The University of Illinois College of Law will celebrate the investiture of
Jacob S. Sherkow as the
Richard W. and Marie L. Corman Professor of Law
Tuesday, November 11
12 pm
Remote attendees may join the ceremony live at: https://www.youtube.com/live/a0qhmG8FxmI.
Free and open to the campus community; a reception will immediately follow in the Peer and Sarah Pedersen Pavilion.
Jacob S. Sherkow joined the University of Illinois in 2020, where he holds appointments in the College of Law, the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, the European Union Center, and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. His research focuses on intellectual property, regulation, and bioethics of advanced biotechnologies. He is a leading expert on IP protection for genome-editing technologies, such as CRISPR. Sherkow is the author of over 75 articles published in both scientific journals and traditional law reviews, including Science, Nature, JAMA, the Yale Law Journal, and the Stanford Law Review. His scholarship has been cited by various federal courts, including the Supreme Court. In 2024, he was named a University Scholar, one of the University of Illinois System’s highest honors for faculty.
Sherkow’s work has been recognized by both the scientific and legal communities. From 2018 to 2021, he was appointed to the National Academy of Medicine as an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Scholar. His scholarship has won multiple prizes, including the 2024 Carroll P. Hurd Award for Scholarly Excellence and the 2018 Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award. Sherkow also serves on the editorial board of a peer-reviewed scientific journal, The CRISPR Journal.
Beyond his scholarship, Sherkow serves as the Co-Director of the College of Law’s Innovation Law and Technology Program and teaches a variety of courses related to intellectual property and the life sciences. At his previous institution, he was the winner of the Class of 2017 Teaching Award. Sherkow has served as an expert in patent disputes in both the United States and Germany, and has also been an advisor to a committee of France’s National Assembly on issues concerning the patenting of biotechnological research tools. He has been extensively quoted in popular media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NPR. Sherkow also regularly advises investment firms on matters pertaining to patent litigation in the biosciences.
Since 2018, Sherkow has concurrently held appointments at the Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (“CeBIL”) at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law. Immediately prior to joining Illinois, Sherkow was the Edmond J. Safra/Petrie-Flom Centers Joint Fellow-in-Residence at Harvard University and Professor of Law at the Innovation Center for Law and Technology at New York Law School. Sherkow has also held visiting academic positions at Stanford Law School and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. In practice, Sherkow has been a patent litigator at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and a law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Sherkow graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was an editor of the Michigan Law Review and the recipient of the Fred L. Leckie and James N. Adler Scholarships. He holds an M.A. in biotechnology from Columbia University and a B.Sc. from McGill University, where he majored in molecular biology and English literature. In addition to his legal training, Sherkow has several years of experience as a research scientist in molecular biology, is a certified Editor in the Life Sciences (BELS), and is an avid squash player. He is admitted to practice in the State of Illinois, New York State, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and various federal courts. His recent scholarship is available on SSRN, and Google Scholar.
About the Richard W. and Marie L. Corman Professorship in Law
The Richard W. and Marie L. Corman Professor of Law was established by the late Richard W. Corman ( '40) and Marie L. Corman in 1984. The Cormans married in 1939 while he was a law student. After graduation, Mr. Corman practiced law with A.J.B. Showalter in Champaign until 1942. He then became a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and served in that capacity for 23 years, with the exception of 1946 when he was assistant divisional claim manager for State Farm Insurance. In 1948, he was assigned to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and served as supervisor of field investigations and administrative assistant to J. Edgar Hoover for 17 years.
In June, 1965, he retired from the FBI and was admitted to practice in Virginia. He engaged in general practice as a sole practitioner in Arlington until 1973 when he received an interim appointment as judge of the General District Court. Later that year, he was elected by the Virginia General Assembly to the first of two six-year terms. He served as chief judge of the District Court for the 17th Judicial District from 1976 until his retirement in 1982.
Judge Corman was a member of the Laureate Circle of the University of Illinois Presidents Council. He was also a distinguished alumnus of the College of Law for November, 1984, and was elected to membership in the University of Illinois Foundation in 1993.