Bigelow Fellows Find Success on the Job Market

All four of the Law School’s Bigelow Fellows who were seeking permanent teaching positions have found them, and in what Deputy Dean Jonathan Masur called “the most difficult academic job market in decades.” Adam Chilton is joining the faculty of the Law School. Vincent Buccola will teach at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Roger Ford is headed to the University of New Hampshire School of Law, and Greg Reilly is off to California Western School of Law.

It’s a big accomplishment to have all four Bigelows on the market find jobs, Masur said. “It demonstrates how talented they are and how hard they worked. The four schools where they’ll be starting next year are going to be thrilled with the great scholars, fantastic teachers, and superb colleagues they have hired.”

The Bigelow Fellowship is a two-year opportunity for scholars starting their academic careers to teach and write at the Law School. Two other Bigelow Fellows, Genevieve Lakier and John Rappaport, have another year before they go on the academic job market.

Chilton, an international law scholar, is a great hire for the Law School, Masur said. “We have been hoping to hire a scholar and teacher of international trade law for a few years. In Adam, we believe we have found the person we’ve been looking for.  We are excited to have him as a colleague, and we’re confident that students interested in international law will benefit tremendously from having him in the classroom.”

Chilton has a JD and a PhD in political science from Harvard University, and also a BA and MA in political science from Yale University. He has worked as a management consultant.

Buccola, who studies corporate law and bankruptcy, graduated from the Law School in 2008. Before becoming a Bigelow, he clerked for Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge and Senior Lecturer in Law Frank H. Easterbrook and worked as a trial lawyer with Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP.

Ford, whose fields are patent law and privacy, also graduated from the Law School (in 2005) and clerked for Easterbrook. He practiced intellectual-property litigation and privacy law at Covington & Burling LLP, taught federal courts at the George Mason University School of Law, and served as a Microsoft Research Fellow in the Information Law Institute at the New York University School of Law. Before coming to the Law School, he received a degree in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Reilly, a patent law and civil procedure scholar, is an alumnus of Harvard Law School and clerked for Judge Timothy B. Dyk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Reilly practiced appellate and patent litigation at Morrison & Foerster LLP for five years. He studied American government at Georgetown University and worked in the Teach for America program in rural North Carolina.