Professor Maureen B. Collins will retire at the end of this semester after teaching for more than 30 years.
During her time at the Law School, she blended her expertise in intellectual property and love of legal writing by creating a full-year Lawyering Skills course for students aspiring to careers in IP law. This course provides introductory doctrinal concepts about a variety of IP issues, students enrolled in these classes get to practice their writing, research and oral argument skills on problems that are designed to reflect current topics in IP practice. Students gain not only practical knowledge and skills, but are also able to capitalize on Collins’s deep network of connections in the IP practicing bar. Over the years, an innumerable number of professional relationships began informally in Collins’s classroom and matured into internships, clerkships and associate positions.
Before joining UIC Law, Collins was Director of the Legal Writing Program at DePaul University College of Law, where she designed and implemented the first-year and upper-level writing curriculum, created assignments and coordinated the staff of full-time and adjunct professors.
Collins is the author of numerous law review articles on art and IP law. In collaboration with Lawyers for the Creative Arts, where she serves on the Board, she authored Law for Visual Artists, a guide for non-lawyers. She was the “Legal Communications” columnist for the Illinois Bar Journal from 1995 through 2004. She developed a specialty in protecting intellectual property designs that are used in fabric art and has written and lectured on the topic.
Before her career in legal academia, Collins was an attorney at Sidley Austin LLP, practicing trademark, copyright and advertising law. She served as a writing consultant with several law firms, working with summer associates on research and writing issues. She looks forward to similar opportunities to continue teaching lawyers on a consultant basis during her retirement.
