News featuring a faculty member
Professor Robin Kar recently published a co-authored article in CHI, the #1 journal for Human-Computer Interaction. The article, “Living Contracts: Beyond Document-Centric Interaction with Legal Agreements,” explores a future where contracts educate users on legal rights not in the contract, transform legal language to help understanding, and proactively supply contractual information as needed; the authors refer to these interfaces as living contracts.
“You can imagine some really drastic scenarios in which, for example, federal officers think that there’s some funny business going on, and they decide to seize ballots or make arrests. That would be tremendously disruptive of the midterm elections,” Professor Jason Mazzone told ABC 7 while discussing a hypothetical future in which Department of Justice election monitors cause more trouble than they prevent. His remarks came as part of a segment on the Trump administration’s plans to deploy monitors during the midterm election.
Recently, several states have enacted laws to provide redress in state courts for persons who have suffered violations of federal constitutional rights at the hands of federal officials. A new version of this law, from California, avoids some of the mistakes of previous efforts in states like Illinois, as Professors Jason Mazzone and Vikram Amar write in an article on Justia Verdict. However, the law includes an “unhelpful blend of the serious and the theatrical, in which the latter often obscures the former and thus distracts from what should be a careful and civil conversation about helpful legal innovations that actually might matter.”
In the Summer/Fall 2026 issue of “The Learning Curve,” published by AALS, Professor Michael Loch shared an article on how to increase focus on how students learn. Centered around Hermann Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve, the article details why individuals forget things and how law schools can help their students overcome the nature of forgetting to maximize success.
In the search for new means of sustainability in agriculture, genome-edited microbes represent a promising tool. In a new paper, Professor Jacob Sherkow investigates the regulatory issues and differences between the US and EU approaches, including recent EU legislation. The article suggests that there are lessons to be learned on both sides and provides recommendations for future regulations.
Tom Ulen, research professor and Swanlund Chair Emeritus at the University of Illinois College of Law, passed away on September 13, 2026. He was 79.
A towering scholarly figure, Tom joined the University in the late 1970s, beginning an association with Illinois that would span nearly half a century. He held the Swanlund Chair, one of the University’s highest endowed faculty honors, and directed the College’s Program in Law and Economics. A prolific and internationally influential scholar, he helped shape modern law and economics. His co-authored textbook, Law and Economics, became a leading work in the discipline and was translated into numerous languages. He served on the founding board of directors of the American Law and Economics Association, taught and lectured around the world, and received an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven in recognition of his scholarly contributions.
In a message to the College of Law community, Dean Jamelle Sharpe shared the following sentiments:
“For all that Tom accomplished over his remarkable career, what I—and, I know, so many others—will remember most is his humor, kindness, and humanity. A beloved colleague for decades, he brought unmistakable warmth and good humor to the College, along with a genuine interest in others and boundless generosity of spirit and intellect. That generosity endured long after his retirement. Tom remained engaged with the College’s intellectual and personal life, sharing ideas, encouragement, laughter, and friendship with so many of us. His presence was a blessing to this community, and I know that many colleagues, former students, and friends around the world will feel his loss deeply.”
Memorial services will be held in Champaign in the coming weeks. Read the full obituary at legacy.com.
The Iowa Law Review Symposium, “Philosophy at Trial,” will discuss the philosophical issues at the heart of recent Supreme Court jurisprudence on September 17, 2026. The University of Illinois College of Law will be well represented at the event, with three faculty members and a JSD student taking part. Mohammad Khalilzadeh, a JSD student, will be one of the moderators of the symposium; Professors Heidi Hurd and Michael Moore will speak on the first panel on State Power and Legitimacy; and Professor Bill Watson will speak on the final panel on Interpretation and Legal Content.
In his latest piece of scholarship, Professor Jason Mazzone reckons with the fallout from the case of SEC v. Jarkesy, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024. Because of the Court’s opinion, Mazzone writes “there are likely to be very few such claims ever decided by juries. Indeed, there are likely to be few such cases that make it to court at all.”
Most people think about bankruptcy the wrong way, NPR’s Planet Money argues. To support their argument, hosts Stephan Bisaha and Adrian Ma had Professor Robert Lawless on to provide his expertise. “It’s the solution to the problem, right? If, you know, the financial distress is disease, bankruptcy’s the hospital,” Lawless told the hosts.
