Chicago-Kent Magazine 2018

CH I C AG O -K EN T CO L L EG E O F L AW, I L L I N O IS I N S TIT U TE O F TECH N O LO GY

Summer 2018

AWESOME

ADJUNCTS

How a stellar corps of adjunct professors bring the law to life for Chicago-Kent students

CHICAGO-KENT COMMENCEMENT

2018

Watch the Commencement ceremony online at www.kentlaw.iit.edu/videos/2018-commencement.

C HICAGO - K EN T M AG A ZIN E Summer 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AWESOME

ADJUNCTS

FEATURE PAGE 11

SECTIONS

2

C-K CHRONICLE

28

SUPPORTING CHICAGO-KENT

24

29

ALUMNI NEWS AND CLASS NOTES

STUDENT PROJECT: Helping asylum-seekers in Texas

26

42

IN MEMORIAM

FACULTY HIGHLIGHTS

Inside Back Cover: A LUMNI EVENTS CALENDAR

CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018 Dean and Professor of Law HAROLD J. KRENT; Editor and Assistant Dean for Public Affairs SUSAN M. O’BRIEN; Assistant Dean for Institutional Advancement SUSAN M. LEWERS; Director of Alumni Engagement JOSEPH VOLIN; Managing Editor, Director of Print and Online Communications JOHN W. YOUNG JR.; Associate Editor JACQUELINE A. SEABERG

Chicago-Kent Magazine is published by Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, for its alumni and friends.

Address correspondence to Editor, Chicago-Kent Magazine, 565 West Adams Street, Chicago, Illinois 60661.

Copyright 2018 Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology.

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Palmer Civil Liberties Prize goes to Gusterson Hugh Gusterson, professor of international affairs and anthropology at George Washington University, is the 2017 recipient of the Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for his book Drone: Remote Control Warfare (MIT Press 2016).

The book examines drone warfare from multiple perspectives, drawing on accounts from drone operators, victims of drone attacks, human rights activists, international attorneys, journalists and academics.

The book delves into the ways that remote attacks have “redefined the space of the battlefield,” the subjective experience of drone operators, and the legal and ethical arguments between the U.S. government and its critics.

Professor Gusterson writes for popular and academic audiences on counterinsurgency, the contested role of nuclear weapons in the international system, and the ethics of military research. His previous books include Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War (University of California Press 1996) and People of the Bomb: Portraits of America’s Nuclear Complex (University of Minnesota Press 2004).

Professor Hugh Gusterson, 2017 Palmer Civil Liberties Prize winner

Established in 2007 by Chicago-Kent alumnus Roy C. Palmer and his wife, Susan M. Palmer, the Palmer Prize honors exemplary works of scholarship exploring the tension between civil liberties and national security in contemporary American society.

Professor Gusterson will present his book at Chicago-Kent September 25.

A Conversation with Justice Elena Kagan

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan (left) was interviewed by Professor Carolyn Shapiro, her former student, during a daylong visit to Chicago-Kent last fall.

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The Ogilvie Auditorium was packed with students, faculty and alumni when Professor Carolyn Shapiro interviewed Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan last October on a wide array of topics, ranging from how the court selects cases to life as a junior justice.

Professor Shapiro, a former student of Justice Kagan at the University of Chicago, began the discussion by asking a question on many minds: How do the justices manage their relationships with each other during this highly politicized, polarized time? Justice Kagan noted that, though there are sometimes sharp disagreements, the justices agree and find consensus more than half the time.

During her daylong visit to Chicago-Kent, Justice Kagan also met with students, gave a talk at a luncheon for ChicagoKent faculty, and attended a reception with Chicago-Kent alumni and friends. To view a video of the interview, visit www.kentlaw.iit.edu/videos/justice-kagan-2017.

Chicago-Kent ranks 37th in number of alumni making partner at large firms The National Law Journal ranks Chicago-Kent 37th in a recently published tally of American law schools with the most alumni promoted last year from associate to partner at the nation’s 100 largest law firms.

In the article Go-To Law Schools: Associates to Partner, which tracks law firm promotions in 2017, ChicagoKent ties at #37 with the University of Minnesota and University of Wisconsin law schools, finishing just below the University of Southern California and just above Cornell, the College of William and Mary, and Cardozo. The ranking appears in the cover story of the April 1, 2018, edition on page 19.

Meaghan Fontein wins 2018 Ladas Memorial Award Meaghan Fontein ’18 won the International Trademark Association’s 2018 Ladas Memorial Award for her article Digital Resurrections Necessitate Federal Post-Mortem Publicity Rights. Each year, two law students or graduate students worldwide are selected for the award, which honors the best papers on trademark law or related matters. In her award-winning article, Meaghan addresses the recent phenomenon of “digital resurrections” and the lack of intellectual property protection for misappropriating a deceased celebrity’s likeness. The article was published in the September 2017 issue of the Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society.

The award winners of the 2017 Ilana Diamond Rovner Appellate Advocacy Competition (from left): Jack Amaro ’19, Ralph L. Brill Award for Best Brief; Pauline Panayi ’19, Edmund Burke Advocacy Award (second place); Margaret Kamm ’19, Ilana Diamond Rovner Award for Outstanding Appellate Advocate (first place); and Blake Thompson ’19, Fay Clayton Award for Outstanding Oral Advocate

Margaret Kamm takes first place in the Rovner Appellate Advocacy Competition Margaret Kamm ’19 won the 26th annual Ilana Diamond Rovner Appellate Advocacy Competition, sponsored by the law school’s Moot Court Honor Society. The competition is named for Chicago-Kent graduate Ilana Diamond Rovner, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

This year, students argued Carpenter v. United States, a Supreme Court case involving the scope of Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches in the digital age. At issue was whether the Fourth Amendment permits the government’s warrantless acquisition of historical cell phone records revealing the approximate location and movements of the cell phone user.

With her first-place finish, Margaret earned the Ilana Diamond Rovner Award for Outstanding Appellate Advocate. Second-place winner Pauline Panayi ’19, who argued against Margaret in the final round, received the Edmund Burke Advocacy Award.

Blake Thompson ’19 won the Fay Clayton Award for Outstanding Oral Advocate, while Jack Amaro ’19 received the Ralph L. Brill Award for Best Brief.

Margaret is a magna cum laude graduate of Carthage College with a bachelor’s degree in classical studies. She is a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review and served as an extern last year for the Honorable Bertina Lampkin of the Illinois Appellate Court through the law school’s Judicial Externship Program.

The final round of the competition was judged by a panel that included the Honorable Ilana Diamond Rovner, the Honorable Ann Claire Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Chicago-Kent Professor Kimberly D. Bailey.

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Law Street ranks Chicago-Kent’s IP program best in the nation Chicago-Kent’s Intellectual Property Law program has been ranked No. 1 in the United States by Law Street, a popular law and policy website published by Law Street Media and targeted to millennials. The latest installment of the Law Street Specialty Rankings, a detailed resource for prospective law students, identifies America’s top 10 IP law programs.

Also ranked in the top 10 are Stanford Law School, University of Pennsylvania Law School, New York University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center.

Chicago-Kent scored the maximum number of points possible in four of six criteria set forth by Law Street, including a perfect score in jobs, which gauges employment prospects for IP students; classes, which considers the range and depth of the IP curriculum; networking, which evaluates the quantity and quality of networking opportunities offered to students; and extracurriculars, which reviews IP-related organizations, publications and other activities sponsored by the school.

The rankings noted Chicago-Kent’s IP clinic and its many classes focused on science and technology, as well as the law school’s annual Supreme Court IP Review Conference, its monthly BookIT series featuring authors of newly published books, the Intellectual Property Law Society, and the student-run Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property.

In addition, IP students at Chicago-Kent work at the law school’s Patent Hub, a joint project with the USPTO matching lowincome inventors with the pro-bono legal assistance of volunteer patent attorneys.

