Carolyn Shapiro

Professor Shapiro is the founder and co-director of Chicago-Kent's Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States (ISCOTUS). Her scholarship is largely focused on the Supreme Court, its relationship to other courts and institutions, and its role in our constitutional democracy. She teaches classes in legislation and statutory interpretation, constitutional law, employment law, and public interest law and policy. From 2014 through mid-2016, Professor Shapiro took a leave of absence from Chicago-Kent to serve as Illinois solicitor general. She has argued cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit, the Illinois Supreme Court, and the Illinois Appellate Courts. Professor Shapiro blogged at ISCOTUS now (which she also co-editef) and on the Chicago-Kent Faculty Blog and CK Now. She also posts on Huffington Post and has been a guest blogger at the American Constitution Society Blog. In addition, her commentary has appeared in a number of outlets, including the Washington Monthly website and CNN. She regularly appears as a guest commentator on Chicago Tonight and other media outlets. Professor Shapiro is also a member of the Board of Advisors for the Chicago Lawyers' Chapter of the American Constitution Society. Professor Shapiro was a law clerk for then-Chief Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and for Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the United States Supreme Court. Prior to coming to Chicago-Kent in 2003, she worked as an associate with Miner, Barnhill & Galland, where she handled plaintiff civil rights cases, and as a Skadden Fellow with the National Center on Poverty Law. She earned a B.A. with general and special honors in English from the University of Chicago, an M.A. from the University of Chicago Harris Graduate School of Public Policy, and a J.D. (high honors) from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was articles editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif.