At the College of Law, you will learn from some of the nation's most impressive scholars. They are women and men with
international reputations in legal academia who still find time to go to lunch with students. They have published numerous
casebooks and articles in the finest law reviews about cutting-edge legal topics but still spend countless hours preparing for
class, keeping their lectures as current as the day's news.
That's what makes the faculty at the College of Law extraordinary. They've clerked for United States Supreme Court justices.
They've testified before Congress about legal issues facing the nation. They've helped developing countries write their constitutions
and commercial codes. You might have seen them on national television, heard them on National Public Radio, or
read about them in The New York Times. But they still believe that leaving their doors open for students is an important part
of their job.
The College specializes in subjects such as Business and Commercial Law, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure,
Employment Law, Environmental Law, Intellectual Property Law, International and Comparative Law, Public Interest Law,
and 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 nearly 20 new tenure-track and tenured faculty joining the College in the last five 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. In the last 12 months, the Illinois faculty has produced 38 books on a wide variety of legal topics.
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 17 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 of 3,000 faculty.