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Chicago-Kent lauded for teaching innovation and technology in delivery of legal services Two recent reports have declared Chicago-Kent preeminent in using innovative curricula and programming to prepare students for the future of legal practice.

The fall 2017 issue of National Jurist magazine named Chicago-Kent among 20 schools with the most “innovative curricula, programs and approaches to preparing students for the future.”

National Jurist cites Chicago-Kent’s Justice and Technology Practicum, which focuses on document assembly and automation tools; its cloud-based A2J Author software, developed by students to break down complex legal information for self-represented litigants; and the Chicago-Kent Law Lab, where students use innovative technology and business processes to solve legal issues.

The article quoted Professor Daniel Martin Katz, director of The Law Lab at Chicago-Kent, who said tomorrow’s lawyers need to understand technology, process improvement, analytics and workflow optimization to increase the value of their services.

Other law schools on National Jurist’s list include Stanford, Vanderbilt, Cornell, Brigham Young University, and the University of California Hastings.

Michigan State University, meanwhile, surveyed the teaching of legal services innovation and technology at 38 American law schools and ranked Chicago-Kent as one of two schools performing at the highest level. The Law School Innovation Index, published last November by Michigan State’s Center for Legal Services Innovation, assessed the teaching of project management, data analytics and technology basics. Other topranked law schools include Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard, Georgetown and Michigan State.

Alexandra Franco selected as Equal Justice Works Fellow Alexandra Franco ’16 has been chosen to receive a 2018 Equal Justice Works Fellowship to support her public interest work over the next two years. Starting in September, Alexandra will implement the new Housing Opportunity Project for Equity (HOPE), hosted by Cabrini Green Legal Aid, where she will represent families in danger of losing their housing vouchers.

HOPE will provide legal representation at administrative review proceedings of cases involving the termination of families’ housing vouchers due to the alleged criminal activity of a household member. Without an attorney, families are often unable to navigate the complexities of these proceedings, and the decision to terminate a voucher is often upheld even if the voucher was wrongfully terminated.

Alexandra will also establish a referral system with the Circuit Court of Cook County and other legal aid organizations, recruit attorneys to work pro bono, conduct training sessions for those attorneys, and develop a practitioners’ guide. Her fellowship is sponsored by Jenner & Block LLP and United Airlines.

New design center taps experts in design, business, law The new Center for Design, Law & Technology (cDELTA or c∆) celebrated its launch on February 21 with a lecture

by Professor Graeme Dinwoodie on “The Future of Design Copyright after Star Athletica,” followed by a response from Notre Dame law professor Mark McKenna.

Founded by Professors Dinwoodie and Edward Lee, director of Chicago-Kent’s Program in Intellectual Property Law, the new center promotes research, scholarship Professor Edward Lee, director of Chicago-Kent’s Program in Intellectual and instruction at the intersection of design, creativity, Property Law, welcomed guests to the launch of the law school’s new Center for Design, Law & Technology. The occasion featured a lecture technology and the law. on design copyright by Chicago-Kent Professor Graeme Dinwoodie, who “Delta means change,” said Professor Lee. “Our mission at co-founded the center with Professor Lee. cDELTA is to bring together experts in design, business and the law from around the world, to better understand the changes and challenges in design they face today.”

Research at the center addresses legal protections of design in the United States and internationally, creativity and innovation in design, and design thinking and problem solving. In tandem with the Chicago-Kent Center for Empirical Studies of Intellectual Property, the new center also confers grants to fund research related to innovation and creativity.

In addition, the center hosts talks, workshops and conferences, such as a March lecture on “Intelligent Design” by University of Chicago law professor Jonathan Masur and Cardozo law professor Christopher Buccafusco; an April book talk by University of San Diego law professor Orly Lobel, author of You Don’t Own Me: How Mattel v. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie’s Dark Side; and an April book talk by attorney Christopher Carani, editor-in-chief of Design Rights: Functionality and Scope of Protection.

For more information about cDELTA, visit its website at www. kentlaw.iit.edu/cdelta.

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Jun Qiu named a National Jurist “Law Student of the Year” Jun Qiu ’18, a former Chicago-Kent Honors Scholar, was recently recognized as one of 20 “Law Students of the Year” in National Jurist magazine. She is a licensed CPA and a former research assistant for The Law Lab, an interdisciplinary teaching and research center at Chicago-Kent devoted to legal futurism. She served as founding president of Chicago-Kent’s Tax Law Society and China Law Society and as Chicago-Kent’s ABA representative.

An advocate for legal technology and access to justice, Jun helped initiate a Chicago-Kent Honors Scholar project that uses technology to help legal aid attorneys prioritize and assist more effectively those facing eviction. She also worked as a research assistant on a criminal justice project relating to Miranda warnings, partnering with the ABA Center for Innovation.

“Judging the Political and Political Judging”

Symposium focuses on cross-border insolvency

Slants rock at Supreme Court conference

Professor Richard Hasen, University of California Irvine School of Law, delivered the keynote address, “Judging the Political and Political Judging: Justice Scalia as Case Study,” during The Supreme Court and American Politics Symposium on October 17 at Chicago-Kent. Hosted by the Chicago-Kent Law Review and the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States (ISCOTUS), the symposium convened constitutional legal scholars from across the country to examine the intersection of the Supreme Court and electoral politics.

Professor Jay L. Westbrook, the Benno C. Schmidt Chair of Business Law at the University of Texas School of Law, gave the post-luncheon address, “A System for Managing a Global Insolvency,” at the Symposium on Comparative and Cross-Border Issues in Bankruptcy and Insolvency Law in November. The symposium examined modern issues of bankruptcy and insolvency on the international level.

Simon Tam played bass with The Slants during a concert following the Supreme Court IP Review Conference at Chicago-Kent last September.

Tam spoke earlier on a panel about his experiences as the respondent in Matal v. Tam, a First Amendment challenge to the Lanham Act’s bar against registering trademarks that “may disparage” people, after the U.S. Trademark Office rejected his application to register the name of his band. Chicago-Kent Professor Edward Lee submitted an amicus brief in support, arguing that the Lanham Act in this case violated the First Amendment. For more on the case, visit oyez.org/cases/2016/15-1293.

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Chicago-Kent hosts summer program aimed at increasing diversity in the legal profession Students participating in Chicago-Kent's Pre-Law Undergraduate Scholars (PLUS) Program visited the Chicago office of DLA Piper in June for a networking reception and luncheon. Now in its 17th year, the PLUS Program is designed to introduce undergraduates from diverse backgrounds to the rigors of law school and to successful legal professionals. The 21 PLUS scholars, who come from 18 colleges and universities, took courses adapted from the law school's curriculum, visited state and federal courts, participated in a mock trial competition, learned about the law school admissions process and career options, and met leaders in the legal profession during the three-week summer program.

Pulitzer Prize winner visits Chicago-Kent

Discussing the impact of hate speech

On January 17, Professor James Forman Jr. of Yale Law School gave a talk for the Chicago-Kent community and signed copies of his book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. Critical of the rise of mass incarceration in this country, Forman’s book explores why African-American leaders in the nation’s urban centers supported the War on Crime in the 1970s, which led to a disproportionate impact on people of color.

Professor Steven J. Heyman moderated the Q & A discussion at the third annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Forum, held at ChicagoKent on January 18. Focusing on “The Impact of Hate Speech on Our Community,” speakers included Amanda Antholt of Equip for Equality, Sufyan S. Sohel of CAIR-Chicago, Norman White of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, and Ed Yohnka of the ACLU of Illinois.

Senator Durbin visits law school to announce privacy bill U.S. Senator Richard J. Durbin held a press conference in June at the Chicago-Kent Law Library to introduce the Clean Slate for Kids Online Act of 2018. The act seeks to strengthen protections provided by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. Chicago-Kent Professor Richard Warner facilitated the press conference.

