Cristina Tilley

Professor of Law

Biography

Cristina Tilley joined Villanova Law in 2026. She previously served as the Claire Ferguson-Carlson Fellow at the University of Iowa College of Law and was a fellow at Princeton University's Program in Law and Normative Thinking in 2024-25. Tilley teaches torts, media law and conflicts of law.

Her scholarship challenges established narratives about the role of law in fostering a just and sustainable American community. Across a range of pressing issues, including media freedom, artificial intelligence and police accountability, she has explored the power of tort law to drive organic conversations about justice among peers and neighbors and has argued that normative questions about equality should be recentered from the judiciary to the jury.

Her work has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Northwestern University Law Review and the Journal of Tort Law, and has been selected for presentation at the Harvard/Yale/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum, the Harvard Law School Private Law Workshop and the Clifford Symposium on Tort Law and Social Policy. She is an editor of Cases and Materials on the Law of Torts and currently serves as chair-elect of the American Association of Law Schools Section on Torts and Compensation Systems.

Tilley graduated from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Northwestern University Law Review, and later taught as a visiting assistant professor. After law school, she clerked for Judge Richard D. Cudahy of the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. She was a member of the appellate litigation group at Mayer Brown, where she worked extensively on asbestos litigation, securities class-action issues and First Amendment matters. Before beginning her legal career, she worked as a reporter covering business and legal affairs for United Press International and other publications.

Office: Rm 240, John F. Scarpa Hall
Phone: 610-519-5641

EMAIL
CURRICULUM VITAE

Courses and Seminars

  • Torts

Education

  • Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, JD