Carolyn Shapiro

Carolyn Shapiro

Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States

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Carolyn Shapiro is the founder and co-director of Chicago-Kent College of Law's Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States (ISCOTUS). Her scholarship is largely focused on the institutions of our constitutional democracy, in particular the Supreme Court, and how those institutions interact, and has appeared in numerous law reviews. She teaches classes in constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and public interest law and policy. She directs Chicago-Kent's Public Interest Certificate Program and is also the faculty director of the Constitutional Democracy Project, a civic education project that provides programs, professional development, and educational materials to high school and middle school teachers and students. In April 2023, she delivered the Keynote Address at the 31st Annual Ira C. Rothberger Conference at the University of Colorado Law School.

Shapiro is a frequent guest and commentator in the media. She's appeared on MSNBC, National Public Radio, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Sky News Daily Podcast, NBC News Now, CBC Radio, Strict Scrutiny Podcast, and many Chicago news outlets. Her commentary has been featured in the Washington Post, The Hill, CNN, and SCOTUSblog, among other places, and she has been quoted in numerous news articles in publications ranging from Reuters to NBCNews to the Chicago Tribune to Salon.com to Bloomberg. More recent media appearances can be found at the bottom of this page.

From 2014 through mid-2016, Shapiro served as Illinois solicitor general while on leave from Chicago-Kent. She has argued cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit, the Illinois Supreme Court, and the Illinois Appellate Courts, and she maintains a small appellate practice, serving as Of Counsel to Schnapper-Casteras PLLC.

Shapiro is also a member of the Board of Advisors for the Chicago Lawyers' Chapter of the American Constitution Society and the Board of Advisors for the American Constitution Society’s State Attorneys General Project. In June 2017, the Chicago Lawyers’ Chapter of ACS awarded Shapiro the Abner Mikva Award.

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.

Education

J.D., University of Chicago Law School
M.A., University of Chicago, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy
B.A., University of Chicago

Publications

Professor Shapiro's published works can be found on her SSRN page.

Affiliations

J.D. Certificate Program in Public Interest Law

Contact Information

Media Appearances

Don’t Read into Timing on Supreme Court’s Lack of Tariff Decision, Says Constitutional Law Professor Carolyn Shapiro

“The Court very much resists the idea that what it’s doing is political in a number of senses, but one sense is in the kind of daily work of politics,” said Carolyn Shapiro, founder and co-director of the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States at Chicago-Kent College of Law. “So I think that also could be some of it, that for some of them they want to convey this view of themselves as being somehow writing ‘for the ages.’”

Talking Points Memo

Unclear Whether Trump Administration’s Freeze of Social Safety Net Funds Is Legal, Says Professor Carolyn Shapiro

“The fact that the administration has singled out five states that are Democratically led raises questions about whether this is retaliatory for other things, and if so, is that illegal?” says Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Carolyn Shapiro. “We haven’t seen that particular claim raised as to a state, I don’t believe, but I think there are very strong arguments to be made that that would be illegal.”

WTTW

Law Professor Carolyn Shapiro Says FBI Restricting Access to Evidence Hinders but Doesn’t Make Local Investigations Impossible in Minneapolis Shooting Death

“Of course, state investigators would want” access to federal investigators’ evidence and files, said Carolyn Shapiro, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, “but even in the absence of it, they can continue to talk to witnesses, they can review all the videos that are available and make their own determination based on the evidence they can gather.”

Minnesota Public Radio