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Advocacy Spotlight: Another stellar year During 2017–18, Chicago-Kent students won four regional and national advocacy competitions, advanced to the national or international finals in seven competitions, won three first-place best advocate awards, and earned two first-place best brief awards.

In addition, Chicago-Kent’s appellate advocacy program was ranked second in the country, based on results for the most recent academic year, by the Blakely Advocacy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center, and U.S. News and World Report ranked Chicago-Kent’s trial advocacy program fourth in the country.

On a bittersweet note, Chicago-Kent won the 2018 national championship in the Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition, sponsored by the International Trademark Association (INTA), two months after the death of former INTA president Dolores Hanna ’52, who was instrumental in founding the competition. (Read about Ms. Hanna’s influential career on page 43.)

Evan Kline-Wedeen ’18 (left) and Brittany Kaplan ’19 won the International Trademark Association’s 2018 Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition national championship, first-place best oral argument award, and second-place best brief award.

Anthony Joseph ’18 (left) and Christopher Gerardi ’18 won the first-place best brief award and finished as semifinalists in the 2017–18 Andrews Kurth Kenyon Moot Court National Championship.

From left: Mariam Chamilova ’19, Carolina Solano ’19, Dina Lupancu ’18 and Ashur Youash ’19 placed second in the 2017 Queens County District Attorney’s Mock Trial Competition.

From left: Alexis Halsell ’18, Jesse Pollans ’18, Shahina Khan ’18 and Kristen Farr Capizzi ’18 won the Chicago regional championship of the 2018 American Association for Justice Student Trial Advocacy Competition.

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Presley Valenzuela ’18 (left) and Michael Brew ’19 won the ABA Law Student Division Negotiation Competition’s Midwest regional championship.

2017-18 Advocacy Competition Highlights Moot Court

National Moot Court Competition

ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition

Regional Champions and Regional Highest-Scoring Brief Stephanie Flowers and Quinn Ford

Regional Second-Place Best Oral Advocate Yuliya Patlata

Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition Andrews Kurth Kenyon Moot Court National Championship

Best Brief Award Christopher Gerardi and Anthony Joseph

Appellate Lawyers Association National Moot Court Competition

First-Place Best Oral Advocate Timothy Lavino National Finalists and SecondPlace Best Brief Timothy Lavino and Alexandrina Shrove Second-Place Best Oral Advocate Marko Ilich

National Champions, Best Oral Argument and Second-Place Best Brief Brittany Kaplan and Evan KlineWedeen Regional Finalists and Regional Best Brief Award Brittany Kaplan and Evan KlineWedeen

Frank A. Schreck Gaming Law Moot Court Competition

First-Place Best Oral Advocate Rebecca Quade National Finalists Javier Ortega Alvarez, Alida Pecanin and Rebecca Quade

Lone Star Classic National Mock Trial Competition

Best Closing Argument Guy Guenther

National Civil Trial Competition

National Finalists Kristen Farr Capizzi, Alexis Halsell, Shahina Khan and Jesse Pollans

Queens County District Attorney’s Mock Trial Competition

National Finalists Mariam Chamilova, Dina Lupancu, Carolina Solano and Ashur Youash

Summit Cup

Juror’s Choice Award Stephanie Gerstetter

Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition

Second-Place Best Oral Advocate Taylor Brewer

Regional Finalists Annisha Arnold, India Burton, Ashley Davidson and Qi Niu

Second-Place Best Oral Advocate Katherine Stryker

Trial Advocacy

Alternative Dispute Resolution

American Association for Justice Student Trial Advocacy Competition

ABA Law Student Division Negotiation Competition

Ian Fletcher International Insolvency Law Moot

Regional Champions Kristen Farr Capizzi, Alexis Halsell, Shahina Khan and Jesse Pollans

Evan A. Evans Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition

Top U.S. Team Alanna Elinoff, Matthew Griffin, Cody Lipke and Ben Mahon

Regional Champions Michael Brew and Presley Valenzuela

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Congratulations to our

Forty Under 40 honorees

Twelve Chicago-Kent alumni were honored in the 2017 and 2018 editions of Forty Under 40, published in November 2017 and July 2018.

A supplement to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer, the annual publication names and profiles “40 of the most talented young attorneys practicing in Illinois.” More than 1,500 nominations are submitted to the publisher each year.

2017 Forty Under 40 alumni honorees

2018 Forty Under 40 alumni honorees

V. Brette Bensinger ’05

Gerald J. Bekkerman ’07

Partner, Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP

Partner, Taxman, Pollock, Murray & Bekkerman LLC

Ashly Boesche ’05 Partner, Pattishall, McAuliffe, Newbury, Hilliard & Geraldson LLP

Jamie R. Fisher ’06 Partner, Grund & Leavitt PC

Jessica Winkler Boike ’07 Partner, Beerman LLP

Eric Y. Choi ’07 Partner, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP

Gregory V. Ginex ’04 Partner, Bollinger Connolly Krause LLC

Michael A. McCaskey ’05 Partner, Swanson, Martin & Bell LLP

Jared B. Pinkus ’06 Partner, Beermann LLP

Sonya Rosenberg ’07 Partner, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP

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Christina E. Lutz ’08 Partner, Levenfeld Pearlstein LLC

Lyndsay A. Markley ’05 Principal, Law Office of Lyndsay A. Markley Ltd.

AWESOME ADJUNCTS In the following pages, you will read about eight adjunct professors who, despite tremendous demands from their jobs, share their inestimable knowledge and expertise with our students. Alumni often tell me that it was an adjunct professor who sparked their first fascination with a legal discipline and then later helped propel them on a wonderful career.

Law students receive little exposure to topics such as blockchain, hedge funds, and health care in core classes and thus benefit immensely from the enthusiasm and perspective of an expert in the trenches. And, other students value the opportunity to learn from a professional in what is typically a more intimate atmosphere than a Socratic-style class.

I am sure that, reading these profiles and remembering your educations, you will join in my appreciation for the tremendous contribution adjunct faculty are making in furthering our educational mission. — Harold J. Krent

Courtney Fong ’07 Chief Legal Officer and Chief Privacy Officer CompTIA

Hedge Funds

As a newly minted lawyer, Courtney Fong plunged straight into hedge funds. After graduation, he joined HFR Asset Management LLC, where he had clerked as a student. Despite the financial recession that followed, Courtney rose quickly through the ranks.

Five years later, he was in a position to start hiring interns. Setting his sights on Chicago-Kent students, he pitched the idea for a course to Dean Krent and Professor Felice Batlan, who approved his elective, Hedge Funds. The course began in 2013, just as Professor Batlan launched Chicago-Kent’s Institute for Compliance in Financial Markets.

Courtney, who now is chief legal officer for CompTIA, a nonprofit trade association that bills itself as “the voice of the world’s information technology industry,” keeps the emphasis on practical knowledge.

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“I can tell a war story, but if it happened the morning before I walked into class, it’s a lot fresher,” he says, “a lot more relevant.”

Some of Courtney’s students already work in the field as traders. Others come in not knowing what a hedge fund is. His 60-second breakdown goes like this: “If you own a mutual fund, you’re not buying the underlying stock or whatever it is the fund owns,” he explains. “You own a piece of the fund. Then the fund goes out and buys stocks, bonds or other financial instruments. Hedge funds operate similarly but employ much more complex strategies and therefore different risks and different fee structures.”

One of his former students, Christopher van Pelt ’17, now works for the Securities and Exchange Commission, and last year Courtney invited him to help teach the class.

“What better way to hear the other side than from someone from the SEC?” he says. “He can provide a set of experiences and knowledge that I can’t.”

Financial markets have seen plenty of change — not only Dodd-Frank but EMIR (European Market Infrastructure Regulation) and MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive), all of which fund managers need to keep abreast of.

