Education

• Indiana University Ph.D. 2024
• University of Texas at Austin M.P.A. 2001
• Georgetown University Law Center J.D. 2004
• University of Texas at Austin B.B.A 2001

Courses

• Civil Procedure (B533)
• Advanced Civil Procedure (B699)
• Law and Social Psychology (B744)
• Project Management (B515)

Background

• Joined the Maurer School of Law faculty in 2012
• Research investigates access to justice and legal education by drawing on theory and methods within the field of social psychology 
• Was previously a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice and an associate at Sidley Austin LLP
• Graduated magna cum laude and elected to Order of the Coif at Georgetown University Law Center

Biography

Victor D. Quintanilla is a Professor of Law and Val Nolan Faculty Fellow at the Law School, an Affiliated Professor of the Indiana University Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, a Faculty Affiliate of the Equity Accelerator, and a Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellow. He leads access to justice and initiatives that enhance equity in courts and across legal education.

Quintanilla’s research investigates access to justice and legal education by drawing on theory and methods within the field of social psychology, including experiments conducted with judges, lawyers, students, and members of the public. Quintanilla harnesses psychological methods to examine the experiences of unrepresented persons in court proceedings, particularly vulnerable minorities and members of disadvantaged groups, and develops interventions to enhance equity in the civil justice system. Moreover, Quintanilla’s research designs scalable psychological interventions that enhance success on the LSAT and bar exam. These psychologically attuned interventions promote psychological well-being, including growth mindsets, adaptive stress mindsets, and social belonging, and are coupled with effective study and behavioral strategies.

Quintanilla is creating novel research infrastructure for rapid cycle continuous improvement of equitable experiences and outcomes and applying it initially in courts nationally, beginning in Indiana, by collaborating with culture creators, like judges, to increase justice and equity in courts.

Quintanilla has presented his research at academic conferences, including the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the Conference for Empirical Legal Studies, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Law and Society Association. He served as a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (2015-2016) and an American Bar Foundation / JPB Foundation, A2J Fellow (2020-2022). Quintanilla’s doctoral research centers on measuring psychological experiences and developing interventions that target structural affordances and psychological processes to improve the well-being of vulnerable populations both in courts and throughout the pipeline of legal education. His research has received funding from the American Bar Foundation, AccessLex Institute, Character Lab, Pew Charitable Trusts, and Schmidt Futures. 

In the Media

• Quoted in "The verdict on Zoom: New report says remote hearings provide relief from traditional court challenges," The Indiana Lawyer (11/22/2023)
• Quoted in "IU study finds remote court proceedings beneficial in post-pandemic world," Indiana Daily Student (11/1/2023)
• Quoted in "Hoosiers gave ‘Zoom court’ high marks," Indiana Capital Chronicle (10/25/2023)
• Mentioned in "Indiana Supreme Court makes new appointments, reappointments to Coalition for Court Access," The Indiana Lawyer (8/2/2022)

Selected works

• Victor D. Quintanilla, Kurt Hugenberg, Ryan Hutchings & Nedim Yel, Accessing Justice with Zoom: Experiences and Outcomes in Online Civil Courts (Oct. 2023)
• Kathryn M. Kroeper, Victor D. Quintanilla, Michael Frisby, Nedim Yel, Amy G. Applegate, Steven J. Sherman & Mary C. Murphy, Underestimating the Unrepresented: Cognitive Biases Disadvantage Pro Se Litigants in Family Law Cases, 26 PSYCHOLOGY, PUBLIC POLICY, AND LAW 198 (2020) *Shared first co-authorship
• Victor D. Quintanilla, Doing Unrepresented Status: The Social Construction and Production of Pro Se Persons, 69 DEPAUL L. R. 543 (2019).
• Victor D. Quintanilla & Rachel Thelin, Indiana Civil Legal Needs Study and Legal Aid System Scan (2019).
• Julian M. Rucker, Victor D. Quintanilla & Mary C. Murphy, The Immigrant Labeling Effect: The Role of Immigrant Group Labels in Prejudice Against Noncitizens, GROUP PROCESSES & INTERGROUP RELATIONS 1-22 (2019).
• Victor D. Quintanilla et. al., Experiential Education and Access-to-Justice in U.S. Law Schools: Designing and Evaluating an Access-to-Justice Service Learning Program within the First-Year Curriculum, 7 J. OF L. AND SOC. EQUAL. 88 (2019).
• Victor D. Quintanilla and Michael A. Yontz, Human-Centered Civil Justice Design: Procedural Justice and Process Value Pluralism, 54 TULSA L. REV. 113 (2018).
• Victor D. Quintanilla & Haley A. Hinkle, The Ethical Practice of Human-Centered Civil Justice Design, 32 NOTRE DAME J. OF LAW, ETHICS, AND PUBLIC POLICY 251 (2018).
• Victor D. Quintanilla & Alexander B. Avtgis, The Public Believes Predispute Binding Arbitration Clauses Are Unjust: Ethical Implications for Dispute-System Design in the Time of Vanishing Trials, 85 FORDHAM L. REV. 2119 (2017).
• Victor D. Quintanilla, Human-Centered Civil Justice Design, 121 PENN STATE L. REV. 745 (2017).
• Victor D. Quintanilla, Rachel Allen & Edward Hirt, The Signaling Effect of Pro Se Status, 42 LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY 1091 (2016).
• Victor D. Quintanilla & Cheryl R. Kaiser, The Same-Actor Inference of Nondiscrimination: Moral Credentialing and the Psychological and Legal Licensing of Bias, 104 CAL. L. REV. 1 (2016).
• Victor D. Quintanilla, Taboo Procedural Tradeoffs: Examining How the Public Experiences Tradeoffs Between Procedural Justice and Cost, 15 NEV. L. J. 882 (2015).
• Cheryl R. Kaiser & Victor D. Quintanilla, Access to Counsel: Psychological Science Can Improve the Promise of Civil Rights Enforcement, 1 POLICY INSIGHTS FROM THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES 95 (2014).
• Victor D. Quintanilla, Critical Race Empiricism: A New Means for Measuring Civil Procedure, 3 U.C. IRVINE L. REV. 101 (2013).
• Victor D. Quintanilla, Judicial Mindsets: The Social Psychology of Implicit Theories and the Law, 90 NEB. L. REV. 611 (2012).
• Victor D. Quintanilla, Beyond Common Sense: A Social Psychological Study of Iqbal’s Effect On Claims Of Race Discrimination, 17 MICH. J. OF RACE & L. 1 (2011).

Related links

• Publications
• Social Science Research Network
• ORCID

Areas of expertise

• Civil procedure