Background

Before joining the faculty at the University of South Carolina School of Law, Professor Byars served on the faculty at Mercer University School of Law.  Professor Byars also intermittently serves as a visiting professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law.  

Professor Byars earned his J.D. at the University of Tennessee College of Law where he graduated as the valedictorian of his law school class and served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Tennessee Law Review.  He earned his undergraduate degree in economics and finance at the University of Tennessee at Martin.  Following law school, Professor Byars served as a judicial law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.  Professor Byars’s other relevant work experience includes experience in a United States Attorney’s Office and large and small law firms.  Professor Byars consults on business law, criminal law, and appellate matters.

Professor Byars teaches or has taught in the areas of business law, contracts, criminal law, and evidence.  Professor Byars’s scholarly work focuses on corporate crime and has appeared or will appear in the Boston College Law Review, the Florida Law Review, the Tennessee Law Review, and the Mississippi Law Journal.  His work has also been featured in local and national news outlets, including Reuters and Bloomberg Law, and in publications affiliated with Columbia Law School and the University of Chicago.

Selected Scholarship

• A Concrete Standard of Judicial Review for Corporate Deferred Prosecution Agreements, 78 Fla. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2026).
• Recidivist Organizational Offenders and the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, 66 B.C. L. Rev. 745 (2025).
• George W. Kuney Robert M. Lloyd, & Kaleb Byars, Contracts: Transactions and Litigation (6th ed. 2025) (casebook).

Education 

• J.D., The University of Tennessee
• B.S., The University of Tennessee