Even the final exam is practical. It’s not just a test about policies. As part of their coursework, his students actually write a policy, something they can take into a job interview later and say, “I’ve written one of these policies before. Would you like to see it?

Here it is.”

“New regulations keep things interesting, for sure,” Courtney says, “but they also demonstrate a growing need for lawyers and compliance professionals.”

Teaching has its rewards, he notes, but “we’re not doing it for the money. We’re not doing it for the prestige. Obviously it takes a lot of time. We care about our students, and at the end of the day, I’m trying to help our students get jobs.”

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Alexandra Molesky ’07 Assistant State's Attorney Cook County State's Attorney's Office

Trial Advocacy 2

Alexandra Molesky planned to go into corporate law when she began law school at Chicago-Kent. By the time she graduated, she had chosen to become a prosecutor. What happened in between? The Trial Advocacy Program.

She remembers being taught Intensive Trial Advocacy

by Nick Caputo ’01, Margaret Firnstein ’99, Judge Daniel Martin ’84 and Judge David Erickson, and Trial Advocacy 2 by Judge Gilbert Grossi. “All the demonstrations, the hands-on and individualized critiques, everything had the goal of making us better and more comfortable on our feet.”

Alexandra never looked back. She landed an internship with the U.S. Army JAG Corps for a summer in Washington, D.C., then clerked with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, where she has worked as an assistant state’s attorney for the past 11 years. “Here was an opportunity to serve my community by giving crime victims a voice and by prosecuting violent offenders. I fell in love with the job, especially the trial aspect,” she says.

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At Chicago-Kent, trial ad alums are encouraged to maintain connections with the program, and in 2009, Alexandra came back to coach a competitive trial team. In 2010, Judge Erickson asked her to teach a Trial Advocacy class with Anthony Lucafo ’06, a colleague at the State’s Attorney’s Office.

“When I got that offer,” she recalls, “I jumped at it because it was such a wonderful opportunity.”

Battling downtown traffic to get to class at the end of a long day is a drawback, “but I think teaching also makes me better at my job. Relearning and practicing something over and over has its benefits.”

Alexandra lectures a little and gives brief demonstrations, but the point of the course is to get students to “learn by doing.”

“Getting up on your feet is not easy,” she says.

“Thinking on your feet, that’s an accomplishment in itself. I want to build our students up, while still correcting them on mechanics of trial advocacy, such as if they’re asking leading questions during direct

examination. I don’t want to impose my style on them.

You can look to people as an inspiration, but you need to be yourself. That’s what’s going to establish credibility with a finder of fact, whether it be a judge or a jury.”

Some students who take the course have no intention of becoming trial lawyers.

“One of my students was going into patent law,” she recalls. “And he did extremely well. That cross-section of experience and interest enhances the class.”

Teaching, she says, “pushes me to be better. The students keep me from falling into a rut.” And when former students show up in court as opposing counsel, she welcomes it.

“I think to myself, they learned that stuff in Trial Ad,” she says. “I’m proud of them.” Some are now her colleagues at the State’s Attorney’s Office and ask her for advice.

“I take it as a compliment.”

With the proliferation of social media, Alexandra notes, “oral communication skills are becoming a lost art.” The goal of Trial Ad is learning “how to effectively persuade a jury just by speaking directly.

But it’s not just mechanics. One of the biggest things we emphasize is civility and ethics, how the students conduct themselves, being the kind of person that people can trust to do the right thing.”

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Mariano Municoy was already pursuing an LL.M. in Law and Economics at Torcuato di Tella University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, when he decided to take advantage of the university’s exchange program with Chicago-Kent in 2003. His classes with Professor Graeme Dinwoodie were “the best I ever took in my life,” but the adjunct professor who had the biggest impact was Bradley Hulbert of McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP, who inspired him to focus on IP law exclusively when he returned to Argentina after earning his LL.M. in International IP Law. There, Mariano joined Moeller IP Advisers, a firm with a strong presence in Latin America and Europe.

Moeller asked Mariano to help expand its business in the United States. The ensuing trips almost always included visits to Chicago-Kent and discussions with Professors Mickie Piatt and Edward Lee, which led to a teaching invitation.

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Professor Piatt helped Mariano organize an IP seminar on Trademark Clearance in Latin America in 2010, and in 2013, she invited him to co-teach her master’s level class on Management & Markets. Professor Lee, director of the IP program, suggested Mariano’s first solo class: Trademark Law in Latin America.

In 2015, Mariano began teaching one-week intersession classes on the Madrid System for the International Registration of Trademarks. By 2017, that had expanded to include The Hague Agreement for the International Registration of Industrial Designs.

“I use guidelines prepared by the World Intellectual Property Organization and examples taken from particular cases I have encountered in my practice,” says Mariano. His classes address how individuals and companies can register a single trademark or design in multiple countries, the two main international systems being the Madrid Protocol and The Hague Agreement.

Mariano Municoy ’04 Partner and Director of Business Moeller IP Advisors

Madrid and Hague Systems for International Registrations of Marks and Designs

“It’s a very practical course,” he says. “Students learn how to trademark a book or a movie or a record in multiple countries using the knowledge they learn in my class.”

The class is timely “because of the exponential growth we are seeing in the economic and social value of IP in general and trademarks and designs in particular,” he points out, citing the Apple vs. Samsung litigation related to the iPad and iPhone, which reached the Supreme Court.

for approaching an issue. So I learn as much or more from my classes than my students do.”

He thinks of Chicago as a second home (despite the winters) and particularly enjoys teaching at ChicagoKent, noting, “It’s one of the five best IP schools in the U.S.”

“The world is getting smaller and more integrated,” he says, “so law students need to start operating in an international mode more than ever before.”

Mariano also teaches in Argentina and says he has become passionate about it.

“Teaching forces me to read and to prepare and to stay current,” he says. “It’s a two-way process. In almost every class there is a question or comment from at least one student that offers me a new angle

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Nick Caputo keeps busy balancing legal practice and adjunct teaching “because people did it for me. I wouldn’t be where I am without all the adjuncts who came before me.”

Active as a student in Chicago-Kent’s Trial Advocacy Program, Nick has spent the past 17 years doing litigation and trial work for a number of Chicago law firms, most recently founding Caputo & Popovic PC in 2009.

Shortly after Nick graduated, Judge David Erickson invited him to coach a competitive trial ad team at Chicago-Kent. Then, Justice Warren Wolfson asked him to take over a Trial Ad 1 class.

That led to Trial Ad 2, Evidence, Intensive Trial Advocacy and, for the past eight years, Litigation Technology, which he teaches with Mike Ko. Before teaching together, Nick and Mike shared a mentor, Chicago attorney Mike Rogers ’89, who offered Nick office space when he was starting his

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CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018

own firm in 2009. Mike Ko was one of Mike Rogers’ first hires for his trial consulting firm.

Mike Rogers created the Litigation Technology class at Chicago-Kent and had just begun a new semester when he died unexpectedly in 2010. Judge Erickson reached out to Nick and asked if he could take over the class.

“I said, ‘There’s no way I can do this alone,’” Nick recalls. He suggested Mike Ko, who signed on—along with another Chicago-Kent grad, Nikitas Fudukos ’09.

Nick and Mike—who had recently established his own firm, Groundwork Trial Consulting—became a teaching team.

“I tell every class we have that, in my view, the best trial consultant strategist in the whole country is Mike Ko,” Nick says. “Professionally, too—if I need somebody on a case, he’s the person I recommend my clients use.”

Nicholas Caputo ’01 Founding Partner Caputo & Popovic PC

Michael Ko ’08 Founder Groundwork Trial Consulting

Litigation Technology

For his part, Mike describes Nick as “one of the best adjuncts Chicago-Kent has ever had.”

“I help him—that’s the real way it works,” Mike says.

The core concepts of the course remain the same year to year: How do you introduce something into evidence, and how do you do so electronically and through media? But the approaches are constantly evolving.

