer in consecutive three-year terms. In that role, on behalf of the State of North Carolina, she resolved administrative appeals of disputes between public schools and parents of children with disabilities over the provision of free appropriate public education.

In August 2023, Lukasik was appointed to a two-year term on the North Carolina General Assembly’s General Statutes Commission. This appointment came following her work as a pro bono education-law expert on behalf of the ERA-NC Alliance Task Force, for whom she reviewed North Carolina’s education-related general statutes, including Chapter 115C on public K-12 education, for compliance with the Equal Rights Amendment.

Business Leader Magazine has named Lukasik one of the Triangle’s Women Extraordinaire in recognition of her leadership and service to the legal profession. Her scholarship reflects her practice experience and her commitment to public education and the full realization of the civil and human rights of children, particularly children with disabilities, in public schools.

Lukasik earned her B.A. with honors from Washington University in St. Louis and graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She began her professional career as a junior college English teacher first in Kolobrzeg, Poland and later in Huntsville, Alabama. After several years as an English teacher, she returned to school and earned a J.D. with honors from the University of North Carolina School of Law. She graduated as a member of the Order of the Coif and served as a published member of the North Carolina Law Review, a founding editor of the North Carolina Banking Institute Publication, and an Honors Writing Scholar. She clerked for the Honorable Willis P. Whichard on the North Carolina Supreme Court, and practiced education law with Tharrington Smith, L.L.P.

Lukasik joined the Campbell Law faculty after serving on the faculty at her alma mater, the University of North Carolina School of Law, as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the law school’s academic success program.