Elizabeth R. Kirk is an Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Law and the Human Person at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. Her scholarship focuses on law and the family, including issues such as parental rights, reproductive technologies, abortion jurisprudence, child welfare, and adoption. Her work has been published by the Institute for Family Studies, Humanum, Public Discourse, First Things, the Texas Review of Law & Politics, and the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy (forthcoming).

From 2018 to 2020, she served as Director and Kowalski Chair of Catholic Thought at the Institute for Faith and Culture at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas. From 2005 to 2010, she served as the Associate Director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, an interdisciplinary center inspired by the teachings of St. Pope John Paul II and dedicated to bringing the Catholic moral, intellectual and cultural tradition to bear upon the formation of students. From 2012 to 2016, Kirk served as a resident fellow in cultural and legal studies at the Stein Center for Social Research at Ave Maria University. She previously taught law at The Columbus School of Law from 2002-03 and at Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Michigan from 2003-05, and clerked for the Honorable Daniel A. Manion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 2000-02. Prior to entering academia, she practiced law, representing religious and charitable organizations and in the area of estate planning.

Kirk holds an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Missouri, a law degree from the University of Notre Dame, and has done graduate studies in theology. She studied jurisprudence with Charles E. Rice and John Finnis, Aquinas on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics with Ralph McInerny, the Catholic intellectual renaissance of the 20th century with Michael Novak, and the relationship between philosophy and theology with Fr. Matthew Lamb.

In 2010, she helped found the Vita Institute, an intensive interdisciplinary training program for leaders in the national and international pro-life movement held annually at the University of Notre Dame. Kirk is a board member of the Fellowship for Catholic Scholars and of Springs in the Desert. She formerly served on the board of The Catholic Bar Association and as a consultant to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Pro-Life Committee under Archbishop Joseph Naumann.

Selected Scholarship:

Book Chapters: 

• Elizabeth R. Kirk, Enfolded in Care: Challenges in Contemporary American Law in Light of Thomistic Thought on the Family, in Aquinas, Natural Law, and Social Ontology: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, (Routledge; 2025 forthcoming).
• Elizabeth R. Kirk, The Design of God’s Love: The Gift of Children through Adoption, in Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Ethics, (En Route Books, 2024).
• Elizabeth R. Kirk, Humanae vitae and The Cross of Infertility, in Humanae Vitae, 50 Years Later, Embracing God’s Vision for Marriage, Love, and Life: A Compendium, (Theresa Notare, ed. 2019).

Articles:

• Elizabeth R. Kirk & Ryan Hanlon, Informing Choice: The Role of Adoption in Women’s Pregnancy Decision-Making, 39 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol’y (2025 forthcoming).
• Elizabeth R. Kirk, Parental Rights: In Search of Coherence, 27 Texas Rev. L. & Pol. 729 (2023).
• Elizabeth R. Kirk, John Paul II and the Law, 21 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol’y 1 (2007).

Selected Essays:

• When It Comes to Abortion, Voters May Get More Than They Bargained For, Pub. Discourse (Nov. 21, 2023).
• Adoption: An Exchange of Gifts, Humanum Rev. (Oct. 5, 2023).
• The Meaning of Kansas: Lessons from a Pro-Life Defeat, Pub. Discourse (Aug. 11, 2022).
• The Kansas Supreme Court Has Declared a "Natural Right" to Abortion, Pub. Discourse (May 8, 2019).
• Countering the ‘Soft Stigma’ Against Adoption, Inst. for Fam. Stud. (Dec. 3, 2018).
• Forcing Faith-Based Organizations out of Foster Care and Adoption Hurts Children, Pub. Discourse (Oct. 3, 2017).