Victor D. Quintanilla is a Professor of Law and Val Nolan Faculty Fellow at the Indiana University (IU) Maurer School of Law, an Affiliated Professor of the IU Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, a Faculty Affiliate of the Equity Accelerator, and a Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellow. He is leading EA’s access-to-justice and initiatives that enhance equity in courts and across legal education.

At EA, Victor is creating novel research infrastructure for rapid cycle continuous improvement of equitable experiences and outcomes and applying it initially in courts nationally, beginning in Indiana, by collaborating with “culture creators” like judges to increase justice and equity in courts.

Victor’s research investigates access to justice and legal education by drawing on theory and methods within the field of social psychology, including experiments conducted with judges, lawyers, students, and members of the public. Victor harnesses psychological methods to examine the experiences of unrepresented persons in court proceedings, particularly vulnerable minorities, and members of disadvantaged groups, and develops interventions to enhance equity in the civil justice system. Moreover, Victor’s research designs scalable psychological interventions that enhance success on the LSAT and bar exam. These psychologically attuned interventions promote psychological well-being, including growth mindsets, adaptive stress mindsets, and social belonging, and are coupled with effective study and behavioral strategies. 

Victor has presented his research at academic conferences, including the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the Conference for Empirical Legal Studies, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Law and Society Association. He served as a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (2015-2016) and an American Bar Foundation / JPB Foundation, A2J Fellow (2020-2022). Victor’s doctoral research centers on measuring psychological experiences and developing interventions that target structural affordances and psychological processes to improve the well-being of vulnerable populations both in courts and throughout the pipeline of legal education. His research has received funding from the American Bar Foundation, AccessLex Institute, the Character Lab, Pew Charitable Trusts, and Schmidt Futures. 

Read more about  Victor Quintanilla here.