Stephen R. Miller

Associate Dean for the Part-Time J.D. Program, Professor of Law

About

Stephen R. Miller joined the NIU College of Law faculty in 2024. He is a tenured professor of law and also an associate dean assisting with the law school’s new part-time J.D. program in Naperville.

Professor Miller's teaching interests span land use law and planning, real estate transactions, property law, housing law, environmental law, state and local government law, and administrative law. He previously directed an economic development clinic for six years where he worked with students to provide legal services to rural communities in the American West.

He is a nationally recognized scholar of land use law, working at the intersection of public regulation and private development transactions. His scholarship includes three treatises, five books and more than sixty law review articles, professional publications and editorials on development-related topics. He also served as editor-in-chief of the American Bar Association's Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law . He writes the Euclid Land Substack and previously wrote the Land Use Profs Blog for more than a decade.

His applied research has been supported by grants from the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Center for Advanced Energy Studies at Idaho National Laboratories, the Idaho Department of Lands and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Professor Miller's teaching has been recognized with four awards and he has spoken at national conferences on legal pedagogy. He was previously an associate dean for faculty development and tenured professor of law at the University of Idaho College of Law, a visitor at three other law schools and an international program in the Czech Republic. He has spoken at major conferences in his field including those organized by Harvard, Stanford, U.C. Berkeley and Northwestern, as well as the Brookings Institution and the Federalist Society.

Prior to his academic career, he practiced land use, real estate and environmental law in California. He remains an active member of both the Illinois and California bars and is an elected member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL).

He holds an A.B., magna cum laude , Phi Beta Kappa, from Brown University; a J.D. from UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings); a master in city planning from the University of California, Berkeley; and a master of fine arts in fiction writing from Boise State University.

He remains active in local land use governance, having previously served on a planning and zoning commission (Boise) and currently serving on his village’s housing commission (Wilmette).

Education

A.B., Brown University
J.D., UC Law San Francisco
Master of City Planning, University of California, Berkeley
Master of Fine Arts, Boise State University

Legal Publications

Treatises

Federal Land Use Law & Litigation. Editor-in-chief, updated annually since 2022.
Discretionary Land Use Controls. Editor-in-chief, updated annually since 2025.
Land Use Planning and Development Regulation Law (with Julian Juergensmeyer, Ryan Rowberry & John Marshall). Co-editor of treatise updated annually since 2026.

Journal Edited

ABA Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Development Law. Editor-in-Chief (2019-2021), Senior Editor (2021-present).

Books

Advanced Introduction to U.S. Land Use Law (Elgar) (2025).
Land Use and Sustainable Development Law: Cases and Materials (John Nolon, Patricia Salkin, Stephen R. Miller & Jonathan Rosenbloom, West) (9th ed., 2017).
Teacher’s Manual for Land Use and Sustainable Development Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed., 2017).
Contemporary Issues in Climate Change Law and Policy: Essays Inspired by the IPCC (Robin Craig & Stephen R. Miller eds., Environmental Law Institute) (2016).

Book Chapters

Government, Governance, and Disaster: The Case of Wildfire, in The Cambridge Handbook of Disaster Law: Risk, Recovery, and Redevelopment (Susan Kuo, John Travis Marshall & Ryan M. Rowberry eds., Cambridge Univ. Press) (2022).
Urban Data and the Platform City, in Cambridge Guide to the Sharing Economy (Nestor Davidson & John Infranca eds., Cambridge Univ. Press) (2018).
The Local Official and Climate Change, in Contemporary Issues in Climate Change Law and Policy: Essays Inspired by the IPCC (Robin Craig & Stephen R. Miller eds., Environmental Law Institute) (2016), reprinted at 46 Environmental Law Reporter 10883 (2016).
Sustainable Cities of Tomorrow: A Land Use Response To Climate Change, in Rethinking Sustainable Development to Meet the Climate Change Challenge (Jessica Owley & Keith Hirokawa eds., Environmental Law Institute) (2015).
Boundaries of Nature and the American City, in Environmental Law and Contrasting Ideas of Nature: A Constructivist Approach (Keith Hirokawa ed., Cambridge Univ. Press) (2014).

