Investiture of Verity Winship as the Edwin M. Adams Professor of Law
- Event Type
- Ceremony/Service
- Sponsor
- University of Illinois College of Law
- Location
- Max L. Rowe Auditorium, College of Law, 504 E. Pennsylvania Avenue, Champaign, IL 61820
- Virtual
- Join online
- Date
- Feb 10, 2026 12:00 pm
- Contact
- Heather Ball, Director of Events & Alumni Programming
- hball@illinois.edu
- Views
- 8
- Originating Calendar
- College of Law - All Other Events Calendar
The University of Illinois College of Law will celebrate the investiture of
Verity Winship as the
Edwin M. Adams Professor of Law
Tuesday, February 10
12 pmRemote attendees may join the ceremony live at: https://www.youtube.com/live/-rTL1mjZMzw
Free and open to the campus community; a reception will immediately follow in the Peer and Sarah Pedersen Pavilion.
Verity Winship joined the University of Illinois College of Law faculty in 2010, having previously taught at Fordham and Cardozo law schools. She is an expert in business law and complex litigation. Her research focuses on corporate litigation, securities enforcement, and disputes that cross legal systems. She is also the co-author of award-winning empirical work on settlement of legal disputes.
Professor Winship’s articles have appeared in such journals as Vanderbilt Law Review, Boston University Law Review, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, and Stanford Journal of Complex Litigation. She co-edited Research Handbook on Representative Shareholder Litigation, published by Elgar, and has been a regular contributor to JOTWELL and a frequent commentator on Illinois Public Radio’s “Legal Issues in the News.”
Professor Winship has twice been awarded the Carroll P. Hurd Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship. Her work has also been selected for the Mangano Dispute Resolution Advancement Award (with Illinois colleague Jennifer K. Robbennolt) and the Hugh L. Carey Center’s Dispute Resolution Advancement Award (with Jennifer K. Robbennolt and Jessica Bregant). Professor Winship is the recipient of multiple grants, including as a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation Rapid Grant.
Professor Winship co-founded and co-organizes the Corporate and Securities Litigation Workshop, an annual conference running for more than a decade that connects national and international scholars working in this legal area.
Professor Winship has held multiple leadership positions at the University of Illinois and in the broader legal academy. She has served as the Interim Dean of the College of Law and the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Beyond the law school, she was a fellow in the Academic Leadership Program in the Big Ten Academic Alliance and chaired the Securities Regulation section of the American Association of Law Schools.
Professor Winship is an honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where she served as an executive editor of Harvard Law Review. After graduating, she clerked for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and for Judge Marjorie O. Rendell, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She practiced law with WilmerHale in New York City in the area of securities enforcement and litigation, and is a member of the New York Bar.
About the Edwin M. Adams Professorship of Law
The Edwin M. Adams Professor of Law is made possible through a generous gift from the late Edwin M. Adams ’39, a well-known lawyer and actor. Professor William Davey was the first holder of this prestigious professorship, followed by Professor Andrew Leipold.
Mr. Adams spent his “first” illustrious career with the U.S. Foreign Service for 26 years, advising ambassadors and presidents, tracking down Nazi assets, and negotiating peace treaties. His “second” career began shortly after his retirement from the Foreign Service Institute in 1968 and was based in Hollywood where he appeared in 24 movies, including Three Days of the Condor, Airport '75, Suspect, The Seduction of Joe Tynan, and The Last Detail. He was cast as a congressman, banker, doctor, and as a priest. In his third and final act, Mr. Adams became an accomplished author, penning his autobiography, a wide variety of poetry, and a fictional book Petty Destiny, centering around the life of the remarkable Lady Mary Gordon, a brilliant and beautiful woman who lives to thwart the pernicious efforts of a vicious government.