John A. Lovett

Biography

John A. Lovett, a passionate teacher and scholar of property law, joined the LSU Law Faculty in January 2024. He grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana and earned a B.A. from Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Indiana University-Bloomington. He received his J.D. from Tulane Law School in 1995 where he served as an Articles Editor for the Tulane Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif.

After law school, Lovett clerked for Chief Judge F.A. Little, Jr., United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, and Judge Jacques L. Wiener, Jr., United States Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit. He worked as an associate at Liskow & Lewis in New Orleans from 1997 to 2002, focusing on commercial litigation.

Lovett joined the faculty at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law in 2002, became full professor in 2009, and served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Faculty Development from 2012 to 2015. He held the De Van D. Daggett Jr. Distinguished Professorship at Loyola from 2012 to 2023.

Lovett’s teaching and scholarship focus on property law and land use in all its dimensions. He has taught Civil Law Property, Common Law Property, Louisiana Sale and Lease, Land Use Regulation, Real Estate Transactions, and Property, Land Use, and Justice, a new course he created that addresses racial discrimination in property and land use law in the United States.

Lovett’s scholarship ranges across common, civil, and mixed jurisdictions. He has published articles and book chapters on easements, covenants, and servitudes, adverse possession and acquisitive prescription, community land trusts, land reform in Scotland, the impact of natural disasters on property law and housing, and the impact of changes in our natural environment on property rights. His articles and book chapters have been published in the United States, Scotland, the Netherlands, and South Africa and have been cited widely by scholars and courts, including the Louisiana Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa. He is also a co-author of Louisiana Property Law: The Civil Code, Cases, and Commentary (2d edition, Carolina Academic Press 2020), a widely used casebook in Louisiana law schools.

Professor Lovett has deep connections to the academic legal community in Scotland where he has lectured many times. At the University of Edinburgh Law School, he was a McCormick Fellow in 2009 and a Visiting Professor from 2017 to 2020. He has been Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh Law School since 2020. In the spring of 2023, Lovett was a Glasgow Law Fellow at the University of Glasgow and a Visiting Professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Lovett also serves as a member of the Land and Human Rights Advisory Forum for the Scottish Land Commission.

Lovett has been active in law reform for many years. Most recently, he served as Reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s Drafting Committee for the Uniform Easement Relocation Act, which was approved and recommended for adoption in all 50 states on July 15, 2020 and which has been adopted in Nebraska, Utah, Washington, and Arkansas. He also served as Reporter for the Public Recreation Access Task Force Report, submitted to the Louisiana Legislature in January 2020. His most recent article, Submerged Land on the Louisiana Coast: Resolving the Dual-Claimed Land Dilemma, grows out of his work on the Task Force.

Courses Taught

Civil Law Property
Common Law Property
Louisiana Sale and Lease (Advanced Obligations)
Land Use Regulation

Selected Publications

Case Books

Louisiana Property Law: The Civil Code, Cases, and Commentary (Second Edition, Carolina Academic Press 2020) (with Markus G. Puder and Evelyn L. Wilson).

Louisiana Property Law: The Civil Code, Cases, and Commentary (Carolina Academic Press 2014) (with Markus G. Puder and Evelyn L. Wilson).

Articles

Submerged Land on the Louisiana Coast: Resolving the Dual-Claimed Land Dilemma, 84 La. L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming Spring 2024)

Oil, Trees, and Water: Evaluating the Transition from Natural Property Rights to Property Conventions, 9 Tex. A&M J. Prop. L. 614 (2023).

Adverse Possession by the State, 69 Loy. L. Rev. 1 (2023) (with Björn Hoops).

Easements on the Move: The Uniform Easement Relocation Act, 37 No. 5 Prob. & Prop., 40 (Sept./Oct. 2022)

Easements and Change, 74 Baylor L. Rev. 1 (2022).

Restating the Law of Prescriptive Easements, 104 Marquette L. Rev. 939 (2021).

Community Land Trusts: Institutionalizing the Human Flourishing Theory of Property, ­29 Cornell J. L. Pub. Pol. 621 (2020).

The Parable of Portobello: Lessons and Questions from the First Urban Acquisition under the Scottish Community Right to Buy Regime, 80 Mont. L. Rev. 211 (2019) (with Malcolm Combe).

Good Faith in Louisiana Property Law, 78 La. L. Rev. 1163 (2018).

Moving to Higher Ground, Protecting and Relocating Communities in Response to Climate Change, 42 Vt. L. Rev. 25 (2017).

Disseisin, Doubt, and Debate: Adverse Possession Scholarship in the United States (1881-1986), 5 Tex. A&M L. Rev. 1 (2017).

Precarious Possession, 77 La. L. Rev. 618 (2017).

Tragedy or Triumph in Post-Katrina New Orleans?: Reflections on Possession, Dispossession, Demographic Change and Affordable Housing, 40 Fordham Urb. L. J. City Square 22 (2013), available at http://urbanlawjournal.com/3-tragedy-or-triumph-in-post-katrina-new-orleans-by-john-a-lovett/ , reprinted in 23 Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Development 289 (2015).

Love, Loyalty, and the Louisiana Civil Code: Rules, Standards and Hybrid Discretion in a Mixed Jurisdiction, 72 La. L. Rev. 923 (2012).

The Right of Responsible Access Meets the Right to Exclude: Scotland’s Bold Experiment in Public Access Legislation, 26 No.2, Prob. & Prop. 52 (Mar.-April 2012).

Progressive Property in Action: The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, 89 Neb. L. Rev. 739 (2011).

Meditations on Strathclyde: Controlling Private Land Use Restrictions at the Crossroads of Legal Systems, 36 Syracuse J. Int’l L. & Comm. 1 (2008).

