Professor Christopher W. Schmidt Selected as an American Bar Foundation Research Professor
Christopher W. Schmidt, professor of law and associate dean for faculty development at Chicago-Kent College of Law, has been appointed as one of the American Bar Foundation’s three new research professors beginning in fall 2019. He will hold the position jointly with his professorship at Chicago-Kent.
“I congratulate Professor Schmidt on this appointment,” says Dean Anita K. Krug. “He is an incredibly talented and productive scholar, and, with the American Bar Foundation appointment, he will be even better positioned to make additional significant research contributions.”
Research professors at the American Bar Foundation study legal issues from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds. New appointments are made following a national search by current members of the faculty.
“I'm thrilled to take on this new role at the American Bar Foundation, which has been an invaluable part of my academic life for the past decade,” says Schmidt. “The Foundation is home to a remarkable collection of scholars, and I'm honored to be joining them as a new research professor.”
Schmidt has been affiliated with the American Bar Foundation since 2007, first as a visiting scholar (2007–11) and then as a faculty fellow (2011–19). Since 2013, he has served as the editor of the American Bar Foundation's prestigious journal, Law & Social Inquiry, and he will continue in this role in the coming years. His appointment as a research professor will help fund the research for his book project on the history of the modern U.S. Supreme Court and its relationship with the American people.
A member of the Chicago-Kent faculty since 2008, Schmidt teaches in the areas of constitutional law, legal history, comparative constitutional law, and sports law. He has published in leading law reviews and peer-review journals, among them Constitutional Commentary, Cornell Law Review, Law and History Review, Northwestern University Law Review, and UCLA Law Review. Schmidt is the author of The Sit-Ins: Protest and Legal Change in the Civil Rights Era (University of Chicago Press 2018).
The American Bar Foundation is among the world's leading research institutes for the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law. An independent, nonprofit organization for more than 65 years, the American Bar Foundation seeks to advance the understanding and improvement of law through research projects on the most pressing issues facing the legal system in the United States and the world.
