Wolfgang Steiner and Johannes Fischer have not only set milestones completing law studies at the JKU and serving as graduate teaching assistants at the JKU’s Faculty of Law, but also professionally as Director of the Upper Austria State Parliament and head of the Directorate for the Constitutional Office for the Upper Austrian government and respectively President of the Upper Austrian Regional Administrative Court. They have remained closely associated with the JKU even after leaving the university.

JKU Rector Meinhard Lukas remarked, "The title of honorary professor at the JKU is only awarded in recognition of outstanding achievement of academia and education.”  Based on a recommendation by the Rectorate and in accordance with the JKU’s statutes for an initial limited four-year period, the University Senate at the University of Linz has presented both legal experts with the title of Honorary Professor of Public Law.