Creating and Controlling Private Land Use Restrictions in Scotland and Louisiana: A Comparative Mixed Jurisdiction Analysis, 2008 (2) Stellenbosch L. Rev. 231.

Property and Radically Changed Circumstances: Hurricane Katrina and Beyond, 74 Tenn. L. Rev. 463 (2007).

Doctrines of Waste in a Landscape of Waste, 72 Mo. L. Rev. 1209 (2007).

Rebuilding a Region: Housing Recovery Efforts in the Wake of Katrina and Rita, 20 No. 5 Prob. & Prop. 49 (Sept./Oct. 2006).

A New Way: Servitude Relocation in Scotland and Louisiana, 9 Edinburgh L. Rev. 352 (2005).

A Bend in the Road: Easement Relocation and Pliability in the New Restatement (Third) of Property: Servitudes, 38 Conn. L. Rev. 1 (2005).

On the Principle of Legal Certainty in the Louisiana Civil Law Tradition:  From the Manifesto to the Great Repealing Act and Beyond, 63 La. L. Rev. 1397 (2003).

Another Great Debate?: The Ambiguous Relationship Between the Revised Civil Code and Pre-Revision Jurisprudence as Seen Through the Prytania Park Controversy, 48 Loy. L. Rev. 615 (2003).

The Alien Tort Statute:  Subject Matter Jurisdiction and a Cause of Action in United States Courts for Suits by Aliens Alleging Torts in Violation of the Law of Nations, 47 Rocky Mtn. Min. L. Inst. 24-1 (2001) (with Donald R. Abaunza).

Tortious Interference and Unfair Trade Claims:  Louisiana’s Elusive Remedies for Business Interference, 45 Loy. L. Rev. 395 (1999) (with George Denegre, Jr. and Shannon Holtzman).

Comment, Batture, Ordinary High Water and the Louisiana Levee Servitude, 69 Tul. L. Rev. 561 (1994).

Book Chapters 

Towards Sustainable Community Ownership: A Comparative Assessment of Scotland’s New Compulsory Community Right to Buy, in Land Reform in Scotland: History, Law and Policy, Malcolm M. Combe, Jayne H. Glass & Annie Tindley, eds., 177-212 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3326967.

Professor Longhair’s Legacy, Revendicating Movables under Louisiana Law, in Northern Lights: Essays in Private Law in Honour of David Carey Miller, Douglas Bain, Roderick Paisley and Andrew R.C. Simpson, Eds., 31-65 (Aberdeen University Press, 2018)  available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2726062.

Tacking in a Mixed Jurisdiction, in Nothing So Practical as a Good Theory: Festschrift for George L Gretton, Andrew J.M. Steven, Ross Anderson, & John MacLeod, eds. 162-76 (Avizandum Pub. Ltd. 2017), available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3103308.

Can Charter Schools Save Cities?: Social Capital and Urban Public Education, in How Cities Will Save the World, John Travis Marshall and Ray Brescia, eds. 159-187 (Routledge 2016).

“Somewhat at Sea”: Public Use and Third Party Transfer Limits in Two U.S. States, in Rethinking Public Interest in Expropriation Law I, Bjorn Hoops et. al., eds., 93-124 (Boom/Eleven International and Juta 2015), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2685860.

Commercial Title Conditions in Scotland and Louisiana, in Mixed Jurisdictions Compared: Private Law in Louisiana and Scotland, Vernon Palmer and Elspeth Reid, eds. 30-66 (Edinburgh University Press 2009).

Property and Radical Change: Observations on Property Relationships from Post-Katrina New Orleans, in Law and Recovery after Disaster: Hurricane Katrina, Robin Paul Malloy, ed., 7-36 (Ashgate 2008).

Book Review-Essays

Yaëll Emerich, Book Review, Conceptualising Property Law: Integrating Common Law and Civil Law Traditions, 12 J . Civ. L. St. 379 (2020).

One Fine Day in Stellenbosch: A Review of Bram Akkermans, Ernst Marais and Eveline Ramaekers (eds.), Property Law Perspectives II (Intersentia 2014), 4(3) Eur. Prop. L. J. 223-252 (Dec. 2015).

Tributes

Into Centuries of Centuries: Reflections on Marc. R. Poirier (1952-2015), 3 J. L. Prop. & Soc. 1 (2017), available at http://alps.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/JLPS-2017-04-Lovett.pdf.

Reports

Louisiana Contributor, Acquisition of Immovables through Long-Term Use, Common Core of European Private Law, eds. Björn Hoops & Ernst Marais (Intersentia 2022).

Public Recreation Access Task Force Report to the Louisiana Legislature., available at http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/Legal/PublicRecAccessTFReport.pdf.

Report to the Legislature on Senate Resolution No. 180 of the 2015 Regular Session: Feasibility of the Use of Levee Roads by Owners of Enclosed Estates, Private Use of Levee Roads Committee, Louisiana State Law Institute, (Oct. 10, 2016) (Reporter).

Potential Uniform Easement Relocation Act, The Joint Editorial Board for Uniform Real Property Acts (Dec. 2010) (sole author).

The Challenges of Sudden Natural Disasters for Land Administration and Management: The Case of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, J. David Stanfield, ed. (April 2008) (contributor to case study submitted to the United Nations-Habitat Program).

Symposia Introductions

Symposium Introduction, Fourth International Congress of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists (Conference Papers), 62 Loy. L. Rev. 613 (2016).

Symposium Introduction, Third International Congress of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists (Conference Papers), 57 Loy. L. Rev. 703 (2011).

Symposium Introduction, Revitalizing Community Assets: Blighted, Abandoned and Tax Adjudicated Property and Land use in Post-Katrina New Orleans, 53 Loy. L. Rev. 719 (2007).