Verity Winship

Professor of Law

About

Professor Verity Winship is an expert in business law and complex litigation. Her research focuses on corporate litigation, securities enforcement, and disputes that cross legal systems. She is also the co-author of award-winning empirical work on settlement of legal disputes.

Professor Winship’s articles have appeared in such journals as Vanderbilt Law ReviewBoston University Law Review, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, and Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation. She co-edited Research Handbook on Representative Shareholder Litigation, published by Elgar, and has been a regular contributor to JOTWELL and a frequent commentator on Illinois Public Radio’s “Legal Issues in the News.”

Professor Winship has twice been awarded the Carroll P. Hurd Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship. Her work has also been selected for the Mangano Dispute Resolution Advancement Award (with Illinois colleague Jennifer K. Robbennolt) and the Hugh L. Carey Center’s Dispute Resolution Advancement Award (with Jennifer K. Robbennolt and Jessica Bregant). Professor Winship is the recipient of multiple grants, including as a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation Rapid Grant.

Professor Winship co-founded and co-organizes the Corporate and Securities Litigation Workshop, an annual conference running for more than a decade that connects national and international scholars working in this legal area.

Professor Winship has held multiple leadership positions at the University of Illinois and in the broader legal academy. She has served as the Interim Dean of the College of Law and the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Beyond the law school, she was a fellow in the Academic Leadership Program in the Big Ten Academic Alliance and chaired the Securities Regulation section of the American Association of Law Schools.

Professor Winship is an honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where she served as an executive editor of Harvard Law Review. After graduating, she clerked for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and for Judge Marjorie O. Rendell, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She practiced law with WilmerHale in New York City in the area of securities enforcement and litigation, and is a member of the New York Bar.

Professor Winship began her academic career as a visiting assistant professor at Fordham and Cardozo law schools. In 2010, she joined the University of Illinois College of Law faculty.

Education

BA, JD Harvard University

Areas of Expertise

Civil Procedure
Complex Litigation
Corporate Law
Securities Litigation and Enforcement
Securities Regulation
State-Federal Relations

Courses

Business Associations I
Civil Procedure
International Comp Aspects of Corp Law
Law Teaching Practicum
Law, Behavior & Social Science
Securities Litigation
Securities Regulation

Selected Publications

Corporate & Securities Law

Unicorn Shareholder Suits, Indiana L. J. (2024-2025).

Private Company Fraud, 54 UC Davis Law Review 663 (2020).

Enforcement Networks, 37 Yale J. on Regulation 274 (2020).

Co-Editor, Elgar Research Handbook on Representative Shareholder Litigation (2018) (with Jessica Erickson, Sean Griffith, & David Webber).

Shareholder Litigation by Contract, 96 Boston University Law Rev. 481 (2016).

Cooperative Interbranch Federalism: Certification of State-Law Questions by Federal Agencies, 63 Vanderbilt L. Rev. 181 (2010).

Fair Funds and the SEC’s Compensation of Injured Investors, 60 Fla. L. Rev. 1103 (2008).

Settlement of Legal Disputes

Settlementality (with Jessica Bregant & Jennifer K. Robbennolt).

Settlement Schemas: How Laypeople Understand Civil Settlement, 20 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 488 (2023) (with Jessica Bregant & Jennifer K. Robbennolt).

Perceptions of Settlement (with Jessica Bregant & Jennifer K. Robbennolt), 27 Harvard Negotiation L. Rev. 93 (2021).

An Empirical Study of Admissions in SEC Settlements, 60 Ariz. L. Rev. 1 (2018)
(with Jennifer K. Robbennolt).

See All Publications

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