Chris Dempsey Student Profile
An affinity for antitrust law
Chris Dempsey took advantage of an invitation to be mentored—and wound up helping protect the rights of the citizens of Malawi.
When Professor Spencer Waller, director of Loyola’s Institute of Consumer Antitrust Studies and John Paul Stevens Chair in Competition Law, invited his 1L Civil Procedure students to meet for burgers and conversation, Dempsey jumped at the chance to make a deeper connection with one of his favorite professors. Out of that lunch grew a meaningful mentorship that’s lasted throughout Dempsey’s law school years.
As Waller’s research assistant, Dempsey has helped update Antitrust and American Business Abroad—coauthored by Waller and the leading treatise in the field—and assisted with a journal article comparing antitrust approaches in the U.S. and the rest of the world. In a unique project, Dempsey has assisted with the institute’s efforts to help Malawi develop its competition law.
“Malawi’s existing laws no longer fit what the country needs today,” explains Dempsey, who’s a fellow with the institute. His multiyear role on the project included performing research, laying the groundwork for the institute to update those laws, as well as drafting consumer materials “to help Malawi citizens and businesspeople understand their rights and protections.”
“As a student, I’ve taken on a lot of different roles and worn different hats”
Dempsey adds, “Working closely with Professor Waller has really expanded my perspective. He publishes prolifically and is very connected to the world in which he researches, so he’s always putting me and other students in touch with people in the field.” One of Dempsey’s favorite introductions was to Diane Wood, chief judge of the of the U.S. Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit and keynoter at last year’s Loyola Antitrust Colloquium. Dempsey, currently editor-in-chief of the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, worked with Wood to publish her remarks in the journal. Waller has reached out to several potential employers to recommend Dempsey.
When he graduates, Dempsey will join the labor and employment group at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he was a 2019 summer associate. Though he’s still considering his long-term career trajectory, he says the expansive scope of his Loyola experiences—including the deep mentoring Waller has provided—has given him a good grounding for diverse pursuits in the law.
“As a student, I’ve taken on a lot of different roles and worn different hats,” Dempsey says. “That’s given me an important introduction to much of the field of law and shown me how much variety it contains, whether you’re a practitioner, a judge, an academic, or a public servant.”
