About the Authors

• Jurisdiction: United States

About the Authors

Thomas E. McClure is a professor in the Department of Politics and Government and the director of legal studies at Illinois State University. He teaches Introduction to Paralegal Studies, Introduction to Torts, Investigative Techniques and Evidence, Litigation I and II, and several constitutional law courses. He currently chairs the ABA Standing Committee on Paralegals.

He graduated from Illinois State University in 1976 with a BS in political science. He received his JD from DePaul University, where he served as an editor of the DePaul Law Review. In 2001, he earned his MS in political science from Illinois State University.

Following law school, Professor McClure served for two years as a law clerk to an Illinois appellate court justice. He then entered private practice as one of the two principals of Elliott & McClure, a law firm in Kankakee County, Illinois. He specialized in personal injury, criminal defense, family law, and civil rights litigation. In 2009, he left private practice to become a full-time professor at Illinois State University.

He is a member of the Illinois Bar and admitted to practice before three U.S. District Courts, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. When the death penalty was in effect, he was a member of the Illinois Capital Litigation Bar.

Professor McClure has published journal articles on the Supreme Court's approach to ex post facto law analysis, the constitutional rights of disabled applicants for public employment, and the effectiveness of court-connected parenting classes. He has authored book chapters on the Roberts Court's approach to the First Amendment, as well as to its search and seizure jurisprudence. He recently published a trilogy of pieces on the relationship between judicial selection and judges' bar poll impartiality scores. As a co-author, he recently published a law review article concerning preemption of state laws...