College of Law | University of Illinois

On Tuesday, May 14, Professor Eric Freyfogle was invested as a Swanlund Chair, the highest endowed title bestowed upon faculty at the Urbana-Champaign campus. 

More

Professor John Colombo argues for the elimination of  501(c)(4) organizations. The problem with the (c)(4) designation, he writes, is that it is essentially a charity that is permitted to engage in unlimited lobbying and some significant amount of political campaign activity (as long as that activity isn’t the organization’s “primary purpose”) in exchange for denying the organization the ability to receive deductible charitable contributions.

More at NYT

The National Bankruptcy Conference (NBC) has elected Professor Robert Lawless to membership in the Conference as conferee. The NBC is a non-profit, non-partisan, self-supporting organization of approximately 60 lawyers, law professors, and bankruptcy judges whose primary purpose is to advise Congress on the operation of bankruptcy and related laws and any proposed changes to those laws. The NBC has been a resource to Congress on every significant piece of bankruptcy legislation since that time.

More

Professor Jennifer Robbennolt has been honored with two College of Law annual awards: the Wayne LaFave Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship and the John E. Cribbet Excellence in Teaching Award.

More

Professor Richard Ross has been awarded the College of Law’s Carroll P. Hurd Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship for his article, “Distinguishing Eternal from Transient Law: Natural Law and the Judicial Law of Moses.” 

Given to the most outstanding piece of faculty scholarship published in the previous year, the award was established in 2002 by Heidi Hurd, the David C. Baum Professor of Law, and Michael Moore, the Charles R. Walgreen, Jr. Chair.

More

Michael L. Tipsord (’84), vice chairman and chief operating officer of the State Farm Insurance Companies, will deliver the 2013 College of Law Convocation Address.

More

U.S. law schools currently operate at a time of great challenge and great opportunity. Dean Bruce Smith’s 2013 State of the College Address, shared at the Annual Alumni Luncheon in Chicago on April 18, describe the College's operating landscape, our initiatives, and our plan for the future.

Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Colin Stirling Bruce (’89) to serve on the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. Colin Stirling Bruce currently serves as the first assistant United States attorney in the Central District of Illinois, a position he has held since 2010. He received his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Illinois.

More

As part of its vision to drive innovation and collaboration in the legal profession through lifelong education and career development, the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) has named Stacey Kielbasa (’99) their president for the coming term. As NALP’s president, Stacey will serve as the chief volunteer leader of the organization. “The legal field is constantly changing and looking for new ways to evolve and become more inclusive,” says Kielbasa. “Taking on this role allows me to take part in - and be a driving force in - those changes.”

More

All graduates of the University of Illinois College of law, James Evans (’62), John Gadau, (‘67), Tom Harrington (’55), Lott Thomas ('62), and Carl Webber ('73) have been honored as "Pillars of the Bar." The recognition is bestowed by members of the Champaign County Bar Association, and this is the fourth class to be so named.

More

The Law Firm Challenge is well under way, and the College of Law would like to congratulate our Pacesetter Firms! Follow the link to learn which firms reached 100% participation in the Law Firm Challenge by March 31, 2013. 

More

Marianne Jackson (’73), associate judge for the Juvenile Justice Division, Circuit Court of Cook County, has been honored with the 2013 James A. Seaberry Award for Excellence by the University of Illinois College of Law Black Law Students Association (BLSA). She will be recognized for her achievement by Dean Bruce Smith at the 20^th Annual BLSA Alumni Banquet, scheduled for March 2 at the Millennium Knickerbocker Chicago Hotel.

More

Professor Eric Freyfogle has been named a Swanlund Chair, the highest endowed title bestowed upon faculty at the Urbana campus. The Swanlund Chair is named for alumna Maybelle Leland Swanlund, and was established to attract leaders in the arts and sciences to the University and recognize current faculty members who have made exceptional contributions in their fields.

University of Illinois News Bureau

The 2012 Vacketta-DLA Piper Lecture featured Jeffrey Davidow, former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Venezuela, and Zambia; and Senior Counselor at The Cohen Group. In his talk, Ambassador Davidow explored the complexity of the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico and how important the ties are for both countries.

Listen to his talk, titled "The Complicated but Vital Relationship: The U.S. and Mexico" 

2L Isabel Freitas Peres was recently awarded a Lemann Graduate Fellowship. As part of her fellowship, Isabel will develop a research project to determine whether Brazil would be a successful candidate to benefit from the issuance of diaspora bonds. Congratulations on this exciting achievement!

