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University of Illinois College of Law
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The University of Illinois College of Law, or UIUC College of Law is a law school school located in Champaign, Illinois. It is a graduate school of its parent institution, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Since 1897, the University of Illinois College of Law has been one of the nation’s premier teaching and research institutions, with more than 9,500 alumni worldwide. A Top 25-ranked law school, Illinois hosts a productive, engaging, and highly-visible faculty and a Top 15 highly-diverse and employable student body.
The University of Illinois College of Law…
- ranks among the nation’s Top 25 law schools (US News and World Report)
- has moved up in the rankings 2 of the last 3 years (US News and World Report)
- made its biggest jump in the national rankings in 13 years in 2007
- ranks # 1 in hiring high-profile faculty from top-ranked law schools
- ranks # 4 in the diversity of its student body among Top 25 law schools
- ranks # 5 in employing more than 99% of its graduates within 9 months
- ranks #1 in Student Improvement
- ranks # 7 in faculty productivity
- has landed consecutive Top 15 ranked incoming classes
- hosts its own statewide syndicated TV show on the local CBS affiliate
- faculty host two weekly radio shows that reach 35 states and Canada
In the last five years, the College of Law has added 17 tenured and tenure-track faculty members, including 14 highly celebrated lateral hires from other top law schools around the nation. Illinois has moved from the mid-30s to 7th in the nation in per-faculty-member productivity for the last two years, as measured by the number of articles posted by faculty on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) and it ranks 9th in total productivity, joining much larger schools in the Top 10 listing of the most productive American law schools.
In 2005, Leiter's Law School Reports specifically hailed Illinois as a "school on the move," singling it out (ahead of Yale and Stanford) for its success in hiring high-profile lateral faculty and in February 2006, it again singled out Illinois' rapid metamorphosis, stating that one is "hard pressed to think of a law school more completely transformed in the last few years than Illinois," and congratulating Illinois for building up "a large cohort of junior and senior scholars working in law and economics (broadly construed) and law and philosophy (broadly construed)."
The College of Law has landed consecutive incoming classes that rank among the nation’s Top 15 based on the LSAT median score of 166 and grade point average. The Class of 2009 features 186 students from 28 states and 3 foreign countries and will once again rank among the nation’s Top 15 classes based on its LSAT average score of 166 and median grade point average of 3.5. This incoming class will once again rank #1 in diversity among all state of Illinois and Big Ten Conference law schools with 35% of Illinois law students being students of color and nearly half of the class hailing from outside the state of Illinois. Nearly half of this year’s incoming class is female and the entire class hails from 102 different undergraduate institutions.
In 2006, Illinois ranked #1 in the nation for achieving the greatest improvement in its student credentials (+13) in a single year with a three-point jump in the median LSAT score. And, Illinois remains #1 in the Big Ten Conference and within the state of Illinois for the diversity of its student population with 36.8% of its student body comprised of students of color. Illinois also ranks 5th in the nation for the percentage of graduates employed within nine months of graduation and it placed #17 in a recent ranking of law schools by the number of students hired by the nation's Top-50 law firms.
- Business and Commercial Law
- Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure
- Employment Law
- Environmental Law
- Intellectual Property Law
- International and Comparative Law
- Public Interest Law
- Taxation Law
Nearly half of the faculty hold advanced graduate degrees beyond their juris doctorates in subjects such as medicine, economics, engineering, business, philosophy, political science, and psychology. With 17 new tenure-track and tenured faculty joining the College in the last four years, the faculty's size has increased by 30%, the student/faculty ratio has dropped to 12 to 1 and faculty productivity has ranked seventh nationally for the past two years, with an average of three papers per faculty member on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). The number of SSRN downloaded faculty papers ranks in the Top 10 nationally, faculty blog sites average nearly 4,000 daily visitors, and Illinois faculty are quoted frequently in national media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, National Public Radio, Forbes and ESPN.
College of Law faculty bring a wealth of knowledge and legal experience to the classroom, including terms as U.S. Supreme Court and federal court clerks, associateships and partnerships in prestigious national and international law firms, high-profile positions within government agencies, and entrepreneurial experience in business and engineering
The University of Illinois annually presents campus-wide Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching Awards. In 16 years, eight law faculty have won this campus-wide award --putting almost a quarter of the law school's 38 faculty among the very best teachers on a campus that has 3,000 faculty. Few faculties in the nation could so vividly prove this level of dedication to excellence in the classroom!
