CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Vikram Amar, the senior associate dean for academic affairs and a professor of law at the University of California at Davis School of Law, will take over as dean of the University of Illinois College of Law Aug. 16.
Amar, who would become the college’s 13th dean and the Iwan Foundation Professor of Law replaces Bruce P. Smith, who was dean from 2009 to 2014.
“Professor Vik Amar stood out to all of us involved in this national search as the clear choice to lead the College of Law here at Illinois,” said Ilesanmi Adesida, the vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost of the Urbana campus.
“His vision of a college recognized for its cutting-edge scholarship and for close connections to the profession and society in which its graduates will serve is one that aligns perfectly with the land-grant values of this university.”
Amar, 52, says his experience as an upper-level law school administrator should serve him well. “For more than seven years as associate dean, I was deeply involved in virtually every aspect of law school operations – an experience that helped prepare me to succeed as the dean at Illinois,” he said.
He called it a privilege to lead the College of Law.
Amar has focused on constitutional law, criminal and civil procedure, and remedies in his academic studies. In 2009, he wrote a book titled “Freedom of Speech: The First Amendment, Its Constitutional History and Contemporary Debate.”
He is a co-author of “Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials” and a number of volumes in the Wright & Miller Federal Practice and Procedure Treatise.
He has also published scholarship in a variety of law journals, including the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review and the California Law Review. He earned his law degree at Yale University where he was also editor of the Yale Law Journal.
After graduation in 1988, he clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. From 1989 to 1990, he clerked for Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court.
From 1990 to 1993, Amar practiced law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Northern California, focusing on federal white-collar criminal defense and civil litigation.
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