Newlyweds Erin Cox (’12) and Rachel Halfpap (’11) are serving as clerks for federal judges in the Central District of Illinois. A federal clerkship is one of the most highly sought positions for recent law school graduates. In the fiscal year 2011 (the most recent statistics available), only about 2 percent of applicants were selected for clerkships with federal judges. And to have a married couple both selected for clerkships in the same district is rarified air, indeed.

More

Please join with us in congratulating the 12 students and their coaches on the College of Law's Phi Alpha Delta (PAD) Mock Trial Team for their strong performances at PAD's National Trial Competition on March 8-9. The College of Law sent three teams of four students--all 1Ls--to compete against 30 teams of mostly 2Ls and 3Ls from around the country.

More

Please join the College in congratulating Anthony DeLaPaz who was recently selected as a recipient of the 2013 Ward F. McDonald Scholarship. Now in its third year, the scholarship was created in honor of Professor Ward McDonald through the generosity of friends and Professor McDonald himself. It is awarded to a 3L student who has displayed a strong commitment and intent to pursue a career in real estate law.

Illinois Law's Elder Law Journal, which recently published its 20^th volume, ranked 3^rd among tax journals in Washington and Lee’s annual law review rankings. The rankings are based on citations to articles published in 2005-12. 

The Journal's faculty advisor, Professor Richard L. Kaplan, said that "this ranking is especially remarkable because The Elder Law Journal does not regularly publish tax articles but clearly chooses extremely high quality work when it does so."

During intersession, Professors Heidi Hurd, David Hyman, and Arden Rowell led 21 law students to Costa Rica for a study abroad experience dedicated to exploring the environmental and human impact of Costa Rica’s efforts to eradicate poverty through economic development, and the ways in which environmental law and policy can guide sustainable future practices. 

Pictures from the study abroad

Michael L. Tipsord (’84), vice chairman and chief operating officer of the State Farm Insurance Companies, will deliver the 2013 College of Law Convocation Address.

More

Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Colin Stirling Bruce (’89) to serve on the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. Colin Stirling Bruce currently serves as the first assistant United States attorney in the Central District of Illinois, a position he has held since 2010. He received his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Illinois.

More

As part of its vision to drive innovation and collaboration in the legal profession through lifelong education and career development, the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) has named Stacey Kielbasa (’99) their president for the coming term. As NALP’s president, Stacey will serve as the chief volunteer leader of the organization. “The legal field is constantly changing and looking for new ways to evolve and become more inclusive,” says Kielbasa. “Taking on this role allows me to take part in - and be a driving force in - those changes.”

More

All graduates of the University of Illinois College of law, James Evans (’62), John Gadau, (‘67), Tom Harrington (’55), Lott Thomas ('62), and Carl Webber ('73) have been honored as "Pillars of the Bar." The recognition is bestowed by members of the Champaign County Bar Association, and this is the fourth class to be so named.

More

The Law Firm Challenge is well under way, and the College of Law would like to congratulate our Pacesetter Firms! Follow the link to learn which firms reached 100% participation in the Law Firm Challenge by March 31, 2013. 

More

Newlyweds Erin Cox (’12) and Rachel Halfpap (’11) are serving as clerks for federal judges in the Central District of Illinois. A federal clerkship is one of the most highly sought positions for recent law school graduates. In the fiscal year 2011 (the most recent statistics available), only about 2 percent of applicants were selected for clerkships with federal judges. And to have a married couple both selected for clerkships in the same district is rarified air, indeed.

More

The National Law Journal has named Fred H. Bartlit, Jr. (’60) in its list of 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America. Bartlit, one of the “7 over 70: Lions of the Trial Bar,” is a founding partner of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP.

More

Jennifer Brown (‘85) has been named dean of Quinnipiac University School of Law, effective July 1, 2013. Brown has taught at Quinnipiac since 1994, and she currently is the Carmen Tortora Professor of Law.

Philip J. McConnaughay (’78), dean of Penn State's Dickinson School of Law and founding dean of Penn State's School of International Affairs, has taken a position as dean of Peking University’s School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China. His new appointment is effective August 1, 2013. 

More

Marianne Jackson (’73), associate judge for the Juvenile Justice Division, Circuit Court of Cook County, has been honored with the 2013 James A. Seaberry Award for Excellence by the University of Illinois College of Law Black Law Students Association (BLSA). She will be recognized for her achievement by Dean Bruce Smith at the 20^th Annual BLSA Alumni Banquet, scheduled for March 2 at the Millennium Knickerbocker Chicago Hotel.

More

On Tuesday, May 14, Professor Eric Freyfogle was invested as a Swanlund Chair, the highest endowed title bestowed upon faculty at the Urbana-Champaign campus. 

