Marc L. Miller
Visiting Professor of Law
B.A., Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Pomona College, 1981
J.D., University of Chicago Law School, 1984
Marc Miller served as Dean and Ralph W. Bilby Professor of Law at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law between 2012 and January 2025. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School (JD 1984) and Pomona College (BA 1981), and grew up in Los Angeles (Palisades High School 1977). He is a member of the California bar.
"Some areas of law are steady, others undergoing dramatic change. Criminal procedure falls into the second category. I am delighted to return to my home town of Los Angeles, and to have the opportunity this fall to get to teach constitutional criminal procedure (police practices / investigations), and to get to know Southwestern students, faculty, and staff."
Professor Miller teaches in the areas of criminal law and procedure, environmental law and procedure, and the legal profession. He has authored more than 90 articles and essays on environmental, criminal justice, immigration, and legal profession and legal theory topics. He is a founding editor on widely used casebooks on criminal procedure and sentencing, and co-founded the Federal Sentencing Reporter, the leading journal on sentencing law and policy.
Before coming to the University of Arizona, Miller taught for eighteen years at Emory University School of Law. Before teaching Miller served as law clerk to Chief Judge John Godbold of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Montgomery, Alabama, as Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as Special Counsel at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York.
Under Dean Miller’s leadership the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law saw significant changes in the who, how, what and where of legal education. Arizona’s global innovations and impact include the creation of a two year JD pathway for foreign lawyers. In partnership with the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Science, in 2014 Arizona Law created the first BA in Law in the US. The BA in Law now has more than 1,200 majors, including around 800 majors in Tucson and more 350 students fully online, with more than half of online students living outside Arizona.
In 2015, based on experimental research, Arizona Law became the first US law school to accept the GRE as an alternative to the LSAT for JD admissions. Use of the GRE for JD admissions increased access to legal education for people who identify as diverse and first-generation students, for those with scientific and technical backgrounds, for students with significant education and life experience, and for graduate and professional students in other colleges and programs. Harvard followed suit. In the fall of 2021, the national regulatory body approved the use of the GRE for JD admissions by all accredited law schools.
Since 2019 Miller has been involved in creating JD-Next, a JD admissions test and bridge program that substantially eliminates racial scoring differences recognized in legacy tests. The JD-Next exam has been approved for use by US law schools through a simple variance process, and more than a third of US law schools have requested and been granted a variance. JD-Next was sold in 2024 to a major legal publisher.
In response to Arizona’s leadership and research around access to legal services for those who cannot afford them, and the high quality BA in Law and non-lawyer masters (MLS) degrees, the Arizona Supreme Court in 2021 approved the creation of a new type of legal professional, the Legal Paraprofessional (LP). Legal Paraprofessionals are licensed to provide legal services in specific court-approved areas, such as family law.