Renee Knake Jefferson
Professor of Law and the Joanne and Larry Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics
Assistant Dean Outcomes, Assessments, and Strategies
Professor Jefferson is an award-winning scholar and educator known for her expertise in legal and judicial ethics. Her research, published in top journals such as the Michigan Law Review (forthcoming) and the Yale Law Journal Forum, has been cited in court proceedings and major media outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
She regularly is called upon as an expert witness, including testimony before Congress regarding judicial financial disclosures, two appearances before the Texas Supreme Court of Special Review successfully defending judges, and helping secure the dismissal of an $800 million malpractice case on behalf of an AmLaw 100 firm.
Professor Jefferson is also a proven leader in higher education. As a university trustee, she oversees a $3.7 billion budget at an R-1 research institution. As an assistant dean, she successfully guided law school accreditation efforts. She also serves as an elected member of the American Bar Association’s Council for the Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar (the sole national accreditor of J.D. programs) and a subject matter expert for the National Conference of Bar Examiners on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam.
She is the author of five books and more than 30 academic articles. Her book, Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court, has been called “an excellent contribution” by the Library Journal and praised in numerous reviews. Professor Jefferson has been a scholar-in-residence at Stanford Law School's Center on the Legal Profession and a visiting scholar at the American Bar Foundation. In 2019, she was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Australia, where she conducted research for her most recent book, Law Democratized: A Blueprint for Solving the Justice Crisis, described by one reviewer as “the best book on access to justice in many years.”
Professor Jefferson has been selected for a range of leadership roles. Jefferson currently sits on the board of directors for the International Association of Legal Ethics. She is a past-chair for the Association of American Law Schools Section on Professional Responsibility. She was appointed as a reporter for the American Bar Association Presidential Commission on the Future of Legal Services, and is a past-delegate to the World Economic Form Global Agenda Councils on Justice and Rule of Law. She was elected to the American Law Institute in 2017.
At the Law Center, she currently teaches Professional Responsibility, Legal Methods, and the seminar Law, Leadership & Power. Other courses previously taught include Constitutional Law, Entrepreneurial Lawyering, Federal Jurisdiction, the First Amendment and Lawyer Speech, and 21st Century Law Practice.
Prior to joining the University of Houston faculty, Jefferson held the Foster Swift Professorship of Legal Ethics and was co-director of the Frank J. Kelley Institute of Ethics and the Legal Profession at Michigan State University College of Law, where she taught for a decade. During her time at Michigan State, she co-founded and secured substantial external funding for the law school's inaugural program on technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation in legal services, recognized as a top program in the nation. She currently serves on the Michigan State University Board of Trustees, appointed in 2019.
Before her academic career, she practiced law at Mayer Brown in Chicago and Hunton & Williams in Richmond, where she specialized in commercial litigation, telecommunications, and labor/employment law. She also worked as an Assistant City Attorney for Charlottesville, Virginia. She earned her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
