University of Illinois College of Law

About

Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law. Professor Wilson co-directs and founded the College of Law’s Family Law and Policy Program and co-directs its Epstein Health Law and Policy Program. She specializes in family law and health law, and her research and teaching interests also include biomedical ethics, law and religion, children and violence, and law and science.

Professor Wilson is the author of twenty books, including her most recent book, International Survey of Family Law, (Intersentia, 2022, with University of Minnesota Professor June Carbone). Her other books include: Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press; The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); and The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.). She is also the co-author of a leading case book in domestic relations, Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 9th edition (Foundation Press, 2021 with the late Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien) and a treatise, Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Professor Wilson’s book-length examination on the Medicalization of Poverty (with Lois Shepherd and David Shi) was published in China in 2021.

In 2019, Professor Wilson was named to the Fulbright Specialist Roster by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and World Learning for work on Civil Rights Complementarity. Professor Wilson served as a Fulbright Specialist in the United Kingdom in the spring of 2022, as the IHSS Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, and as Plumer Fellow at St. Anne’s College, Oxford University. Professor Wilson has ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact in each ranking done by the Leiter Report since 2010. She has ranked among the top 10% of authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals; lower federal courts; and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington. Professor Wilson was also honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration in 2018. 

Professor Wilson has been a member of the American Law Institute (ALI) since 2009. She is a member of the International Society of Family Law (ISFL) and has served on the ISFL’s Executive Council since 2014. She was elected a Vice President of the ISFL in 2020. Professor Wilson was a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department, assisting them to create a parallel court system for the adjudication of family law matters by expatriates using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions. She is the past chair of the Law and Religion section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), the AALS’ Section on Family and Juvenile Law, and the AALS’ Section on Law, Medicine & Healthcare.

Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state law reform efforts. She is the architect or advisor on more than three dozen laws across the United States. She has been honored three times by the Utah State Senate for her work on anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2015, she received one of the signing pens for work on Utah’s landmark LGBT nondiscrimination laws. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square. Her work in 2022 on the federal “Respect for Marriage” Act, hailed as “arguably the biggest win for LGBTQ rights” since 2010, was acknowledged in the Congressional Record. She was invited to attend the bill signing ceremony of the Respect for Marriage Act at the White House.

Professor Wilson is the founder and directs the Fairness for All Initiative, which seeks to provide tangible support and advice to thought-leaders, stakeholders, policymakers, and state and local legislators who seek balanced approaches that respect both LGBT rights and religious freedom. The Fairness for All Initiative is made possible by the generous support of the Templeton Religion Trust. Professor Wilson is the founder and director of the Tolerance Means Dialogues, a gift-supported effort to generate dialogue around deeply contested questions in civil society. She is joined in that effort by prominent gay rights leaders and sitting legislators.

Professor Wilson holds appointments at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine in the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences and the University of Illinois College of Medicine Urbana-Champaign in the Department of Pathology. Professor Wilson is a co-investigator with researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the National Center for State Courts on access to justice during the COVID-19 pandemic, with an in-depth study of racial disparities. Professor Wilson is a co-principal investigator with faculty at the University of Illinois College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES) on a project supported by the National Science Foundation examining “Family Court Decisions About Child Custody in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence.”  She has served as a co-investigator on a MacArthur-funded study of Community Health Workers as Citizen Scientists.

Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, The Guardian and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Peru, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.

Prior to joining the University of Illinois College of Law, Professor Wilson was the Class of 1958 Law Alumni Professor of Law at Washington & Lee School of Law, where she was named Professor of the Year by the Women Law Students Organization. A graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, Professor Wilson clerked for The Honorable E. Grady Jolly on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and practiced at Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP and Mayor, Day, Caldwell & Keeton, LLP.

Education

BA, JD University of Virginia

Areas of Expertise

Biomedical Ethics
Children and the Law
Civil Rights
Family Law
Health Law
Insurance Law
Religious Liberty