- Juris Doctor (JD)
- Master of Laws (LLM)
- Doctor of Juridical Science (JSD)
- Business Administration (JD/MBA)
- Chemistry (JD/MS)
- Computer Science (JD/MCS)
- Education (JD/MEd, JD/MA, JD/PhD)
- Human Resources and Industrial Relations (JD/MHRIR)
- Journalism (JD/MA)
- Medicine (JD/MD)
- Natural Resources (JD/MS)
- Urban Planning (JD/MUP)
- Veterinary Medicine (JD/DVM)
- Arts and Sciences (JD/PhD)
International Program Asian Law, Politics and Society Intellectual Property Law & Technology International IP Law Summer Programs Law and Economics Law and Philosophy Criminal Law Labor and Employment Law Law and Business Policy Trial Advocacy, Clinics, and the Law Practice Group
University of Illinois College of Law students have a remarkable array of practical lawyering experience available through the Law Practice Group (LPG). The Law Practice Group combines a variety of clinical experiences (both in-house and outplacement), simulations such as negotiations, fact investigation, trial team and moot court experience, externships, and legal writing to form a comprehensive yet diverse series of experiential learning opportunities for students.
In addition to traditional legal studies, Illinois law students enjoy a variety of active learning opportunities that apply principles to practice. Analytical thinking, interviewing, problem-solving, counseling, research, and negotiation are critical skills needed for real-world success. Encountering a breadth of practice experiences during law school also helps develop an increasingly important ability to practice law in and with diverse cultures at home and around the globe.
Beginning in the first year, the Legal Research and Writing course includes interviewing clients and oral advocacy. During the second and third year, students may learn through action in courses on Negotiations, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Pre-Trial Skills, Trial Advocacy, and Advanced Trial Advocacy.
To further develop these key skills, the College offers seven Clinical Programs where students solve real problems for actual clients—four in-house clinics and three outplacement clinics. The in-house clinics, including the Civil Litigation Clinic, the Transactions and Community Economic Development Clinic, the Domestic Violence Clinic, and the International Human Rights Clinic, provide hands-on experience that draws directly from the knowledge and skills gained in the classroom. Outplacement clinical opportunities through the Legislative Advocacy, Appellate Defender, and Externship programs offer a vast array of active learning sites away from the College.
The University of Illinois College of Law offers 10 scholarly areas of research, teaching, and coursework, called “Programs.” These are not majors or concentrations in the traditional sense but areas of academic interest and strength within the College of Law. Faculty members coordinating each of these “Programs” annually invite speakers, lectures, conferences, and symposia to the College of Law on specific topic areas, along with conducting scholarly research, promoting comparative scholarship and teaching, and producing articles, journals, and other publications.
There are 10 currently “Programs” in the College of Law: Asian Law, Business Law and Policy, Criminal Law and Procedure, Health Law and Policy, Law and Economics, Legal History, International and Comparative Law, Intellectual Property and Technology Law, Comparative Labor and Employment Law Policy, and Law and Philosophy.
Building on its more than 40-year association with East Asia, its continuing commitment to training excellent lawyers from the region, and its growing research connections with Asian universities, the College of Law established the Asian Law, Politics and Society Program in 2003. Under the direction of Professor Tom Ginsburg, the program's mission is to promote comparative scholarship and teaching on legal and social change in East Asia.
The College of Law’s Graduate and International Legal Studies Program is one of the oldest in the United States with nearly 1,000 alumni in 64 countries. Of this total, more than 25% are from the countries of China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand.
The Asian Law, Politics and Society Program has hosted distinguished speakers and visitors, conducted symposia, offered courses, initiated exchange programs, and supported scholarly research.
About the University of Illinois Program in Business Law and Policy The University of Illinois College of Law Program in Business Law and Policy specializes in corporate and business law and allows faculty members to focus research and teaching in this area of expertise and to create conferences, lectures and a speakers colloquium.
