Northern Illinois University
College of Law

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Stephen R. Miller joined the NIU law faculty in 2024. From 2011 until 2024, he was a professor of law at the University of Idaho College of Law’s Boise campus where he also served as the law school’s associate dean for faculty development. He has also taught at the University of Connecticut School of Law, the University of Iowa College of Law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, and in a study abroad program in Prague, Czechia.  Prior to becoming a law professor, he practiced land use and environmental law in San Francisco, California.

Professor Miller is a nationally-recognized expert on the public regulation of and private transactions related to development. His courses have included land use law and planning, real estate transactions, property law, housing law, environmental law, state and local government law, and administrative law. For six years, he also directed an economic development clinic focused on providing legal services to low-income communities in both urban and rural settings.

His books include Land Use and Sustainable Development Law: Cases and Materials, a co-authored casebook, and Contemporary Issues in Climate Change Law and Policy, a co-edited selection of essays.  He also served as editor-in-chief of the American Bar Association’s Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law. He presently serves as the Journal’s senior editor. He has published over sixty law review articles, professional articles, and editorials on development-related topics. 

Professor Miller has received grants for applied research on a range of topics. Funders have included the U.S. Forest Service; the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (sub-grant); 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) in Paris, France.

He is also a well-respected teacher dedicated to improving legal pedagogy. In 2021, he received the University of Idaho’s Teaching Innovation Award for course design.  He was twice voted Outstanding Faculty Advisor of the Year by the Idaho Law Review and received the University of Idaho Alumni Award for Faculty Excellence in 2013. 

He holds an undergraduate degree magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University; a J.D. from U.C. Law San Francisco (formerly University of California, Hastings College of Law); a master's degree in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley; and a master's degree in fiction writing from Boise State University. 

He is also active in land use affairs in his community. He previously served on the board of his local planning and zoning commission, as well as on the board of his neighborhood association.

Legal Publications

Treatise

Federal Land Use Law & Litigation (2022 ed.) (editor-in-chief, updated yearly)

Journal Edited

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

Books

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 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 U.S. 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).

A.B.A. 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, A.B.A Section of Environment, Energy and Resources, 9 Constitutional Law Committee Newsletter 6 (Feb., 2013) (by invitation).

Contributor, Constitutional Law Report, A.B.A 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).