UNC's Bilionis Tapped To Become New UC Law Dean

University of North Carolina legal scholar Louis D. Bilionis will become the 29th dean of the University of Cincinnati College of Law, effective July 1.

Bilionis’ appointment was made official by the UC Board of Trustees at their June 28 meeting.

Bilionis comes to UC from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where he was the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law. There he earned renown for his scholarship in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law and procedure.

"As noted by his former dean of 10 years, Professor Bilionis is ‘a scholar’s scholar and a teacher’s teacher,’ said UC Senior Vice President and Provost Anthony J. Perzigian. "The College of Law and the university are at an important juncture. Professor Bilionis will bring to the deanship a keen vision of the college’s abundant opportunities for advancement, especially as the university pursues the UC|21 agenda."

Bilionis has published in leading law journals such as the Michigan Law Review, Texas Law Review, University of California-Los Angeles Law Review, Emory Law Journal and North Carolina Law Review. He has taught constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure and evidence, as well as seminars on capital punishment, constitutional law and theory, criminal law and procedure, and sentencing.

Bilionis attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an undergraduate, where he was a Morehead Scholar, served as Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Tar Heel, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a double-major in economics and English. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1982.

Upon graduation from law school, Bilionis clerked for the Honorable Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, then entered private practice with the firm of Ropes & Gray in Boston, Mass. He thereafter served for several years in the Office of the Appellate Defender of the State of North Carolina as an assistant appellate defender representing indigent criminal defendants, with an emphasis on capital punishment appeals. He joined the UNC-Chapel Hill law faculty in 1988.

While at the School of Law at UNC-Chapel Hill, Bilionis served on numerous law school and university committees, including the University Search Committee for Dean of the Law School, the University Academic Affairs Institutional Review Board, and the Law School Accreditation and Self-Study Committee. He has taken part in a number of constitutional cases in the United States Supreme Court and other federal and state courts, and served on the National Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1999 until 2005.

Bilionis is a native of Massachusetts. He is married to Ann Hubbard, and they have a two-year-old daughter named Graciela.

The selection of Bilionis brings a successful conclusion to a national search process, led by a committee chaired by Karen Gould, dean of UC’s McMicken College of Arts & Sciences.

The UC College of Law is the fourth-oldest continually operating law school in the nation, having begun educating law students in 1833. A founding member of the Association of American Law Schools, the college is recognized as one of the nation’s premier small public law schools.