“We’re teaching what we do,” says Mike. “In my business, I have to keep abreast of what’s coming, what’s new now, what’s old now, and what’s coming next.”

Some students are more familiar with technology than others, he says, “but they’ve never really thought about technology in a rhetorical way.” Students need to see technology not only as an attorney would, but as a storyteller would. “Use technology to tell the story you want to tell,” says Mike.

Nick and Mike keep the emphasis on the practical. “I try very hard not to waste students’ time or money,” says Nick. “I don’t want to teach them something they can’t use. Everything we do in class is designed so they can take it back to the firm where they’re clerking and put it into use.”

Both train an eye on “helping students not only get their degrees but get jobs and become great lawyers,” says Nick.

“I like training the people I work for, and I also love teaching,” adds Mike. “I think of both as the same activity, just different places I’m going to on any given day. Almost every single person I’ve ever hired has come from our Litigation Technology class.”

SUMMER 2018 CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE

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Patrick Coffey ’84 Partner Husch Blackwell LLP

Julie Sullivan ’06 Shareholder Greenberg Traurig LLP

Health Care Law

Pat Coffey and Julie Sullivan have a lot in common.

Both attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Chicago-Kent; both were partners in the Healthcare, Life Sciences & Education Practice Group at Husch Blackwell LLP, where Pat still practices; and both teach Health Care Law, together, as adjunct professors at Chicago-Kent.

He stayed for 18 years, became a partner, and “had the great fortune to wake up to health law.” Mike Peregrine, one of his mentors at Gardner, “showed me the truly invaluable benefits that could flow out of a health law–focused practice.” He’s never regretted it and preaches that gospel to law students whenever he gets the chance.

A couple of things separate them: A thousand miles, for instance, as Julie currently works in the Denver office of Greenberg Traurig, while Pat is located in Chicago. And, they hail from different classes at Chicago-Kent. Pat graduated in 1984, Julie in 2006.

He first got the chance as a volunteer during Career Week at Chicago-Kent. Then, after discussing health law and the value of a larger presence for the subject in the law school’s curriculum, he pitched a health care law class to Dean Harold Krent. “Employment, litigation, real estate, tax, corporate transaction— there’s not an area that health lawyers don’t cover,” Pat notes. Dean Krent said yes.

It took Pat a while to discover health care law.

Throughout law school he worked in the Federal Defender Program and began his career in private practice at Gardner, Carton and Douglas LLP, defending executives and corporate interests in connection with government investigations and enforcement proceedings.

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CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018

Pat initially taught the class with Meghan Kieffer ’94, another Chicago-Kent alum and general counsel for a health system. The course began around 2010.

Julie Sullivan also discovered health care law late—in her third year at Chicago-Kent. She took a class with Joan Lebow ’78, who flipped the switch for her.

After graduating from Chicago-Kent, she completed a master’s degree in public health with an emphasis on health policy and administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Then she clerked for the Honorable William Bauer of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals before going into private practice. After several years with a couple of large international law firms in Chicago, Julie moved west to go in-house with a publicly traded health care company before joining Husch Blackwell’s Denver office. Pat saw her bio, spotted the Chicago-Kent connection, and invited her to co-teach the class. Julie, who recently joined Greenberg Traurig, flies to Chicago about five times a semester to teach.

“Pat Coffey is certainly a big name in the health care space,” says Julie, “and any opportunity to work with him on a project like this, I was game for.”

Julie uses a Rocky Mountain metaphor to describe the class as “the 10,000-foot view of the array of issues I would classify as health care law, ranging from corporate governance to medical staff, peer review,

health privacy, and fraud and abuse issues. We span the field to give students a flavor of how the health care system works and how it’s unique and highly regulated.”

Both Julie and Pat have been surprised by how much they gain from teaching the class.

“It forces me to hone my skills in explaining very complicated concepts to people who are not familiar with them,” says Julie. “I’ll bring in issues, sanitize them of any client-identifying information, and leverage the students to help me think outside the box.”

“There’s something about young people generally,” says Pat. “They have a different perspective. Am I educated through this teaching process? I’m sure I am. It’s also not the worst thing in the world to have to go back each year and read things like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. I didn’t think I was qualified to teach anything, but here I am doing it!”

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As a 2L in 2012, Nelson Rosario was already being described by his friends in law school as the “annoying Bitcoin guy.”

“Obviously I didn’t buy a lot of Bitcoin at the time,” he notes, “because we’re not conducting this interview on my yacht in the Caribbean.”

In 2014, during his last semester at Chicago-Kent, he took a seminar with Professor Hank Perritt and began thinking about smartphones as agents of economic growth in the developing world.

“I kept reading about Bitcoin in the Third World,” he recalls. “I thought, this is going to be the next big thing. I didn’t know exactly how. I just knew I wanted to learn as much about it as I could.”

After law school, Nelson headed to Lempia Summerfield Katz LLC, the IP firm where he clerked as a 3L. There, work relating to blockchain—the

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CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018

technology that underlies Bitcoin—ended up on his desk. When he arrived at Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP in 2016, there was blockchain work waiting, and he was able to take on many more blockchain matters.

He recently started his own firm—Smolinski Rosario Law in Chicago—with attorney Zach Smolinski, whom he met through a shared interest in Bitcoin.

He has now published five articles and opinion pieces on the subject and spoken at several conferences.

His course, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the Law, was born of a lunch last year with Professor Dan Katz.

“What is Chicago-Kent doing with blockchain?”

Nelson asked. “We should be all over this.”

Professor Katz said, “Why don’t you teach a class?”

Nelson just finished his first semester co-teaching with Professor Katz.

Nelson Rosario ’14 Principal Smolinski Rosario Law PC

Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the Law

“We try to impress upon students the opportunity that exists with this kind of developing tech space, particularly for lawyers, and how they can position themselves as experts very early in their careers, which can accelerate things for them,” says Nelson.

They also try to cut through the media hype.

“This is part of the evolutionary track that human beings have been on to deal with problems of trust in managing commercial exchange,” he tells his students. “We’ve created banks, accounting. Now all of a sudden we have this new technology, and maybe we can take out the middlemen.”

They take a technology certification exam on the fundamentals of blockchain. And finally, they write a short paper on a legal issue related to the space.

Nelson’s goal is to help students see that they can carve a career niche for themselves.

“If their knowledge lies in some emerging market where there aren’t really a lot of people who are experts, that gives them an opportunity.”

Nelson describes blockchain as a “decentralized ledger.” Everyone has access to the information and the ledger. Even if a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin fails, he said, the technology is here to stay.

The class is graded in three components. Students do a market research report on a company that has a foot in this space—to reinforce that this is real.

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The first step toward asylum Chicago-Kent students help detained women prepare for credible fear interviews In November 2016, Samantha Lloyd ’13, currently an employment immigration lawyer at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart PC in Denver, attended a symposium in Chicago on immigration policy and advocacy, where one of the presenters talked about volunteering at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

Samantha went down a month later. Despite the innocuous-sounding name, the Family Residential Center is a detention facility where the U.S. Department of Homeland Security detains mothers with children who make it to the Mexico-U.S. border, some 90 miles away, and seek asylum in the United States. The vast majority of these women have experienced sexual violence.

“ We learned so much from the women we helped. We saw what a brave woman is.” — Tatiana Alonso ’20 Samantha’s experience was “life-changing” in more ways than one. “One woman showed me the burns on her 3-year-old daughter where a gang member had poured boiling water on her,” she recalled.

In January 2017, Samantha was invited to Chicago-Kent to talk about her experience assisting immigrants at O’Hare Airport when President Trump’s first travel ban was enacted. She encouraged Chicago-Kent students who were interested in helping immigrants to volunteer in Dilley at the center, where lawyers and law students are needed to help detainees prepare for their asylum interviews.

