This year, DePaul Law welcomes a new dean and five accomplished faculty members, strengthening the law school’s academic leadership and scholarly breadth. Former Interim Dean Julie Lawton praised the incoming leadership, stating, “We are thrilled that DePaul Law continues to thrive as Chicago’s law school, with improved bar passage, stronger employment outcomes, impressive new hires and growing national recognition. These accomplishments reflect the leadership of long-term dean Jennifer Rosato Perea and my tenure as interim dean, and will now continue under our new dean, Geoffrey Rapp, ensuring that DePaul Law continues to produce purpose-driven leaders in the legal profession.”
Dean Geoffrey Rapp joined DePaul Law as its 14th dean on July 1, 2025. A respected legal scholar with more than two decades of experience in teaching, research and academic leadership, he comes to DePaul from the University of Toledo College of Law, where he was the Harold A. Anderson Professor of Law and Values and served as senior associate dean for academic affairs. There, he led initiatives that helped grow enrollment, including the launch of the school’s first accelerated bachelor’s/JD program. He also oversaw the development of online and hybrid courses, expanded clinical and experiential learning opportunities, and helped guide the law school’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Rapp teaches and writes in the areas of torts and business law. He is the author of a tort law casebook; has testified before the U.S. Congress on financial regulatory legislation, including whistleblower protections under Dodd-Frank; and has published in journals such as the North Carolina Law Review, Washington University Law Review and Georgia Law Review. He has served on several American Bar Association accreditation teams, chairing three site visit teams, and has been recognized with a university-wide Outstanding Faculty Research and Scholarship Award as well as the Beth A. Eisler 1L Teaching Award, selected by first-year students.
He earned his AB in economics, Phi Beta Kappa, from Harvard College, his JD from Yale University and his MSS from the United States Army War College. After law school, he clerked for Judge Cornelia Kennedy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
“We also are thrilled to welcome five new faculty members to our ranks," Lawton continued. "These talented women will enhance our health law, constitutional law and property law coverage, as well as continue to grow our strength in international human rights."
Assistant Professor of Law Leigha Crout teaches Constitutional Law and a seminar on the rule of law. Her research explores constitutional law, democracy and transnational legal networks. Prior to joining DePaul, she was a faculty member at Syracuse University College of Law, and before that held academic appointments at Stanford, Columbia, Oxford and Peking University. Professor Crout’s recent and forthcoming scholarship includes articles in the
UC Irvine Law Review,
Washington University Law Review,
Asian Comparative Law Journal,
Indiana International & Comparative Law Review and the
Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law. She is a nonresident fellow at Stanford’s Neukom Center for the Rule of Law, a PhD candidate at King's College London, holds a JD and LLM from Notre Dame, and a master’s in international development from Cornell.
Assistant Professor of Law Julie Gilgoff joined DePaul Law from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. She teaches in the areas of property law, housing and homelessness policy, and estate planning. Her research focuses on housing justice, land use and community development. Her recent and forthcoming scholarship includes articles in the Villanova Law Review, San Diego Law Review and the UCLA Law Review. A frequent speaker at national housing symposia, Professor Gilgoff brings a practice-informed perspective to her scholarship, grounded in her legal work with housing cooperatives, worker cooperatives and small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds a JD and MA from the City University of New York.
Associate Professor of Law Valerie Gutmann Koch returns to the DePaul faculty after previously serving as a Jaharis Faculty Fellow and now directs the
Mary and Michael Jaharis Health Law Institute and serves as director of law and ethics at the University of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Her scholarship focuses on bioethics, public policy and health law, with particular attention to the legal implications of emerging medical technologies. She has held additional faculty appointments at the University of Houston Law Center and Chicago-Kent College of Law and also served as senior attorney to New York’s bioethics commission. Professor Koch’s recent and forthcoming scholarship includes articles in the Fordham Law Review, Seton Hall Law Review and UC Irvine Law Review, as well as contributions to peer-reviewed journals such as The Lancet Oncology and CHEST. She holds an AB, magna cum laude, from Princeton and JD from Harvard.
Lynette Martins is the newest Jaharis Faculty Fellow at DePaul Law. Her scholarship explores the intersection of law, health policy and bioethics; health justice and equity; and global health security, and her recent and forthcoming work appears in the
Texas Environmental Law Journal,
Hastings Center Report,
Tulsa Law Review,
Medical Law International and
Pace Law Review. Martins most recently taught Public Health Law and Bioethics as an adjunct assistant professor at New York Medical College. She also is a Global Institute of Human Rights Scholar with the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School; currently serves as co-chair of the immigration and bioethics affinity group of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities; and is the project lead for an NIH-funded Parkinson’s Disease initiative in The Bahamas. Previously, she served as a senior research fellow at the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy and an associate research scholar at Yale Law School, where she was a member of the clinical ethics committee at Yale New Haven Hospital. She also worked as a research assistant at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. Professor Martins holds an LLM, with distinction, from Georgetown University and a master of bioethics, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a postgraduate diploma in population health evidence from the University of Manchester and a law degree from the University of Huddersfield, both in the UK.
Professor of Legal Practice Elisabeth Ward directs both the
International Human Rights Law Institute and the International Human Rights Law Clinic. For more than a decade, she has led DePaul Law’s global human rights initiatives, including projects focused on trafficking, women’s rights and post-conflict accountability. Prior to joining DePaul, she worked with NGOs on issues involving accountability in post-conflict settings, anti-trafficking efforts and the protection of women and children. She also has designed and managed international projects, experiential learning opportunities and research initiatives. Ward holds a BA and JD from Michigan State University.