Faculty and Administration Profiles

Jonathan J. Sheffield

About

Jonathan J. Sheffield serves as a clinical assistant professor teaching legal writing and other courses in his area of expertise. Previously he worked as an adjunct professor while he practiced full-time at the Illinois Attorney General's Office in the civil appeals division. As an adjunct, Mr. Sheffield taught legal writing and administrative law to first- and second-year law students at Loyola University Chicago, DePaul University, and the University of Illinois Chicago. 

At the Illinois Attorney General's Office, Mr. Sheffield represented state officials and agencies in federal and state appellate courts of all levels, including the Supreme Court of the United States. He orally argued 11 cases and drafted over 40 briefs and dispositive motions in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Illinois Appellate Court.  His cases presented a variety of issues, including constitutional questions (First, Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments), administrative law, appellate and subject-matter jurisdiction, appellate and civil procedure, federalism principles, governmental immunities, state executive authority during emergencies like the Covid-19 pandemic, environmental issues including fracking and coal ash pollution, regulatory takings, and eminent domain.

After law school, Mr. Sheffield worked as a staff law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and as a clerk for the Honorable Robert C. Chambers on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. 

In law school, Mr. Sheffield concentrated on public interest work in the areas of affordable and fair housing, publishing articles on those topics and interning at the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Legal Aid Chicago (formerly LAF), Equip for Equality, and Loyola's Health Justice Project. 

Before law school, Mr. Sheffield served two years in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in New York City and Portland, Maine, working with people experiencing homelessness, living with HIV/AIDS, and facing other social justice issues.

Notable Cases

Midwest Generation v. Ill. Pollution Control Bd, 2024 IL App (4th) 210304, represented Illinois Pollution Control Board in defending against petition for review brought by powerplant owners challenging Illinois’s then-newly enacted regulations of coal ash stored in surface impoundments across the state. We won the appeal, allowing state agencies to better protect the public and environment from coal ash pollution. 

Next Energy v. Ill. Department of Natural Resources, 2020 IL App (5th) 180582-U, represented Illinois Department of Natural Resources in defending appeal from dismissal of regulatory takings claim over then-newly promulgated regulations for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) adopted under Illinois’s then-recently enacted Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act., 225 ILCS 732/1, et seq. We won the appeal, and the Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for a writ of certiorari with the assistance of the Department’s brief in opposition to cert. 

FoxFire Tavern v. Pritzker, 2020 IL App (2d) 200623, represented Illinois Governor and Department of Public Health in their appeal from temporary restraining order issued by state court enjoining enforcement of Covid-19 mitigations imposed on restaurants in Illinois. We won the appeal, resulting in a precedential decision that Illinois courts have relied on in numerous later cases where Covid-19 mitigations were challenged.

Svendsen v. Pritzker, 91 F.4th 876 (7th Cir. 2024), represented Illinois Governor and state agencies in appeal from dismissal of complaint against them brought by public school personnel challenging Illinois’s workplace Covid-19 vaccinate-or-test requirement as violations of plaintiffs’ rights under First Amendment, Title VII, and other federal and state laws. We won the appeal after oral argument.

Gysan v. Francisco, 965 F.3d 567 (7th Cir. 2020), represented law enforcement officer in appeal from summary judgment in his favor on Fourth Amendment claims over (1) a wellness check he performed on a motorist based on statements to 911 dispatcher, and (2) use of lethal force in response to motorist’s attempt to flee that put another officer in danger. We won the appeal after oral argument before a panel that included then-Judge Amy Coney Barret.

Mitchell v. Doherty, Seventh Circuit, 37 F.4th 1277 (7th Cir. 2022), represented Chief Judge of Winnebago County, Illinois in defending appeal from dismissal of complaint against him alleging violations of Fourth Amendment for county’s policy of providing bail hearings more than 48 hours of arrest on infrequent occasions. We won the appeal after oral argument.

Hicks v. IDOC, Seventh Circuit, No. 23-1091 (2023), represented Illinois Department of Corrections as defendant in appeal from dismissal of First and Fourteenth Amendment claims by corrections sergeant who was disciplined for Facebook posts disparaging racial and religious minorities, and government authority, on publicly accessible profile announcing his government employer and supervisory position. Appeal still pending after oral argument in November 2023.

Degrees

JD, magna cum laude, Loyola University Chicago School of Law; Managing Editor, Loyola Law Journal
BA, cum laude, Philosophy and Political Science, University of Florida; Minor: Leadership

ADMISSIONS: Illinois, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Courses Taught

Legal Writing (first and second years)
Prisoners’ Constitutional Rights Litigation
Administrative Law (taught at University of Illinois-Chicago)

Selected Publications

Homeless Bills of Rights: Moving United States Policy Toward A Human Right to Housing, 22 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol’y 321 (2016).

Holt v. Hobbs: RLUIPA Requires Religious Exception to Prison’s Beard Ban, 46 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 1077 (2015) (co-authored with two others).

At Forty-Five Years Old the Obligation to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing Gets A Face-Lift, but Will It Integrate America's Cities?, 25 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 51 (2014).

Resident Health & HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Init., 23 J. Affordable Hous. & Commun. Dev. L. 117 (2014). 

Cook County Prevents Source of Income Discrimination from Begetting Unlawful Race Discrimination and So Should Illinois, 19 Pub. Int. L. Rep. 86 (2014).

A Homeless Bill of Rights: Step by Step from State to State, 19 Pub. Int. L. Rep. 8 (2013)