Faculty and Administration Profiles
About
Marci Walker is an experienced educator, arts lawyer and pro bono advocate who teaches copyright law at Loyola University Chicago. She has spent her career serving the public interest through pro bono leadership and academic pursuits. She advises clients in all areas of the visual, literary and performing arts and has given scores of lectures tailored as preventative lawyering to avoid missteps that could lead to litigation and jeopardize ownership of intellectual property rights.
She worked for over a decade as the Legal Director of Lawyers for the Creative Arts, a nonprofit organization that provides comprehensive legal assistance to limited means clients in the creative field. Marci spearheaded its educational programming, designing curriculum and planning Continuing Legal Education lectures, symposia, client outreach and legal clinics. She has mentored students and aspiring lawyers alike and is compelled to help guide others in their studies and legal careers.
Marci has served as production counsel on narrative and documentary film, licensed and managed rights in music catalogs, and negotiated copyright policies. Throughout her twenty-year career she has concentrated her practice to provide pro bono counsel to creators and the institutions that preserve and distribute their artistic works.
Prior to practicing law, Marci worked in photography and film. Her artistic background and behind-the-scenes experience continue to inform her judgement on the intricacies of all stages of media production and motivate her to provide artists real bargaining power to turn down commercially exploitative offers and understand how rights transfers affect later revenue throughout the duration of intellectual property protection.
Marci is a recipient of the Thomas R. Leavens award for Distinguished Service to the Arts, and is a recognized Super Lawyer in the top 5% of entertainment lawyers statewide. The National Law Journal named her in its exclusive Top 40 Under 40 awards and she was appointed as a Governing Member of the American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts Division. She has served as a chairman of the Chicago Bar Association Media and Entertainment Committee, College Arts Association, Independent Filmmaker Project Midwest, and the Copyright Society of the United States.
Marci formerly worked for the American Judicature Society, the City of Chicago’s Department of Law, Chambers of Judge Wayne Andersen (Retired), U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and Loyola University’s Media Department. She student taught in the Communications Department at her alma mater, the University of Illinois, and earned her juris doctorate degree from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. She is licensed to practice in the state of Illinois and in the United States District Courts for the Northern District of Illinois.
Degrees
Juris Doctorate, Loyola University Chicago
Bachelor of Arts, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
Courses Taught
Copyright Law