More

Professor John Colombo argues for the elimination of  501(c)(4) organizations. The problem with the (c)(4) designation, he writes, is that it is essentially a charity that is permitted to engage in unlimited lobbying and some significant amount of political campaign activity (as long as that activity isn’t the organization’s “primary purpose”) in exchange for denying the organization the ability to receive deductible charitable contributions.

More at NYT

The National Bankruptcy Conference (NBC) has elected Professor Robert Lawless to membership in the Conference as conferee. The NBC is a non-profit, non-partisan, self-supporting organization of approximately 60 lawyers, law professors, and bankruptcy judges whose primary purpose is to advise Congress on the operation of bankruptcy and related laws and any proposed changes to those laws. The NBC has been a resource to Congress on every significant piece of bankruptcy legislation since that time.

More

Professor Jennifer Robbennolt has been honored with two College of Law annual awards: the Wayne LaFave Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship and the John E. Cribbet Excellence in Teaching Award.

More

Professor Richard Ross has been awarded the College of Law’s Carroll P. Hurd Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship for his article, “Distinguishing Eternal from Transient Law: Natural Law and the Judicial Law of Moses.” 

Given to the most outstanding piece of faculty scholarship published in the previous year, the award was established in 2002 by Heidi Hurd, the David C. Baum Professor of Law, and Michael Moore, the Charles R. Walgreen, Jr. Chair.

More

John D. Colombo, the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor of Law, and Laurie Reynolds, the Prentice H. Marshall Professor of Law, weigh in on the constitutionality of the pension reform efforts under consideration in the Illinois Legislature. 

“Whether [the Nekritz-Biss-Cross] bill is constitutional depends on how the Illinois courts interpret the constitutional language. … There are two possibilities. The first is [if these are] … the terms of a “contract” between the employees and the state, then the state cannot change the terms of that contract unilaterally in a manner that “reduces or impairs” the promised benefit. … The other interpretive path is that no provision of any constitution is absolute, no matter how absolute its language.”

More at Illinois News Bureau

Adjunct Professor and Assistant State’s Attorney Christopher Kanis passed away on March 21. Kanis served as the assistant state's attorney in the Office of the Champaign County State's Attorney since January 2005, prosecuting traffic, misdemeanor, and felony cases and trying more than 20 cases to jury as sole counsel. At the College of Law, he taught the Appellate Prosecutor class. 

Our thoughts are with Kanis’ family during this difficult time.

The News Gazette Article

 According to research from Arden Rowell and Jessica Bregant, there is a “highly significant relationship” between law students’ math skills and the substance of their legal analysis, suggesting that legal analysis – and by extension, legal advice – may vary with a laywer’s native math skills. 

More at Illinois News Bureau

Although they share some important similarities, religious organizations, such as churches, that file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection differ from small business debtors in two significant ways – they seek to preserve the “going-concern value” of the organizations themselves, and their members are more integral to their successful reorganizations, says a new study by Professor Pamela Foohey. Between 2006 and 2011, faith-based institutions in the U.S. filed more than 500 petitions under Chapter 11.

More at Illinois News Bureau

The outcome in the U.S. Supreme Court case challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act could have complicated tax consequences for same-sex couples, says Professor Richard L. Kaplan, an expert on taxation and retirement issues. “Marital status is implicated in more than 1,100 separate federal provisions, including more than 200 provisions in the tax code alone,” said Kaplan.

More at Illinois News Bureau 
Politico.com coverage

Professor Daniel W. Hamilton has been selected as the third dean  of the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Professor Hamilton, who has been serving as the College of Law's associate dean for faculty development since 2012 and a professor of law and history since 2008, will start at UNLV July 1, 2013.

More

Professor Richard Kaplan spoke with Card Hub, an online credit card resource, about the causes and implications of rising credit card debt among Americans approaching retirement and the penalties for taking Social Security early.

"There’s no doubt that if they’re saving for retirement, the very best investment they could make – one that would return as much as perhaps 18% a year – would be to get rid of any credit card debt.  … That should be sort of mission No. 1: Pay down the credit card debt so that you’re not paying these ridiculously high interest rates."

More at cardhub.com

Professor Jay Kesan is an investigator on a project with the University of Illinois' Coordinated Science Laboratory that will develop undergraduate curriculum in digital forensics, which enables the recovery and analysis of data in digital devices. It's an area in which there's a major shortage of skilled workers. The project is being funded by a grant awarded from the National Science Foundation.