The Illinois Program in Law and Business Policy was created in 2006 and was coordinated during its inaugural year by Professor Larry Ribstein, the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair. The program will be directed during the 2007-2008 academic year by Professor Christine Hurt, the Richard W. and Marie L. Corman Scholar. The Program in Law and Business Policy includes an impressive array of University of Illinois faculty members including Amitai Aviram, Ralph Brubaker, William Davey, Victor Fleischer, Christine Hurt, Robert Lawless, Andrew Morriss, Larry Ribstein, Paul Stancil, Charles Tabb, and Cynthia Williams.
The Illinois Program in Law and Business Policy also hosts public lectures in Chicago and on the UI campus and develops conferences and supports other business related activities. The Program highlights various areas of expertise within the College of Law, including empirical work, law and economics, unincorporated and closely held firms, securities markets, entrepreneurship, the role of social norms, derivatives and other complex financial instruments, corporate social responsibility, bankruptcy, and European and other international law.
From Albert J. Harno to Charles Bowman to Wayne LaFave, the University of Illinois College of Law has long enjoyed a strong presence in the field of criminal law and procedure. To capitalize on this strength, the Program in Criminal Law and Procedure was created in 2005. The goals of the Program are to promote scholarship and discussion on criminal law related topics, by funding conferences and other programs, by promoting teaching and service related to criminal law, and by publicizing the work of the Illinois faculty who are nationally and internationally renowned for their work in these fields.
Professor Andrew D. Leipold serves as Director of the Criminal Law program. Other Program members are Emeritus Professor Wayne LaFave, Professors Steve Beckett, Margareth Etienne, Patrick Keenan, Michael Moore, Jacqueline Ross, Bruce Smith, and Ekow Yankah.
During the 2005-2006 academic year the Program sponsored a Criminal Law Colloquium, bringing in top scholars from around the country to present their works in progress. The Program has also co-sponsored a sentencing conference on The Impact of Booker: A Dialogue Between Scholars and Practitioners, presented by Program members Margareth Etienne and Steve Beckett, and Undercover Policing and Emerging Enforcement Powers: Perspectives from Two Sides of the Atlantic, presented by Program member Jacqueline Ross.
The Health Law and Policy Program was established at the College in 2001. Thanks to a recent gift by alumnus Jon David Epstein '67, and his wife, Beth, the program is now the first alumni-named and supported program at the College of Law — The Jon David and Elizabeth A. Epstein Health Law and Policy Program. Jon David Epstein is a partner and co-head of the Health Law Section of Vinson & Elkins, LLP in Houston, Texas.
The program promotes cutting-edge research, policy analysis, and public service/public engagement on critical issues in health care, promotes collaboration between scholars focused on health law and policy, and facilitates collaboration among government leaders, practitioners, and academic researchers on issues of increasing complexity. The program faculty are currently partnering with other universities, both domestically and abroad, on a variety of research projects.
The Epstein Health Law and Policy Program has established partnerships with various units on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus, including the College of Medicine, the Department of Community Health, and the Institute of Government and Public Affairs for various research and public service projects. Together, they co-sponsored a second bi-annual symposium in March 2004, entitled, Consumer Choice: Social Welfare and Health Care Policy. The papers from this conference will be published in June 2005 as the Policy Studies Annual Review (Robert F. Rich and Christopher T. Erb, Editors; Consumer Choice: Social Welfare and Health Policy.)
In Spring 2003, the University of Illinois College of Law created the Illinois Program in Law and Economics (IPLE) as a means of not only reaffirming the College of Law's longstanding strength in the economic analysis of law, but also in setting the stage for exciting new scholarly developments in this field. Led by Program Director and Swanlund Chair Thomas S. Ulen, and Associate Director Lee Anne Fennell, the Program has two goals: to broaden and deepen knowledge of and scholarly activity in law and economics within the College of Law community, and to publicize the exciting law and economics scholarship of our faculty members to scholars, judges, attorneys, and other legal decision-makers in the United States and around the world.
