M. Elizabeth (Liz) Magill is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Elizabeth Magill joined Georgetown in 2026 from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a Franklin University Professor, Professor of Law, and President Emerita following her tenure as its ninth President until 2023. Her prior academic leadership positions include serving for three years as the Executive Vice President and Provost at the University of Virginia, the first woman to hold that position, and for seven years as the Richard E. Lang Professor and Dean of Stanford Law School. 

A highly skilled recruiter, at UVA Magill led the searches and recruited more than half of the school deans, bringing exceptional talent and innovative perspectives to the university leadership. Among her other notable achievements, she led UVA’s revision of its internal budget system and, as part of President Jim Ryan’s 2030 plan, she helped launch an historic grand challenges program to transform the depth and impact of the university’s research, and led the effort to enhance the university’s undergraduate advising for its more than 17,000 undergraduate students. Working closely with President Ryan and his leadership team, Magill was pivotal in leading UVA’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, working not only for the safety of those at the university, but also for the safety of the broader Charlottesville community, and ensuring transparency through regular communications with UVA students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and community members.

As dean of Stanford Law School, she helped establish an innovative Law and Policy Lab, and also launched the school’s Global Initiative, which was funded by Stanford Law School’s largest alumni gift ever. She expanded and redesigned student life initiatives, and oversaw the expansion of Stanford Law’s public service commitments. At Stanford, Magill also presided over a transformative faculty revitalization, hiring nearly 30 percent of the law faculty.

Before joining Stanford, she was on the faculty at the University of Virginia School of Law for 15 years. When she left for Stanford in 2012, she was the Joseph Weintraub–Bank of America Distinguished Professor of Law, the Elizabeth D. and Richard A. Merrill Professor, and she had served as the school’s vice dean from 2009 to 2012.

An award-winning scholar of administrative and constitutional law, Magill is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a member of both the American Philosophical Society and American Law Institute, and serves on the Board of the National Constitution Center and ITHAKA S+R. Magill has been a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Harvard Law School, held fellowships in the Law and Public Affairs Program at Princeton University and the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2026 Bellagio Center, and was the Thomas Jefferson visiting professor at Downing College, Cambridge University. 

Prior to her career in higher education, Magill worked in the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. After completing her bachelor’s degree in history at Yale University, Magill spent four years as a senior legislative assistant for energy and natural resources in the office of U.S. Senator Kent Conrad. She left Capitol Hill to attend the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was articles development editor of the Virginia Law Review. After graduating, Magill clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.