Rebecca Spira ’19 and Joanna Martin ’19, president and vice president of the Immigration Law Society at Chicago-Kent, and Professor Felice Batlan, who is writing a book about the history of immigration advocacy, made it happen. Rebecca and Joanna recruited students while Professor Batlan arranged for course credit and

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CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018

fundraised (roughly $10,000) to defer the cost of student travel expenses. Samantha agreed to lead the excursion.

They arranged the trip through the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project, which staffs the detention center with an attorney and three paralegals but is always looking for volunteers. Last March, during Chicago-Kent’s spring break, Samantha and her contingent of 13 law students answered the call.

All but two of Chicago-Kent’s student volunteers are fluent in Spanish. A number are children of immigrants themselves.

“The idea behind the Dilley pro bono project,” Samantha said, “is that every woman has an asylum claim, and we don’t stop preparing her until we’ve found out what that claim is.”

The group conducted 270 intake interviews with newly detained women (most had more than one child) and held 302 preparation sessions for the “credible fear interview” that forms the basis of asylum claims. Clients must establish grounds for claiming asylum before they are released from detention. If not, they are likely to be deported.

In 2014, when the Obama administration began detaining families, more than 50 percent of women received negative findings and were immediately deported, Samantha said. In 2017 alone, the Dilley pro bono project represented more than 12,000 detained families, with 98 percent receiving positive findings. It’s only step one in a long process, but it’s the critical step.

Of the 302 cases Chicago-Kent students worked on, only two clients received negative findings. The students visited Dilley roughly two months before the U.S. Justice Department issued a ruling limiting domestic abuse and gang violence as grounds for asylum.

Members of Chicago-Kent’s Immigration Law Society (above) spent their 2018 spring break at the South Texas Family Residential Center helping asylum seekers detained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security prepare for credible fear interviews.

The Chicago-Kent students worked at least 12 hours a day for five days. Many of the clients spent their interview preparation sessions sobbing as they told stories of what they had experienced.

“One woman in her twenties, her dad was the one who was in a gang, and he wanted her brother to join,” said evening student Tatiana Alonso ’20. “The brother said no, so her father killed him. She had tattooed the name of her brother on her hand, and her dad took a hot knife and scraped the tattoo off. She showed me the scar.”

There is no way to prepare yourself emotionally, Tatiana said. “Everyone warned us that ‘secondhand trauma is a real thing.’”

“We learned so much from the women we helped,” she said. “We saw what a brave woman is.”

Diana Gomez ’20, an evening student who works full time at Catholic Charities, noted, “I work with victims of domestic violence and criminal sexual assault at work, but the level of trauma and the consistency of it, that was definitely very new and very hard. You don’t realize until you do this just how much people have been through.”

“It shrinks your world,” Diana said. “It makes everything in my life look so small in comparison.” We are, she noted, “one natural disaster from being displaced ourselves. How would we want to be treated if we were on the other side of the desk?”

Plans are underway to recruit both students and alumni for next year’s trip and to make service at Dilley an ongoing part of Chicago-Kent’s curriculum.

As for this year’s volunteers, they recently completed the final part of their project, each producing an audio or written report discussing their experience and its impact on them as “law students, future lawyers and human beings,” reports Professor Batlan.

“Some are addressing the need for legal reform and others are thinking about how to effectively provide free legal services within a difficult environment,” she said. “All have experienced firsthand what it means to be detained and surveilled and the meaning of justice in such a context.”

To support the students' return trip to Dilley in 2019, visit alumni.kentlaw.iit.edu/donate/ils-trip.

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F A C U LT Y H I G H L I G H T S

Professor Andrews wins award for data privacy article

Dean Krent receives Chicago Bar Foundation's Schrager Award Dean Harold Krent is the recipient of the

Distinguished

2018 Leonard Jay

Professor Lori Andrews

Schrager Award of

won the 2018 AALL

Excellence, which

Spectrum Article of

recognizes attorneys

the Year Award from

in academia who

the American Association of Law Libraries for iSpy:

have made significant

Threats to Individual and Institutional Privacy in the

contributions to improving access to

Digital World. Professor Andrews’ article, published in the Spectrum’s May/June 2017 issue, explains how

justice for the less fortunate. The award was conferred

law librarians can protect their patrons and institutions

on July 12 by the Chicago Bar Association and the

from data aggregators that resell digital information to

Chicago Bar Foundation.

insurance companies, marketers, potential employers

Dean Krent was recognized for his leadership

and the government. She accepted the award in July

role in a succession of important and far-reaching

at the association’s national meeting in Baltimore.

public interest initiatives, many of them carried out

This year, Professor Andrews was once again

with his students. Together, he and his students have

selected as a leading Illinois lawyer in the area of

advocated for domestic violence victims, represented

biotechnology law by The Best Lawyers in America, an

criminal defendants pro bono in cases involving

annual peer-review publication that names leading

significant issues of constitutional law, evaluated

lawyers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and

the lack of procedural safeguards for tenants facing

75 countries around the world.

eviction in Chicago courts, and promoted the use of technology to assist pro se litigants and legal aid attorneys.

Professor Katz gives keynote at ABA TechShow Professor Daniel Martin Katz delivered

Professor Nancy Marder

the keynote address,

has been selected

“Six Vectors of Legal

as a 2018–19 Senior

Innovation: How

Fellow of the Baldy

Current Trends Will

Center for Law & Social

#MakeLaw Better,” at the ABA TechShow in Chicago

Policy. Housed at the

in March. His talk offered a provocative view of the

University at Buffalo

near future: how lawyers should embrace innovation

School of Law, the

and new technologies if they want to achieve greater

Baldy Center supports

professional success or merely ensure their economic

interdisciplinary

survival.

research on law, legal institutions and social policy.

In fall 2017, Professor Katz was inducted as a

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Professor Marder named a Baldy Center Senior Fellow

During her fellowship, Professor Marder will finish

fellow of the College of Law Practice Management

writing a new book titled The Power of the Jury:

at the organization’s annual meeting in Atlanta. His

Transforming Citizens into Jurors, which will examine

book Legal Informatics, co-edited with Ron Dolin and

how every stage of the jury process—from voir dire to

Michael J. Bommarito II, will be published in 2019

post-verdict interviews—helps to transform ordinary

by Cambridge University Press.

citizens into responsible jurors.

CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018

Professor Nahmod receives 2018 Abner Mikva Award

Professor Walters inducted into the American College of Bankruptcy

Distinguished

of the American College

Professor Sheldon

of Bankruptcy in March at

Nahmod was honored

the Smithsonian Donald

in July with a 2018

W. Reynolds Center

Abner J. Mikva

for American Art and

Professor Adrian Walters was inducted as a fellow

Award from the Chicago Lawyer Chapter of the

Portraiture in Washington,

American Constitution Society. The award, named

D.C. He was among

in honor of the late Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S.

29 inductees honored

Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,

for their professional excellence and exceptional

recognizes attorneys who have advanced the society’s

contributions to the fields of bankruptcy and

progressive mission. Professor Nahmod, a well-known

insolvency.

expert on constitutional law and the law of Section

A widely published scholar of bankruptcy and

1983, has successfully argued civil rights cases in the

restructuring law, Professor Walters joined the faculty

U.S. Supreme Court and the First, Seventh, Eighth and

in 2011 as the Ralph L. Brill Professor of Law. In 2018,

Tenth Circuits.

he received Chicago-Kent’s Excellence in Teaching

This year, Professor Nahmod received the Student

Award.

Bar Association's award for excellence in teaching. In addition, he was once again named a leading Illinois lawyer in the area of municipal law by The Best Lawyers in

America, an annual peer-review publication that

names leading lawyers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 75 countries around the world.