The Illinois Legal History Program, under the co-direction of Professors Richard Ross and Bruce Smith, seeks to further knowledge and appreciation of legal history through an ambitious series of workshops, conferences, and public lectures. Since its formation in 2004, the Program has hosted numerous distinguished scholars in its workshop series. In 2005, the Program inaugurated a unique collaboration with the Newberry Library in Chicago to host an annual Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History. With a particular emphasis on American, British, and comparative legal-historical scholarship, the Program draws upon the intellectual expertise of numerous faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign including Eric Freyfogle, a specialist in nineteenth-century American property law; Fred Hoxie, one of the world's leading scholars of Native American history and law; Ralph Mathisen, an expert in law and society in late antiquity; Dana Rabin, the author of a recent study of eighteenth-century English criminal trials; and Leslie Reagan, a historian of law and medicine and the author of an award-winning study of nineteenth-century abortion law.
Students who study legal history at the College of Law enjoy access to a wide range of curricular offerings, the third largest academic library in North America, a rich set of online legal resources, and an impressive collection of rare legal-historical materials in the College of Law's Albert E. Jenner Jr. Memorial Law Library.
The College of Law has long been a global entity with the scholarship and expertise of our faculty influencing laws and the legal environment on every continent. The College’s distinguished international specialists include the first Director of Legal Affairs of the World Trade Organization, the author of the award-winning book, Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law, a family law scholar who served as the U.S. delegate to the Hague Conference on Private International Law concerning the Treaty on International Adoptions, a German and comparative law scholar and labor law expert who is also the general editor of the Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, a noted Soviet law scholar and prolific author who recently advised the governments of Russia and Kazakhstan, an international tax scholar who authored Taxation of International Transactions, a comparative and international law scholar whose focus on issues related to law and economic developments has significantly benefited Southeast Asia, a law and technology scholar who advises the U.S. Commerce Department on intellectual property protection and technology commercialization activities in the former Soviet Union countries, a corporate and securities law scholar who influenced a significant European Union Parliament decision regarding corporate boards, and a health law and policy scholar awarded the Mercator Professorship to work with researchers at Berlin’s Humboldt University on issues related to comparative health systems and policies. Illinois is home to the Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, more than 20 courses are offered on international and comparative law topics, and the College actively participates in exchange programs providing study abroad opportunities, including the IP Summer Law Program at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and St. Peter’s College of Oxford University. The College houses the International Human Rights Clinic and an active LL.M. program for international lawyers.
When it comes to top environments in which to explore intellectual property law, few compare to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The minds which invented sound-on-film movies, the transistor, the light-emitting diode, and the theory of superconductivity have taught here. The photoelectric cell, the quantum well laser, and the first graphical Web browser were invented here.
The campus continues as a center of innovation and discovery today. More than 60 graduate programs rank in the nation’s Top 30, including fine arts, chemistry, microbiology, library science, psychology, music, computer science, and 10 engineering disciplines. More than 20 undergraduate programs rank in the country’s Top 25. the University is home to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, several national centers for research, and a Research Park featuring EnterpriseWorks, a high-tech business incubator to 20 start-up companies with nearly 100 employees.
In this fertile environment, the intellectual property curriculum and faculty at the College of Law are intimately involved in facilitating transfer of the University’s newest technological discoveries to the marketplace. This includes innovative achievements in supercomputing, agricultural biotechnology, information science, engineering, and numerous other areas. Campus, state, and national leaders solicit our legal expertise on the IP issues arising from a host of new technologies.
Professor Matthew W. Finkin, the Albert J. Harno and Edward W. Cleary Chair in Law, directs the Program in Comparative Labor and Employment Law and teaches courses in labor and employment law. He has taught in the law schools of Southern Methodist University, Duke University, and the University of Michigan. He has been a Fulbright Professor at Münster University, a German Marshall Fund Lecturer at Konstanz University, and is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Research Award for internationally acknowledged achievements in the field of labor law.
Professor Finkin is the author, editor, or co-editor of eight books, including the leading single volume treatise on labor law, Basic Text on Labor Law (2d ed. 2004) with Robert A. Gorman, the leading law school casebook, Labor Law (with Archibald Cox, Derek Bok and Robert Gorman), now in its 14th edition; Introduction to German Law (with Werner Ebke; Kluwer International, 1996); Privacy in Employment Law (BNA, 2nd ed., 2003); and the award-winning The Case for Tenure (Cornell, 1996).
