Taylor Mattis Fellows

Taylor Mattis Fellows are carefully selected upper-class students who serve as Study Group leaders and mentors for first-year students. Taylor Mattis Fellows have demonstrated high capacity for maximizing their learning in law school with proven methods and mindsets they want to share and model to others.

Taylor Mattis

Fellows work closely with students through the required first-year Mastering Legal Education course. Fellows lead several Study Group meetings each term, provide peer feedback on assignments, and serve as peer mentors for first year students. Some take on other projects that benefit first-year students’ intellectual and professional development.

Who is Taylor Mattis?

Taylor Mattis was a beloved, founding professor at Southern Illinois University Simmons Law School where for decades she taught Property Law and Real Estate Finance and coached the Moot Court team. In retirement she generously gave her name to SIU Law’s peer mentoring program, a signal feature of the Academic Success Program, that began in the mid-2000s.

Taylor Mattis leads a class lecture in 1979

Taylor Mattis was elected to the American Law Institute in 1987, served as advisor to Restatement (Third) of Property, and was an articles editor for the ABA publication Probate and Property. She wrote numerous influential law review articles and books on Property Law, as well as a widely used Moot Court Handbook.

Her former students and colleagues would not be surprised to learn that even in her last days, she was still lecturing bedside attendants on the Rule Against Perpetuities.

Taken in significant part from: SIU LAW LOSES FOUNDING FACULTY MEMBER TAYLOR MATTIS
March 01, 2019