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Emily Taylor Poppe

Professor of Law

By Courtesy, Professor of Sociology

Faculty Director, The Initiative for Inclusive Civil Justice
Affiliated Faculty, Center for Empirical Research on the Legal Profession

Emily Taylor Poppe

Expertise:

Access to Justice, Wills & Trusts, the Legal Profession, Civil Procedure, Law & Society, Inequality and Law

Background:

Prof. Taylor Poppe is an interdisciplinary empirical scholar whose research is focused on inequalities in access to civil justice. Her work investigates the origins of civil legal problems and their paths toward resolution, as well as the role of legal actors and institutions in shaping these processes. She has investigated variation in both formal and informal access to legal counsel and has also assessed the effect of legal representation on case outcomes. In other scholarship, she has evaluated how legal education, the regulation of the legal profession, legal technology, and institutional design might enhance equality in access to justice. Finally, in a third stream of scholarship, she evaluates estates and trusts law from an access to justice perspective, offering both legal reforms and policy interventions to enhance equality under the laws governing succession. She recently published her first book — Access to Justice: An Introduction. Her research has also appeared in both peer-reviewed journals and law reviews, including Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, UC Davis Law Review, Fordham Law Review, and other journals.

Prof. Taylor Poppe is also active in law reform efforts. She currently serves as associate reporter for the American Law Institute Principles of the Law, High Volume Civil Adjudication. She is also reporter for the Uniform Law Commission Drafting Committee on the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act.  

Before entering academia, Prof. Taylor Poppe was an associate in the Private Client Department of McDermott Will & Emery LLP in Chicago, IL and Associate Director of Planned Giving for the Harvard Business School in Boston, MA. Prof. Taylor Poppe holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Cornell University, a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law, and A.B. degrees in Public Policy and Spanish from Duke University.

(Log in to view full course descriptions in the UCI Law Course Catalog)

  • June 2025
    Access to Justice: Where to?, Victoria Law Foundation, Melbourne, Australia
  • June 2025
    Teaching Access to Justice, Monash University Faculty of Law, Melbourne, Australia
  • May 2025
    Access to Justice Across the Curriculum, Law & Society Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL
  • February 2025
    Courts as Data Guardians for the Public Good, Technology and Access to Justice Lecture Series,
    University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law, virtual
  • January 2025
    Facilitator, The Future of Federal Administrative Agency Data, Building Civil Justice Futures
    Workshop, Washington, D.C.
  • October 2024
    Talk on “Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives” at the Widening the Lens of Justice Conference, hosted by Harvard Law’s Center on the Legal Profession and the American Bar Foundation 
  • October 2024
    Commentator, “New Legal Realism & Legal Education I: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Law School Inclusion and Teaching Justice,” Widening the Lens of Justice: A 20th Anniversary New Legal Realism Conference on Inclusion, 'Bleached Out' Identity, and Ethics in Legal Education, Harvard Law School 
  • June 2024
    Chair/Discussant, “Access to Justice, Inequality, Class, and Difference,” Paper Session 
    Presenter, “Legal Actuation,” Law and Society Association’s Annual Meeting
  • Appointed Reporter to the Uniform Law Commission Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) Drafting Committee
  • Appointment, Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute’s High-Volume Civil Adjudication Project (Effective January 2025)