In the 2018 fall semester, Alan Kluegel will join the College of Law faculty as a new Illinois Academic Fellow and visiting assistant professor of law. Alan is currently a PhD candidate in the Jurisprudence & Social Policy (JSP) program at Berkeley. Prior to starting his degree program at Berkeley, Alan had six years of practice experience in New York and Washington, DC as well as a judicial clerkship for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. He received his law degree from Georgetown University, and a bachelor of arts from the University of Illinois. 

Alan’s scholarly interests are in the legal profession and in the quantitative study of judicial decision-making. His dissertation work explores the relationship between growth and survival in large U.S. corporate law firms, using a longitudinal data set from 1985-2012. His work speaks both to the legal profession and to academics (inside and outside of law schools).

The Illinois Academic Fellowship Program helps new legal academics place into tenure-stream positions at U.S. law schools. Fellows spend one or two years in residence at the College of Law researching and writing under the close mentorship of Illinois faculty, teaching one course per semester, and fully participating in the College’s famously rich intellectual environment. Fellows are treated like tenure-stream faculty although with a light teaching load and no administrative responsibilities. Fellows are provided with the support and counseling necessary to the development of a serious scholarly portfolio.

By the end of the program, fellows are competitive for tenure-track positions at leading law schools. In recent years, our fellows have obtained tenure-stream positions at law schools that include the University of California-Irvine, Indiana University-Bloomington, University of Alabama, and Pennsylvania State University.