He has also authored an extensive body of scholarly periodical publications in labor and employment law, higher education law, and comparative law. In 1997, Professor Finkin assumed the General Editorship of the Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal. He also serves as Senior Editor of the Bureau of National Affairs Series, International Labor & Employment Laws, as a member of the Commerce Clearing House’s Panel of Labor Law Experts, and on the editorial boards of several journals. In 2004, he was elected as a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.Over his career, Professor
Finkin has lectured widely in the United States, Asia, and Europe, and is active as a labor arbitrator. He has served the American Association of University Professors as General Counsel (1976-78) and as Chairman of its Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (1980-90). He is a member of the Governing Board of the Institute for Labor Law and Labor Relations in the European Community in Trier, Germany.
The College’s Program in Law and Philosophy is co-directed by Dean and David C. Baum Professor Heidi M. Hurd, and Charles R. Walgreen Chair Michael S. Moore, both internationally known scholars on topics at the intersections of law and philosophy.
The primary mission of the Law and Philosophy Program is to advance knowledge on legal topics on philosophical significance, particularly those legal topics that implicate moral and political issues.
The Law and Philosophy Program seeks to educate both faculty members and students on the philosophical implications of various legal topics, introduce them to some of the literature and arguments on those topics, and expose them to major international scholars who work on the topics.
University of Illinois Law Review The Elder Law Journal Journal of Law, Technology & Policy Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal Law and Philosophy
Nearly 10,000 College of Law alumni located across the country and around the world provide a solid base of support for the school and a network of potential employers for students. College of Law alumni provide nearly $7.5 million in support for student scholarships with alumni support for the annual fund growing by more than 20% in the last year. College of Law alumni and students have collaborated on the innovative Loan Repayment Assistance Program and events such as the Alumni-Student Career Conference, Homecoming, and the Black Law Student Association reunions.
Illinois Law provides a rigorous course of study, engaging and receptive faculty, and an active and diverse student body. Students come from 44 states, 15 countries, and more than 190 undergraduate institutions, with 40% of the student body coming from outside Illinois. More than a third of the student body are people of color, by far the highest percentage among Big Ten Conference and Illinois law schools.
The diversity of the student body is evident in more than 50 active student organizations, based on interests and backgrounds including scholarly, service-oriented, social, political, ethnic, religious and societal issues. The College of Law ranks in the nation’s Top 5 (tied with Harvard and Chicago) with an Employment Rate of 99.5% within nine months of graduation and among the nation’s top 20 in Bar Passage Rate (92%, July, 2005). More than 60% of recent graduates entered private practice, 20% entered government or public service organizations or took judicial clerkships, and the rest went into business or academics.
The University of Illinois and the larger Champaign-Urbana community offer exceptional arts, music, entertainment, Big Ten Conference athletics, a lively nightlife, and one of the nation’s most diverse and international campuses.
Median LSAT 166 Median GPA 3.50/4.0 28 states, 109 undergraduate institutions Students of color 35% Enrolled 186 Non-Illinois residents 42%
Employment Rate (within 9 months) 99.5% Private Law Firms 63% Government and public interest 13% Judicial clerkships 7% Business/Corporations 14% Academic 2% In-state Employment 67% Out-of-state Employment 33% (including cities such as Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and St. Louis)
LLM Student Profile 26 students from 15 countries
The University of Illinois College of Law was ranked 25th among the nation's "Top 100 Law Schools" in the 2008 publication of U.S. News & World Report. In 2005, Brian Leiter ranked the school 1st for hiring high-profile lateral faculty. The faculty ranks No. 7 in the nation in per-faculty publications and No. 9 overall in productivity. In 2006, Illinois ranked #1 in the nation for achieving the greatest improvement in its student credentials in a single year. And, Illinois remains #1 in the Big Ten Conference and within the state of Illinois for the diversity of its student population with 36.8% of its student body composed of students of color. Illinois also ranks 5th in the nation for the percentage of graduates employed within nine months of graduation, and it placed #17 in a recent ranking of law schools by the number of students hired by the nation's Top-50 law firms. [1]