About Stephen G.
Stephen G. Gilles built his legal foundation at St. John’s College in Annapolis, where he earned a B.A. in 1976. He later completed his J.D. at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law in 1984. Those years set a steady course that led from appellate chambers to the classroom.
Soon after law school he joined the federal judiciary as a law clerk to Judge Robert H. Bork on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1984. He then served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at the United States Supreme Court in 1985. Those two clerkships placed him inside pivotal appellate institutions during formative years of his career.
Following his clerkships, Gilles moved into private practice. In 1986 he worked as an associate at Brown & Platt. That period in private practice was relatively brief. By 1989 he had returned to academia, taking a post as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
Gilles’s academic path continued to advance. In 1995 he joined Quinnipiac University School of Law as a professor of law. Over the years he balanced teaching with research and public service, moving from junior faculty roles to a longer-term position at Quinnipiac. His career shows a steady emphasis on scholarship and classroom instruction after early exposure to appellate work.
His experience spans the highest levels of the federal judiciary and both private and academic legal settings. Clerking for a federal circuit judge and then for a Supreme Court justice offered him close work on complex legal questions. Time in a law firm followed by a return to teaching gave him a range of perspectives on law practice and legal education.
Gilles has held positions at two law schools and has been a long-term member of the faculty at Quinnipiac. He has taught students, supervised research, and taken part in faculty governance. His career reflects a movement from appellate clerkships to practice and then to sustained academic work.
He currently works in legal education and scholarship at Quinnipiac University School of Law, where his present focus is on teaching and academic pursuits.
