News

Dear Colleagues,

As we begin this new year together, I am writing to share a few updates on our outstanding new faculty and students, faculty accomplishments, student success, and innovative new programs. I am excited for all we will build together in the year to come.

Best,
Hari

Welcoming New Faculty and Students

Outstanding New Faculty Hires

This fall, Northwestern Pritzker Law welcomed a number of outstanding faculty hires: Professors Molly Brownfield, Kristina DeGuzman, Monica Haymond, Kara Ingelhart, Andrea Lewis Hartung, Priyanka Motaparthy, Eric Sirota, and our inaugural Marti Family Fellow Priyanka Goonetilleke. Their scholarship and teaching has already made an enormous impact on our community. The Law School is in the midst of recruiting for Fall 2025 and is thrilled to provide the update that Professors Myriam Gilles, Jill Horwitz, and Chika Okafor will join our community this coming academic year. More »

Incoming Class Continues Tradition of Excellence

The JD students in our entering class in Fall 2024 had our highest combined median LSAT (172) and GPA (3.95) in the history of the school, our highest percentage of first-generation college students (23%), and our most diverse class (54% people of color). Also, 53% of the class are women, and 85% arrived after at least a year of post-undergraduate experience. More »

Recent Faculty Books

Steven G. Calabresi, Clayton J. & Henry R. Barber Professor of Law:
The Meese Revolution: The Making of a Constitutional Moment
(Encounter Books, November 2024)

Ari Glogower, Professor of Law, Associate Dean of Curriculum:
Untaxed: The Rich, the IRS, and a New Approach to Tax Compliance
(Cambridge University Press, November 2024)

Monica Llorente, Senior Lecturer:
Drafting Contracts: How and Why Lawyers Do What They Do
(Aspen Publishing, February 2024)

Martin H. Redish, Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy:
Due Process as American Democracy
(Oxford University Press, February 2024)

Daniel B. Rodriguez, Harold Washington Professor of Law:
Good Governing: The Police Power in the American States
(Cambridge University Press, October 2024)

Kyle Rozema, Professor of Law, Co-Director of the JD/PhD Program and Academic Placement:
Trial by Numbers: A Lawyer’s Guide To Statistical Evidence
(Oxford University Press, May 2024)

Eric Sirota, Clinical Associate Professor, Director of Tenant Advocacy Center:
The Rent Eats First
(Button Poetry, October 2024)

For a more complete list of faculty publications, including books, periodical articles, contributions to books, op-eds, press coverage, and working papers, visit our Faculty Publications database.

Student Outcomes

Stellar Job Placement

97.8% of our Class of 2023 graduates secured full-time, long-term jobs where bar passage is required or where the JD degree provides an advantage, the 6th highest percentage among top law schools. The 2023-2024 academic year was also a record year for judicial clerkship placements, with an impressive 83 graduates clerking in 25 states and D.C.

#1 Go-To Law School: Big Law

Northwestern Pritzker Law was the #1 Go-To Law School in Law.com’s Go-To Law Schools: Big Law report for 2024. The report ranks the 50 law schools that sent the highest percentage of 2023 JDs into associate jobs at the nation’s largest 100 law firms.

Georgetown Study: #7 ROI Law School

Northwestern Pritzker Law was 7th in a Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce study evaluating the return on investment (ROI) of a law degree.

Innovative Initiatives

West Coast Initiative Launched

The West Coast Initiative builds upon our successful San Francisco Immersion Program with the Seattle Tech-Law Experience and the Los Angeles Entertainment, Media, and Sports Law & Business Semester—three distinct opportunities for students to engage in West Coast markets defined by technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

New LGBTQI+ Rights Clinic Established

After an extensive national search, Kara Ingelhart (she/her) joined the Northwestern Pritzker Law faculty as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Law and the inaugural director of the Bluhm Legal Clinic’s new LGBTQI+ Rights Clinic. The LGBTQI+ Rights Clinic is focused on multidimensional advocacy for the LGBTQI+ community, emphasizing community members living at the intersection of multiple historically marginalized identities.

Expanded Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy

This year we announced the generous commitment of nearly $5 million in gifts to expand the Carter G. Phillips Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Center’s programs. Inspired by major contributions from Sue J. Henry (JD ’77), Carter G. Phillips (JD ’77), Jessica E. Phillips (JD ’06), and the Sidley Austin Foundation, more than 50 friends, family, and colleagues contributed to the donation in honor of Mr. Phillips’ career and contributions to the legal profession as one of the most influential and successful Supreme Court and appellate litigators in the country.

Continued Facilitation of Dialogue Across Difference

This year we added new orientation programming; hosted our second annual Knox Conversations, a discussion series featuring a bipartisan panel of incisive political thinkers and legal practitioners; and the latest installment of the Newt and Jo Minow Debate Series, which engages outside experts, Law School faculty, and students on important and timely legal topics.

Increased First-Gen Scholarship Support

Linda and Jeffrey Hammes (JD ’85) generously committed $1 million to establish and fund the Hammes Family Scholarship, which will be used to provide scholarship support for students with demonstrated financial need and high academic achievement who are also of the first generation in their family to attend college.

Enhanced Support for Students

We made important new investments in our public interest program, creating an Assistant Dean of Public Interest, expanding our team providing career support for our public interest students, updating and increasing our loan forgiveness, and expanding our public interest resources in a variety of other ways. We also launched the Rivkin Law and Public Advocacy Fellows Program and a new Writing Lab.

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