Brandeis Spotlight: Professor Luke Milligan

Luke Milligan teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure I, Criminal Procedure II, Law & Religion and Legal Philosophy. He’s been named Professor of the Year and winner of the Jonathan N. Helfat prize for legal scholarship.

You teach Criminal Law to the 1Ls.  What inspired your interest in criminal law?
I think it was the Clinton investigations in the '90s. There was one national scandal after another. He was impeached by the House of Representatives when I was in college. I didn’t like Clinton much, but as a 19-year old in Ohio I followed it very closely on TV and learned all I could about his defense team. When I got out of law school I moved to DC and joined a firm and got to work for those lawyers. As far as I was concerned, I’d joined the Yankees.

Why did you want to be a law professor?
I’m always direct about this: I like being a litigator and I liked law firm life. On the other hand, I think philosophical reasoning and discourse are very important stuff — going to the core of being a human. The fundamental questions have always bothered me: Is there a natural law? If so, what does it require of us? What happens when natural law and human law conflict? When I got the chance to write and teach about these questions full-time, I felt I couldn’t let it pass. But I still take clients, practicing law pro bono when I have the time. I’ve said it a thousand times: I wish I had two lives. I’d teach law in one and practice law in the other.       

Tell us some things we don’t know about you.
My great-great-great-great grandfather, John Milligan, was a judge in the Northwest Territory and one of Ohio’s founding fathers. His last-minute, tie-breaking reversal at the constitutional convention — rendering African-Americans eligible to hold public office — sits at the heart of Milligan family lore.    

I travel when I can — Nairobi, Marrakesh, Darjeeling, Petra, Lesotho, Chiang Rai, Rio de Janeiro, Zanzibar, Kathmandu. I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. I nearly got swallowed up by the Himalayas near Everest Base Camp. My favorite place to visit is Israel.  

I worked at a London pub in the late '90s. Some of the regulars were famous. Robert Plant came in all the time. So did Kate Moss. Drug use was prodigious. I tossed Liam Gallagher out of there for hurling a woman’s cell phone, like a baseball, against the wall and smashing it to pieces.  

I was a landscaper for four summers. My specialties were underground sprinkler systems and mulching.  

My wife’s from Wisconsin. She grew up the daughter of the D.A. We live in Louisville most of the time. We have an A-frame in rural Indiana. It sits on top of a knob in the middle of nowhere. In the winter you can see 10 miles in every direction. It runs on solar and propane. Our neighbors are mostly Amish. Nobody cares who’s going to be president.

I like Billy Bob Thornton movies. I also like his bands.

Why UofL?
The year I applied, there were six tenure-track openings in my field — and half were at universities you’ve never heard of.  There were lots of talented applicants. I felt lucky to get hired at UofL.  

When I got here in 2007, we had all these great professors who’d been here since before I was born. My office was next to Ed Render’s. Ed and I hung out a lot. We both liked to climb mountains. I learned a lot about the law and a lot about life talking with him. His old desk sits in my office.  

The law building is full of good people. The faculty and staff care about the law and they care about education. I’ve been here 10 years and taught around 1,000 students. Our students are interesting and hard-working and very smart. Many of them could hold their own at any law school in the country. It'd be great if my son John ends up studying here at some point down the road. UofL is still growing, of course, and the law school is no exception. By then I’m sure we’ll have a fuller appreciation of the ways that ideological balance and openness strengthen a legal education. It’s not much of a mystery, and I’m absolutely positive we’ll figure it out. We just have to keep at it, raising our standards, pushing ourselves and pushing our students toward excellence, toward national prominence.

What has been your biggest career highlight so far?
Being voted Teacher of the Year by the alumni. Number two is probably when my originalist interpretation of the Fourth Amendment was argued to the U.S. Supreme Court last term.  

What’s the best career advice you have for law students?
First, surround yourself with people who make you uncomfortable and push you toward excellence. Those aren’t always the nice people.

Second, you don’t have to conceal your faith in God from co-workers or clients or fellow students — the professional world will be more accepting than you think.

Third, don't take criticism personally — it seems to be in style right now. Thick hide is important.