Barry Sullivan is a Chicago lawyer, Professor of Law and holder of the Cooney & Conway Chair in Advocacy at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Sullivan attended Middlebury College in Vermont where he graduated in 1970 with a A.B. degree with high honors in philosophy and political science. While at Middlebury he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In 1974 he graduated from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an associate editor of the Law Review and was a national honor scholar.
Sullivan began his legal career in New Orleans, Louisiana as a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In 1976 he joined the law firm Jenner & Block in their Chicago office and was promoted to partner in 1981.
Sullivan primary focus was constitutional, administrative and private law issues. He was very active in Appellate and Supreme Court litigation. Sulivan also served as an assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States in 1980 and 1981.
In 1994 Sullivan accepted the position of dean of the Washington and Lee University School of Law. In addition, in 1998 and 1999 he served as vice president of the university. Sullivan has held a number of other academic positions including Senior Lecturer in the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago, a visiting professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law, and a visiting law fellow of the University of London. He is the holder of the Cooney & Conway Chair in Advocacy at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Sullivan has done extensive academic writing in the areas of administrative and constitutional law, employment law, appellate practice, and the legal profession. His work has appeared in many journals in the United States and Europe including Northwestern Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, the Yale Law Review, the Warsaw University Law Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review. Sullivan is a "Life Member" of the American Law Institute.
Sullivan has been very active in the American Bar Association serving as chair, Coordinating Committee on AIDS, 1988–1994; chair, Committee on Professionalism, 1999–2000; co-chair, Amicus Briefs Committee, 2002–2004; co-chair, Bill of Rights Committee, 2002–present and as a member of numerous other committees and sections. He also served as vice-chairman on the Committee on the Administration of Justice in the Seventh Circuit Bar Association from 1985 to 1986.