Almost thirty years ago, Justice William Brennan saw clearly that American higher education was coming under the same pressures to "cut costs and increase efficiencies" to which market forces were subjecting businesses. Since Justice Brennan's observation, employers generally have sought to maximize their "flexibility' by creating a contingent workforce to which they owe few, if any, long-term obligations. Like workers in many other occupations, faculty appointments are increasingly contingent and part time. By 2005, the latest year for which Department of Education data are available, 48 percent of faculty members were part time and 20 percent were full time nontenure track, while only 32 percent were full time tenured or tenure track. This fundamental restructuring of the personnel relationship has meant that the faculty has lost not only job security but also many of the common incidentals of full-time employment: health and retirement benefits, paid sick leave, and the protections of the Family and Medical Leave Act, as well as other benefits. Many contingent faculty members ask whether they can use legal theories to claim benefits that they feel have been unfairly denied them. This article focuses on some of the avenues to use in asserting a right to such benefits and provides suggestions for determining the locus of rights to which the contingent faculty member may be entitled.