The University of Illinois College of Law is pleased to welcome 10 new faculty members to our roster this fall.
Joining as an assistant professor of law and Richard W. & Marie L. Corman Scholar, Chan Tov McNamarah comes to Illinois from Cornell Law School, where they were a visiting assistant professor. A scholar of antidiscrimination theory and constitutional law, McNamarah studies the nature of discrimination, the purposes of its legal regulation, and the structure of legal arguments used to justify status-based inequality. Their work has been published in several top journals, selected for presentation at leading conferences, and twice been honored by the Dukeminier Awards for best legal scholarship on gender and sexual orientation. Before entering academia, McNamarah worked as a litigation associate in the New York and Sao Paulo offices of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, focusing on white collar defense and government investigations.
Also joining the faculty as an assistant professor of law and Richard W. & Marie L. Corman Scholar, Thomas Rousse will use his nontraditional background—including an MSc. in Games Analysis and Design at IT University of Copenhagen, where he produced and designed the award-winning arcade game LAZA KNITEZ!! as part of the Glitchnap studio, as well as work as a games critic and journalist—in teaching and writing about intellectual property, contracts, and the law of creative industries, focusing on video games and new media. Rousse also brings experience in intellectual property litigation and intellectual property strategy and land use disputes.
Fermín Méndez joins Illinois Law as a clinical professor of law and director of our new Innovation & Entrepreneurship Clinic. An expert on corporate law and securities law, Méndez previously directed the Community Economic Development Clinic at Albany Law School and co-taught the Entrepreneurship Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School. Méndez earned his JD from the University of Michigan Law School and AB from Harvard University. He also wrestled for Harvard’s D1 Varsity Wrestling Team and works to increase equitable access to the sport for women, girls, and communities of color.
Heather Beard joins the University of Illinois College of Law as a teaching assistant professor in the legal writing program. She is a double Illini, earning both her BA and JD with honors from the University prior to more than 20 years in federal appellate practice. In her role as senior attorney in the Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Branch of the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Beard briefed and argued labor law cases before the U.S. Courts of Appeals and advised on Supreme Court litigation.
Joining the Kimball R. and Karen Gatsis Anderson Center for Advocacy and Professionalism as assistant director is Kelsey Myers. She comes to Illinois Law from North Carolina, where she worked as a trial attorney and gained experience with Chief Justice Beasley of the North Carolina Supreme Court, working in civil litigation focusing on construction defects and medical malpractice, and defending in criminal defense. As a lecturer, Myers will be teaching courses in foundational and advanced trial advocacy and coaching our competitive trial teams.
Alicia Uribe-McGuire joins the College of Law as a lecturer. She will be teaching as part of our legal studies minor and serving as an advisor to our undergraduate students. Her research interests focus on American political institutions, with a particular emphasis on the United States Judiciary and the intersection between the judiciary and other political actors or bodies.
Zachary Boyce and Steve Richardson both join the Law Library as teaching assistant professors. Boyce will teach the first-year Legal Research course as well as Advanced Legal Research. His research interests primarily lie at the intersection between Legal History, Book History, and Print Culture, with a particular focus on the materiality and social construction of legal authority. Richardson is a reference librarian and will be teaching Legal Research. He has previously worked in the non-profit sector practicing in the field of immigration law.
In addition to these full-time faculty members, the College also extends a warm welcome to the following visiting faculty.
Jason Bent is a visiting professor who currently serves as professor of law and director of the Martin H. Malin Institute for Law and the Workplace at Chicago-Kent School of Law. At Illinois, Bent will teach Civil Procedure and brings experience in employment discrimination law and worker safety regulation. Prior to teaching, he served as judicial clerk to Judge Cornelia Kennedy at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and Judge Joan B. Gottschall at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and was a litigator in private practice in Chicago.
Brendan Gilligan joins the College of Law as the Stanton Fellow at the First Amendment Clinic and a visiting lecturer. Previously, Gilligan was a legal fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where he worked on digital speech, surveillance, and transparency issues. He also represented individuals charged with federal criminal offenses as a Deputy Federal Public Defender in the Central District of California.
On behalf of everyone at the College of Law, we are proud to have these individuals join our faculty and extend a warm welcome to our campus.