Law Review Articles and Essays

A Framework to Reform Discretionary Land Use Controls, __ Oregon Law Review __ (2026).
Prescribed Fire Liability and Administration in Western States: An Empirical Analysis and Call for Reform, 2026 Utah Law Review 1.
A Cookbook for the New Progressive YIMBY: A Review of Fixer-Upper, 31 Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law 151 (2022).
Prospects for a Unified Approach to Housing Affordability, Housing Equity, and Climate Change, 46 Vermont Law Review 463 (2022).
Can America’s Fastest Growing City Save Itself?: Property Rights and the Planning Ethic in Boise, Idaho, 58 Idaho Law Review 404 (2022).
Baltimore and the Legal History of Housing Segregation, 30 Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law 137 (2021).
Preserve McCall: A Proposed Public-Private Land Exchange, Idaho Law Review Spotlight (2021) (invited essay).
Practical Uses for Narrative in the Land Use Process, 42(11) Zoning & Planning Law Report 1 (2019).
Informal Governance Structures and Disaster Planning: The Case of Wildfire, 40 University of Arkansas Little Rock Law Review 633 (2018) (invited symposium essay) (with Jaap Vos and Eric Lindquist).
Local Environmental Regulation in the Mountain West, 46(1) Real Estate Review 63 (2017).
Planning for Wildfire at the Wildland-Urban Interface: A Guide for Western Cities, 49 Urban Lawyer 207 (2017).
Planning for Wildfire at the Wildland-Urban Interface, 40(5) Zoning & Planning Law Report 1 (2017).
Decentralized, Disruptive, and On-Demand: Opportunities for Local Government in the Sharing Economy, 77 Ohio State Law Journal Furthermore 47 (2016).
First Principles for Regulating the Sharing Economy, 53 Harvard Journal on Legislation 147 (2016)
Community Rights and the Municipal Police Power, 55 Santa Clara Law Review 675 (2015).
A Coordinated Approach to Food Safety and Land Use Law at the Urban Fringe, 41 American Journal of Law & Medicine 422 (2015).
Symposium Introduction: Transmission and Transport of Energy in the Western US and Canada: A Law and Policy Road Map, 52 Idaho Law Review 387 (2016).
The Bottom-Up Climate Consensus, in A Response to the IPCC Fifth Assessment, 45 Environmental Law Reporter 10027 (2015).
Three Legal Approaches to Rural Economic Development, 23 Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy 345 (2014).
Symposium Introduction: Resilient Cities: Environment | Economy | Equity, 50 Idaho Law Review 1 (2014).
The Sustainable, Inevitably Exploding City, in Rethinking Sustainability to Meet the Climate Change Challenge, 43 Environmental Law Reporter 10342 (2013).
Field Notes from Starting a Law School Clinic, 20 Clinical Law Review 137 (2013) (peer-reviewed).
Legal Neighborhoods, 37 Harvard Environmental Law Review 105 (2013).
Community Land Trusts: Why Now Is the Time to Integrate This Housing Activists’ Tool Into Local Government Affordable Housing Policies, 36(9) Zoning & Planning Law Report 1 (2013).
Percent-For-Art Programs at Public Art’s Frontier, 35(5) Zoning & Planning Law Report 1 (2012).
Commercial Green Leasing in the Era of Climate Change: Balancing Risks, Burdens, and Incentives, 40 Environmental Law Reporter 10487 (2010).
Historic Signs, Compelled Speech, and the Limits of Preservation, 25 Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law 227 (2010).

ABA and Professional Publications

with Bridget Nostro and Eva Rosenbloom, Sustainable Development Code, Chapter 1.1: Climate Change: Energy Efficiency and Health Standards for New Affordable Housing (Oct., 2022).
with Philip Higuera, Hillary M. Hoffmann and Shelley Ross Saxer, Climate Change, Population Demographics, and Wildfire Planning in the West, ABA Trends (2019) (online).
with Ronald S. Cope & Kimberly Freimuth, Reviews and Reflections on Planned Communities, 49(3) Urban Lawyer 483 (2017).
with Ronald S. Cope & Kimberly Freimuth, Reviews and Reflections on Planned Communities, 41(1) ABA State & Local Law News 9 (2017).
with Jamila Jefferson-Jones, The Battle between Internet Exceptionalism and the Local Control of Land Use, 31 ABA Probate & Property 1 (May/June 2017).
Stephen R. Miller et al., Planning for Wildfire in the Wildland-Urban Interface, 59 The Advocate (Idaho) 42 (2016).
Hydraulic Fracturing and the Emergent Dormant Commerce Clause, ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources, 9 Constitutional Law Committee Newsletter 6 (Feb., 2013) (by invitation).
Contributor, Constitutional Law Report, ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources, 2011 Year in Review (2012).
Integrating Third Party Green Building Rating Systems Into Local Building Ordinances, 27 California Real Property Law Journal 54 (2009).