Chicago-Kent Professor James Tierney Elected to The American Law Institute
“Election to The American Law Institute is an extraordinary honor,” James F. Tierney says. “For generations, the institute has played a central role in shaping and clarifying American law, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to contribute to its work.”
Tierney, associate professor of law and associate dean for faculty affairs at Chicago-Kent College of Law, has been elected to membership in The American Law Institute, an independent organization of leading judges, lawyers, and legal scholars dedicated to clarifying, modernizing, and improving the law.
Founded in 1923, ALI brings together legal scholars, practitioners, and judges to produce “Restatements of the Law, Model Codes and Principles of Law.” Its work has long influenced courts, legislatures, legal scholarship, and legal education.
“I have long admired the institute’s commitment to careful, nonpartisan legal scholarship and law reform,” Tierney says. “It is especially meaningful to join an organization whose membership includes so many judges, practitioners, and scholars whom I have respected throughout my career.”
Tierney joined the Chicago-Kent faculty in 2023 after teaching at the University of Nebraska College of Law and Rutgers Law School. His research examines how law shapes the ways ordinary people and financial markets interact, with a particular focus on the regulation of broker-dealers, investment advisers, and self-regulatory organizations such as stock exchanges.
Before entering academia, Tierney practiced in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the General Counsel and at Mayer Brown LLP in Washington, D.C. He also clerked for Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in leading law reviews, including the Yale Law Journal, Duke Law Journal, and the Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance (now the Stanford Journal of Law, Economics & Business).
Tierney joins a distinguished group of current and former Chicago-Kent faculty members who have been elected to ALI, including Bartram Brown, Graeme Dinwoodie, Steve Heyman, Nancy Kim, Nancy Marder, Carolyn Shapiro, Joan Steinman, Dan Tarlock, and Richard Wright.
“I look forward to participating in the institute's projects and to contributing, in whatever small way I can, to its mission of improving the law and supporting the legal profession,” Tierney says.