Professor Schmidt’s new book chronicles 1960 lunch counter sit-in movement Professor Christopher Schmidt tells the story of the lunch counter protests of 1960 and the national debate they sparked over the meaning of the constitutional right of all Americans to equal protection of the laws in his new book The Sit-Ins: Protest and Legal Change in the Civil Rights Era, published in March 2018 by the University of Chicago Press. Professor Schmidt describes how the sit-ins presented a series of underappreciated legal dilemmas—about the meaning of the Constitution, the capacity of legal institutions to remedy different forms of injustice, and the relationship between legal reform and social change. His book invites a broader understanding of how Americans contest and construct the meaning of their Constitution.

SUMMER 2018 CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE

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SUPPORTING CHICAGO-KENT

NEW SCHOLARSHIPS Because of the support of generous alumni, ChicagoKent continues to attract some of the brightest and most talented students. Scholarships are critical to recruiting creative and energetic students and then providing them a world-class education. Scholarships also reduce students’ debt burden and allow them to pursue a wider range of career and life choices consistent with their professional aspirations and personal values.

“

I decided to go to law school after

For as long as I can remember,

15 years working as a professional

becoming a lawyer was my dream.

union musician. Though it was a

But I was also concerned about

daunting step to go back to school

the financial burden of going to law

while my husband was between

school. Thanks to your generosity,

jobs and we had a daughter to

I do not have to worry about such

support, I have no regrets.

a heavy burden and can focus

The support I received through

scholarship programs enabled

instead on my schoolwork.

Nobody in my family has ever

me to graduate without an

gone to law school. Your gift has

unmanageable amount of debt

not only given me an opportunity

and to take advantage of the

to pursue my dream, but has also

myriad of opportunities for hands-

afforded my family the opportunity

on learning at Chicago-Kent. While

to one day have a lawyer in

Donors established the following scholarships over the past year:

a student at Chicago-Kent, I was

the family. Words alone cannot

an editor of the Chicago -Kent L aw

express my gratitude for your

Class of 1992 Scholarship

Review as well as editor of the

donation. On behalf of my family

Employee Rights and Employment

and me, thank you for helping

Policy Journal and the Illinois

make my dreams possible!

Public Employee Relations Report,

– Alec Kraus ’20

Class of 1997 Scholarship Patrick S. Coffey Scholarship Michael Delrahim Scholarship Fanny Fadel Scholarship Sandra J. Ilagan Scholarship Sheldon H. Nahmod Scholarship Santi Piyatat Scholarship Tom Posey ILW Scholarship Kristen E. Prinz Scholarship

and I served on the board of several student organizations.

With sincerest gratitude, I

efforts at Chicago-Kent. You've

supporting my journey towards

enabled me to fulfill a long-term

becoming a labor and employment

goal in attending school here.

law practitioner.

I’m also thankful for the ability to

– Naomi Frisch ’18

continue developing my career while in school, which is only

Scott T. Schutte Scholarship Turano Foundation Scholarship John C. Walden Scholarship

Thank you for your support of my

thank you for your generosity in

possible at a place with a solid I can't thank you enough for your

evening program like Chicago-

generous financial assistance.

Kent’s.

My decision to go into law later in

Continuing relevant work has

Harvey L. Walner Scholarship

life was a difficult one for both me

paid off, not only financially, but

Weiss-Ham Family Foundation Scholarship

and my family. While I try to work

in that I've been able to make

as much as I can during school,

professional connections through

it is difficult to avoid taking on

my job, some of which have

debt. Your assistance means so

led to a legal job offer for after I

much. When I am an attorney, I

graduate. I hope to be a Chicago-

establishing a scholarship,

will not forget the generosity I have

Kent success story, and I owe my

contact Dana Pownall ’15,

experienced when I am confronted

presence here to your support!

with others who are in need of my

– Margaret Fleetwood ’18

To learn more about

director of development, at (312) 906-5234 or dpownall@kentlaw.iit.edu.

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CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018

services but lack resources.

– Joshua Turner ’18

11th Annual Public Interest Awards On April 18, Chicago-Kent celebrated student and alumni dedication and service to the public interest.

The evening honored the 2018 recipients of the Honorable Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Public Interest Award, the Outstanding Pro Bono Service Award, and the Ronald W. Staudt Public Interest Partner Award.

In addition, 42 students received the Certificate of Service or the Dean’s Distinguished Public Service Award in recognition of their volunteer efforts.

From left: Richard Winter ’87, Ainat Margalit ’03, Abigail Staudt ’06, Dean Hal Krent, and Ruth Lopez-McCarthy ’09, representing the National Immigrant Justice Center

Honorable Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Public Interest Award

Ainat Margalit ’03, Legal Assistance Foundation (LAF) Abigail Staudt ’06, The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland Outstanding Pro Bono Service Award

Richard Winter ’87, Holland & Knight LLP Ronald W. Staudt Public Interest Partner Award

National Immigrant Justice Center

Richard Winter ’87 (right) and the Honorable Terrence J. Lavin ’83 were interviewed for a two-part series in the New York Times about Sam Siatta, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran with PTSD who had been convicted of home invasion. Richard was lead counsel, working pro bono, in successfully securing the release of Mr. Siatta from prison. After reading the first article about Mr. Siatta, Justice Lavin met with him and his fiancé, arranged for him to begin work as a carpenter’s apprentice, and later officiated at their wedding. Justice Lavin shared the New York Times articles, titled The Fighter and Love’s Road Home, in his nomination of Richard for the Outstanding Pro Bono Service Award.

Senior Partner Council Reception Nearly 100 members of Chicago-Kent's Senior Partner Council (SPC) joined Dean Harold Krent at the Ivy Room in July to celebrate the role of philanthropy at the law school. Members of the Senior Partner Council donate $1,000 or more during the fiscal year. Forty-two alumni joined SPC for the first time, and SPC members donated more than $2 million last year.

From left: Dean Harold Krent, Peter J. Birnbaum '83 and Theodore L. Koenig '83

From left: Ann Fadel, Tarek Fadel '03 and Professor Emeritus Ralph Brill

From left: Oscar A. Pedraza '91, Camille M. Miller '91 and Philip A. Barek '91

SUMMER 2018 CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE

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Class Notes are found on the MyKent Online Community.

Log in at alumni.kentlaw.iit.edu.

***

IN MEMORIAM Professor Suzanne Ehrenberg

Wilson Frost, Class of 1958

The ChicagoKent community mourns the death of Professor Suzanne Ehrenberg, a gifted lawyer and teacher and a cherished colleague and friend who mentored hundreds of Chicago-Kent students in the art of legal research and writing. Professor Ehrenberg died September 26, 2017, at her home in Evanston following a brief illness.

The Chicago-Kent community is saddened by the death on May 5 of alumnus and former Chicago Alderman Wilson Frost ’58, a leading Chicago politician for more than 30 years, but there is much to commemorate.

“Suzanne was a great teacher, a wonderful colleague and a skillful administrator,” said Dean Harold Krent.

“We will miss her tremendously and treasure her contributions to our law school for many years to come.”

Professor Ehrenberg joined Chicago-Kent’s faculty in 1985, serving for many years as associate director of the law school’s Legal Research and Writing Program.

She taught a broad range of courses, including Legal Research and Writing; Remedies; Law and Literature; Corporations; Communication and Legal Reasoning; and Appellate Procedure. She also authored a number of scholarly articles about the legal research and writing process.

“Suzanne was a devoted teacher, relentlessly rigorous but also compassionate and funny with her students,” said Professor Elizabeth De Armond, director of Chicago-Kent’s Legal Research and Writing Program.

“She earned their respect and their gratitude, and was a fierce believer in the power of strong analysis and communications skills to make not just better lawyers, but better thinkers.”

Professor Ehrenberg grew up on the South Side of Chicago near the Museum of Science and Industry.

She received her B.A. from Williams College (magna cum laude), where she majored in American history and literature, and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. Before joining Chicago-Kent, she practiced law for four years with the Chicago firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt and served as a staff attorney with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

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CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018

In a career defined by an extraordinary commitment to public service, Alderman Frost was president pro tempore of the Chicago City Council, chairman of the council’s powerful finance committee, and a commissioner of the Cook County Board of Tax Appeals.

