About

John F. Coyle is the Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, where he joined the faculty in 2010. His teaching and research interests include contracts, corporate law, and conflict of laws. Coyle has authored more than thirty articles on topics such as contract boilerplate, venture capital, and private international law, with his work published or forthcoming in prominent law reviews including the Duke Law Journal, the Iowa Law Review, and the Notre Dame Law Review. He is also an avid blogger and was a founding editor of the Transnational Litigation Blog. Recognized for his teaching excellence, he has received the Frederick B.. McCall Award from the graduating class at Carolina Law twice. Coyle's academic background includes a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as a symposium editor on the Yale Law Journal and an articles editor on the Yale Journal of International Law, and he has also earned an M.Phil. in European Studies from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. in History and Literature from Harvard University. Prior to his tenure at Carolina Law, he clerked for Judge Reena Raggi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, practiced law at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, D.C., and taught legal writing at Harvard Law School.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Library science
• History

Selected publications

• Delaying Sister-State Judgments

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Choice of Law in the American Courts in 2025: Thirty-Ninth Annual Survey

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Choice of Law in the American Courts in 2024: Thirty-Eighth Annual Survey

  The American Journal of Comparative Law · 2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This is the Thirty-Eighth Annual Survey of American Choice-of-Law Cases. It was written at the request of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Conflict of Laws. It is intended as a service to fellow teachers and to students of conflicts law, both inside and outside of the United States. Its purpose remains to inform, rather than to advocate. This Survey covers cases decided by American state and federal appellate courts during 2024.

  PublisherDOI

• Notice, Consent, and Choice-of-Jurisdiction Clauses in the United States

  German Law Journal · 2025-06-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Although choice-of-jurisdiction clauses are routinely enforced by courts in the United States, there are circumstances where they are subject to special scrutiny. One of these circumstances is when the party resisting the clause was not provided with proper notice as to the existence of the clause or the identity of the chosen jurisdiction. This Article first reviews the existing case law in this area and shows that while some U.S. courts have refused to enforce clauses for lack of notice, others do so as a matter of course. It then discusses several decisions where U.S. courts have held that notice may serve as a substitute for consent to bind parties to choice-of-jurisdiction clauses in agreements that they never signed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Notice, Consent, and Choice-of-Jurisdiction Clauses in the United States

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Dangerous Foreign Courts

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Forum Shopping, Statutes of Limitation, and Borrowing Statutes

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Choice of Law in Terrorism Cases

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Choice of Law in the American Courts in 2024: Thirty-Eighth Annual Survey

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Puzzle of Floating Forum Selection Clauses

  eYLS (Yale Law School) · 2024-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This essay examines floating forum selection clauses—provisions linking the litigation forum to a post-contractual fact such as a party’s future principal place of business, an assignee’s location, or a unilateral designation. Categorizing floating clauses into three types, the authors analyze divergent judicial approaches to enforceability and the underlying tension between waiver and submission as theories of consent. They argue that floating clauses expose conceptual inconsistencies in personal jurisdiction doctrine, especially regarding foreseeability and due process, and highlight how courts struggle to reconcile contract principles with constitutional limits.

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Aaron D. Simowitz

  Willamette University

  9 shared

• Joseph M. Green

  7 shared

• William S. Dodge

  6 shared

• Mark C. Weidemaier

  2 shared

• Katherine C. Richardson

  McGuireWoods

  2 shared

• Robin Effron

  2 shared

• Hae Jin Kim

  Auburn University

  1 shared

• Harris Strokoff

  1 shared

Education

• B.A., Political Science

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1981

• Other, Law

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1984

• Ph.D., Political Science

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1988

Awards & honors

• Frederick B.. McCall Award for Teaching Excellence