Since 1961, Professor LaFave has served on the faculty of College of Law at the University of Illinois, where he is David C. Baum professor of law emeritus and professor emeritus in the Center for Advanced Study. He has also taught at the law schools of the University of Michigan and Villanova University.
Professor LaFave has been active in several endeavors seeking improvements in criminal justice administration. He was a member of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the American Bar Association (ABA) Task Force on Technology and Law Enforcement, and the ABA Committee on Criminal Justice in a Free Society, and he was chairman of the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Criminal Justice Programs. He has also served as reporter/draftsman for the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the Uniform Rules of Criminal Procedure project of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and the ABA's Standards for Criminal Justice project. He has written extensively on the subjects of arrest and search and seizure for law reviews and has written several books on criminal law and procedure. More than 10,000 reported opinions quote or cite his work, and many of his works have been quoted or cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor LaFave earned his bachelor of science, bachelor of laws, and doctor of juridical science degrees from the University of Wisconsin, where he was named to Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Coif.