John J. Infranca

Professor Infranca is a Professor of Law and Director of Faculty Scholarship and Research at Suffolk University Law School, where he teaches property law, land use law, state and local government law, religion and law, and election law, among other courses. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where he received his B.A. in the Program of Liberal Studies and later returned for an M.T.S. in Moral Theology, and of New York University School of Law, where he served as an editor of the New York University Law Review.

Following law school, Professor Infranca served as a law clerk to Judge Berle Schiller, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Judge Julio Fuentes, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Prior to joining the faculty, he worked as a legal fellow at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, where he focused on land use regulation and affordable housing policy. He also taught as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. After college and during graduate school, Professor Infranca worked with several organizations serving individuals experiencing homelessness, as a case manager for refugees, and as the director of a service-learning program in Mexico.

Professor Infranca’s scholarship focuses on land use regulation, affordable housing policy, property theory, and law and religion. His scholarship has appeared in journals including the Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Florida Law Review, Richmond Law Review, Pepperdine Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, Yale Law & Policy Review, and Stanford Law & Policy Review. His article Differentiating Exclusionary Tendencies was selected for presentation at the 2020 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Three other articles: Singling Out Single-Family Zoning, The New State Zoning: Land Use Preemption amid a Housing Crisis and The Sharing Economy as an Urban Phenomenon were all selected for inclusion in the Land Use & Environmental Law Review as one of the best land use law articles of the year.

Professor Infranca is also a co-editor of the Elgar Research Agenda for Land Use and Planning Law and the Cambridge Handbook of the Law of the Sharing Economy. He is currently working on a book, tentatively titled “Zones of Exclusion: A History of Single-Family Zoning and the Police Power,” which is under contract with Yale University Press. The book will draw on archival research to explore how early proponents of zoning defended and extended this novel form of regulation, with a particular focus on single-family districting. It will also examine the early implementation of zoning in a number of American cities. His other current research projects examine the use of property rights rhetoric in debates over land use reform, the role of neighborhood and nongovernmental entities in local land use decisions, the relationship between land use processes and the rule of law, Catholic Social Teaching and various urban law and policy issues, and topics at the intersection of religious liberty and property. Professor Infranca served as a Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School in Spring 2024 and Spring 2026, teaching courses in land use law and election law.