I practiced commercial real estate law in my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana for about ten years before moving to North Carolina. Around the time I started teaching, I discovered that basically nobody in legal academia researches and writes about funeral and cemetery law even though (spoiler alert) we’re all going to die.
There isn’t anything more universal than death, and it turns out that the law of human remains is really misunderstood and complicated. There is simultaneously more law than you ever could have imagined, and stunning radio silence on some really important points. What the rules are, how they impact us, and the way that death care is changing — these are all things that we will talk about a lot on Death, et seq.
I have written a couple of books about death care law:
- The Law of Human Remains (2015) (the first treatise on funeral law in the United States since 1950)
- Cemetery Law: The Common Law of Burying Grounds in the United States (2015) (co-authored with Daniel Gibson)
- Disposition of Human Remains: A Legal Research Guide (2015)
- The Regulation of the Funeral Services Industry: A Legal Research Guide (2018 – forthcoming)

Many thanks to:
- Silent James for the podcast logo
- David Childers and Riley Sherman for the music heard in each episode
- Liam Sherman for his production assistance