Learn more about the project

Professors Robert Lawless and Jennifer Robbennolt’s recent study on apologies in bankruptcy cases is featured in the Wall Street Journal online edition. The study tested 137 bankruptcy judges to see whether they were more likely to approve a repayment plan if the debtors apologized. The study determined that 40.6% of judges who heard an apology approved the plan compared with 34.4% of judges who approved plans submitted without an apology. “Our findings suggest, perhaps not surprisingly, that judges’ decisions can be complex and multidimensional,” the professors wrote. “Law matters, but so do other things.” 

WSJ article
Full paper on SSRN

Professor Eric Freyfogle has been named a Swanlund Chair, the highest endowed title bestowed upon faculty at the Urbana campus. The Swanlund Chair is named for alumna Maybelle Leland Swanlund, and was established to attract leaders in the arts and sciences to the University and recognize current faculty members who have made exceptional contributions in their fields.

University of Illinois News Bureau

The National Bankruptcy Conference (NBC) has elected Professor Robert Lawless to membership in the Conference as conferee. 

The NBC is a non-profit, non-partisan, self-supporting organization of approximately 60 lawyers, law professors, and bankruptcy judges whose primary purpose is to advise Congress on the operation of bankruptcy and related laws and any proposed changes to those laws. The NBC has been a resource to Congress on every significant piece of bankruptcy legislation since that time.

Professor Suja Thomas was cited by the Missouri Supreme Court in Sarah Badahman v. Catering St. Louis. The Seventh Amendment, Modern Procedure, and the English Common Law, 82 Wash. U.L.Q. 687, 743 (2004).

On Friday, April 12, 2013, Professor Jay P. Kesan presented his paper, "FRAND's Forever: Standards, Patent Transfers, and Licensing Commitments" at the PatCon 3 Conference at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

On Friday, April 12, 2013, Professor Melissa Wasserman presented her paper, "Do Agency's Delay Costly Obligations?:  Empirical Evidence from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office" at the PatCon 3 Conference at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Professor Winship presented her article "Aligning Law and Forum" at the Washington University School of Law faculty workshop.

Professor Nuno Garoupa and co-author Carlos Gómez Ligüerre published "The Evolution of the Common Law and Efficiency" in the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law. 40 Ga. J. Int'l & Comp. L. 307 (2013).

Visiting Assistant Professor Jud Mathews spoke on the "Comparative Constitutions" panel at the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) conference in Chicago. The MPSA conference is the largest annual gathering of political scientists in the United States.  

Professor Patrick Keenan published "The Future of the Guiding Principles" in the American Society of International Law Proceedings. 105 Am. Soc'y Int'l L. Proc. 301 (2013).

Professor Paul Heald was named the Herbert Smith Visitor and Affiliated Lecturer, Cambridge University, Spring 2013.

Professor Dara E. Purvis published “The Progression of Legal Acknowledgement of Families Created by Assisted Reproductive Technologies” in the Timely Tech online companion to the Journal of Law, Technology & Policy at the University of Illinois College of Law.

Professor Ralph Brubaker published "Artificial Impairment and the Single-Asset Real Estate Debtor" in Bankruptcy Law Letter. 33 No. 4 Bankruptcy Law Letter 1 (2013).

Professor Paul Heald with give the presentation, "Veggie Tales: Pernicious Myths about Patents, Innovation, and Crop Diversity in the Twentieth Century," Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, [November, 2013]

Professor Robin Kar presented his work on the "Psychological Foundations of Law" to the Georgia State Departments of Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience as well as a newly revised version of "Contractualism about Contract Law” at Georgia State Law School.

Professor David Hyman and co-author William E. Kovacic published "Institutional Design, Agency Life Cycle, and the Goals of Competition Law" in the Fordham Law Review. 81 Fordham L. Rev. 2163 (2013).

Professor Richard Kaplan published "Reforming the Taxation of Retirement Income" in the Virginia Tax Review. 32 Va. Tax Rev. 327 (2013).

Professor Robin Kar was named President of SEAL (Society for the Evolutionary Analysis of Law). SEAL is an international scholarly association dedicated to fostering interdisciplinary exploration of issues at the intersection of law, biology, and evolutionary theory, improving the models of human behavior relevant to law, and promoting the integration of life science and social science perspectives on law-relevant topics through scholarship, teaching, and empirical research. Professor Kar is also the current chair of the AALS Section on Jurisprudence.

Professor David Hyman published "Something Went Wrong on the Way to the Courthouse" in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law. 38 J. Health Pol. Pol'y & L. 243 (2013).

Professor Matthew Finkin published "An Excursion Through Strange Terrain: Chapters 6 (Defamation) and 7 (Privacy and Autonomy)" in the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal. 16 Employee Rts. & Emp. Pol'y J. 465 (2013).