“Wilson Frost was a distinguished public servant, an outstanding lawyer, and a source of immense pride to all of us at Chicago-Kent who admired his trailblazing career,” said Dean Harold Krent.

Born in Cairo, Illinois, on December 27, 1925, Alderman Frost grew up in Chicago, attending Wilson Junior College and Fisk University before earning his law degree at Chicago-Kent in 1958. He practiced law in Chicago for more than 45 years, first at the firm of Frost, Sherard, Howse and Coleman, and later at the firm of Meyer & Frost, which eventually became Frost & Greenblatt.

Elected to the Chicago City Council in 1967, he represented the 21st Ward and later the 34th Ward.

For many years he was the council’s leading AfricanAmerican alderman, telling the Chicago Tribune in 1973 that he hoped his work at the City Council would encourage other African-Americans to become involved in politics.

After leaving the City Council in 1987, Alderman Frost served on the Cook County Board of Tax Appeals until his retirement in 1998. During his career he volunteered for a number of Chicago organizations, including Mercy Hospital Medical Center and the City Club of Chicago, where he served as vice president.

Dolores K. Hanna, Class of 1952 The ChicagoKent community mourns the death of distinguished alumna Dolores K. Hanna ’52, an influential trademark attorney who worked tirelessly to promote the role of women in the legal profession.

Ms. Hanna died January 15 in Chicago, at age 90.

During her long and illustrious career, Ms. Hanna served as the first woman president of the International Trademark Association. In the 1980s, she chaired the federal Trademark Review Commission, which recommended changes that were enacted into the Trademark Law Revision Act of 1988, the first comprehensive update of the country’s trademark laws since the Lanham Act of 1946.

“Dolores was a leading light in the international trademark community, and she cared deeply about both the intellectual property education and personal growth of our students,” said Dean Harold Krent.

Ms. Hanna was instrumental in the creation of the International Trademark Association’s annual Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition, which now presents the Dolores K. Hanna Best Brief Award in her honor at the national finals.

When Ms. Hanna retired in 2006, Bell, Boyd and Lloyd (now K&L Gates) established the Dolores Hanna Trademark Prize at Chicago-Kent to honor her contributions to the firm and to support an outstanding IP student. In recent years, the fund has been supplemented through generous gifts from IP professionals and Ms. Hanna’s friends and colleagues from around the world. The endowed prize recognizes a second- or third-year student for outstanding performance in an intellectual property course.

Ms. Hanna served as president of the International Trademark Association, Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago, Women’s Bar Association of Illinois, Women’s Bar Foundation, and Cook County Court Watchers, and as a board member of the Public Interest Law Initiative.

Ms. Hanna received Chicago-Kent’s Professional Achievement Award in 1995 and was named among its 125 Alumni of Distinction as part of the celebration of the law school’s 125th anniversary in 2013.

A Chicago native, Ms. Hanna began her legal career at the intellectual property firm of Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery, where she was named partner. She went on to work as trademark counsel in the legal department of Kraft Inc. and as head of the trademark group at the law firm of Hill & Simpson. In 2000, Ms. Hanna joined Bell, Boyd and Lloyd, where she founded the law firm’s trademark practice and later served as special trademark counsel.

SUMMER 2018 CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE

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I N M E M O RIAM The Chicago-Kent community extends its sympathy to the families and friends of the following deceased alumni and faculty: Dwight C. Adams ’68 Raymond K. Baker ’77 Curtis F. Beckman ’81 Berton G. Braun ’79 Rhonda Crawford ’03 Marian H. Donohue ’83 L. Stanton Dotson ’64 Robert D. Eatman ’81 Professor Suzanne Ehrenberg Wilson Frost ’58 Raja S. Gaddipati ’06 Robert M. Green ’67 Kathleen M. Gros ’93 Wendell W. Hall ’57 Dolores K. Hanna ’52 James H. Henson ’75 J. Richard Hisaw ’73 John N. Hourihane ’67 W. R. Impey ’57 Stanley L. Jackson ’60 Charlotte D. Keeton ’82 Robert F. Kempf ’63 James Koch ’79 Ernest L. Miller ’82 Philip L. Noteboom ’78 Thomas F. O'Gara ’72 William P. O'Malley ’72 William G. Pileggi ’76 Steven J. Rizzi ’88 Rakhael Ross ’79 Herbert D. Sledd ’52 Professor Margaret G. Stewart David H. Wunder ’62 Joseph N. Zameic ’74 44 |

CHICAGO-KENT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018

Professor Margaret Stewart The Chicago-Kent community mourns the death of Professor Emeritus Margaret Stewart, an astute legal scholar who taught civil procedure, federal courts and constitutional law to generations of future lawyers during her 35 years on ChicagoKent’s faculty.

“All of us at Chicago-Kent will remember Margaret as an inspiring teacher, a perceptive scholar, a caring mentor and an institutional force for reason,” said Dean Harold Krent.

Professor Stewart joined Chicago-Kent’s faculty in 1977, after serving for three years as an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. A graduate of Kalamazoo College, she earned her law degree at Northwestern University, where she served as notes and comments editor of the Northwestern University Law Review.

She was admitted to the New York Bar and worked for the firm of Wilkie, Farr & Gallagher for several years before beginning her academic career.

Professor Stewart’s scholarship addressed federalism and various aspects of jurisdiction, eventually turning to issues of jurisdiction and the Internet. From 1999 to 2000, she served as project director and reporter for the American Bar Association’s Global Cyberspace Jurisdiction Project.

The project’s final report, Achieving Legal and Business Order in Cyberspace: A Report on Global Jurisdiction Issues Created by the Internet, appears at 55 The Business Lawyer 1801 (2000).

Professor Stewart, an avid Star Trek fan, counted numerous good friends among Chicago-Kent’s faculty and alumni.

“Margaret and I were close friends and ‘partners’ in Civil Procedure for the many years that we both taught it,” said Professor Joan Steinman. “Margaret was very smart and knowledgeable, a great sounding board and discussion partner for her colleagues, a terrific teacher for her students, a leader who had the confidence of successive deans because of her good sense and political astuteness, and one who took charge of many important faculty endeavors through her chairmanship of and service on the most significant faculty committees. She greatly contributed to the quality of life—and certainly of my life— at Chicago-Kent.”

UPCOMING ALUMNI E VENTS, 2018–19 Federal Sector Labor Relations & Labor Law Conference September 13 Supreme Court IP Review & Patent Trial and Appeal Board Conference September 21 Golden Reunion (for the Class of 1968 and all previous classes) September 21 Student-Alumni Softball Tournament September 22 Palmer Prize Lecture September 25 Today for C-K Day of Giving September 26 Federal Circuit Court Sits at Chicago-Kent October 3 Young Alumni Social October 10 Illinois Tech Kaplan Institute Grand Opening October 25 ConneKtions@Dinner Week October 29–November 2 10th annual Conference on Futures and Derivatives November 1 Los Angeles Alumni Event November 11

San Diego Alumni Event November 13 40th annual Alumni Awards Celebration November 14 Illinois Public Sector Labor Relations Law Conference November 30 Florida Alumni Events January 14–17 Texas Alumni Events February 5–6 Alumni-Student ConneKtions (ASCK) Week February 25–March 1 Diversity Week March 4–9 Washington, D.C.-Area Alumni Event March 25 U.S. Supreme Court Swearing-In Ceremony (1) March 26 New York Alumni Event March 27 Honors Scholars 20th Anniversary Weekend February 5–6 Commencement May 19 U.S. Supreme Court Swearing-In Ceremony (2) June 17

More events are being added all the time! For details and to register, visit alumni.kentlaw.iit.edu/events.

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