James Record

Associate Professor of Criminal Justice

James Record teaches criminal justice at Quincy University, bringing a career built on both sides of the courtroom into the classroom. He has tried felony cases, worked in criminal defense, and studied criminal and forensic law at an advanced level. His teaching rests on the gap between what the law says and what happens when it meets real facts.

Background

James Record came to teaching after years of practicing criminal law. He served as a prosecutor handling felony matters before juries, then moved into criminal defense as a Certified Criminal Trial Attorney. That combination shaped how he approaches criminal justice education: not as a set of abstract rules, but as a discipline where preparation and attention to detail decide outcomes.

He is now an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Quincy University in Illinois, after several years as an Assistant Professor at California University of Pennsylvania. His coursework draws on criminal law, criminal procedure, and forensic law, informed by an LLM in Criminal Law with Honors from SUNY at Buffalo Law School and a Juris Doctor from Thomas M. Cooley Law School.

Record is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in its Jurisprudence section, a setting where legal scholars and forensic practitioners work through the same problems he raises with students: how evidence holds up, how procedure gets tested, and how a case built in theory survives contact with a courtroom.

As he puts it, trying felony cases and then stepping into a classroom changes what you think students need to understand beyond the textbook. A rule that looks simple on the page can become complicated once it meets a real set of facts, and preparation is what closes that gap.