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Chicago-Kent College of Law: Office of Alumni Relations

Chicago-Kent Alumni Awards: 2011 Award Recipients

Every year Chicago-Kent alumni come together to honor distinguished alumni and individuals who serve Chicago-Kent and the legal community.
This year, awards will be given to the following individuals:

Distinguished Service Award
Robert A. Surrette ‘97
Professional Achievement Award
William V. Johnson ‘66
Patricia J. Whitten ‘74
 
Young Alumni Award
Nicholas A. Caputo ‘01
Scott M. Curran ‘01
Institutional Partner Award
Meckler Bulger Tilson Marick & Pearson LLP

Distinguished Service Award

Given to an individual who has made a significant financial or volunteer contribution to the law school.

Robert A. Surrette ‘97
Shareholder, McAndrew Held & Malloy LTD

Robert A. Surrette '97A 1997 graduate of the law school, Bob Surrette is a shareholder at McAndrews Held & Malloy, an intellectual property boutique firm offering full-service intellectual property and technology services. Bob focuses his practice on the resolution of complex intellectual property and technology-related disputes with an emphasis on patent, trademark, and trade dress litigation. Bob has extensive experience in managing and preparing complex intellectual property cases for trial and appeal. Prior to joining McAndrews in 1998, Bob served as law clerk to the Honorable John A. Nordberg, Senior Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Bob devotes a significant amount of time to the Chicago-Kent community. He currently serves as an adjunct professor in the law school’s nationally-recognized Legal Writing Program, teaching an upper-level writing and research class focused on intellectual property. Most notably, Bob served on the Chicago-Kent Alumni Board of Directors for well over ten years, including as president and vice-president, and currently, he serves as the Board’s liaison to the Chicago-Kent Board of Overseers. He frequently speaks to recently-admitted and current students on variety of issues and is an exceptional example of a dedicated volunteer. While a student, he served as executive notes and comments editor for the Chicago-Kent Law Review and is a member of the Order of the Coif. In 2009, Bob’s firm, McAndrews, Held & Malloy Ltd., received Chicago-Kent’s Institutional Partner Award.

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Professional Achievement Award

Given to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to one or more of the following fields: 1) the practice of law, 2) the judiciary, 3) public service/government, 4) business/commerce, or 5) the media.

William V. Johnson ‘66
President/Shareholder, Johnson & Bell, Ltd.

William V. Johnson '66A 1966 graduate of Chicago-Kent, Bill Johnson is an acclaimed litigator who has tried many high-profile catastrophic injury and mass tort cases in Chicago and across the United States. A co-founder of Johnson & Bell, Ltd., Bill has also served as the firm’s president since 1979 and during this tenure, the firm has grown to 120 attorneys. The firm, founded in 1975, has continually received national recognition for its trial and appellate advocacy, and has been acknowledge by American Lawyer’s Corporate Counsel Magazine as one of the Top 100 Law Firms in client satisfaction. Over the years, Bill has tried virtually every type of civil injury case and has also defended many commercial liability, professional liability and trade secret cases throughout his career.

An active member in nearly a dozen professional organizations, Bill is past president of the Chicago Society of Trial Lawyers and is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the International Society of Barristers. In April 2011, he was inducted into the 2011 Illinois State Bar Association’s Class of Laureates, joining a group of only 102 distinguished Illinois attorneys with this selection. Bill has been listed in “The Best Lawyers of America” since 1989, “Who’s Who in American Law” since 1987 and “The International Who’s Who of Product Liability Defense Lawyers.”

 

Patricia J. Whitten '74
Partner, Franczek Radelet P.C.

Patricia J. Whitten '74Patti Whitten, a 1974 graduate of Chicago-Kent, is a partner in the education law practice group at Franczek Radelet P.C., a boutique labor, employment and education law firm. Since joining the firm in 1994, Patti has focused her practice on all aspects of education law, including litigation at all levels of state and federal courts and administrative agencies. In recent years, she has focused on special education law and educational equity issues, in addition to having an in-depth background in constitutional and civil rights. Her work often leads to legislative changes; Patti recently represented three Indiana school districts in a suit against the State of Indiana alleging the State’s school funding formula was unconstitutional. The suit was instrumental in getting the Indiana Legislature to revise the State’s system of funding education in 2011.

Patti began her legal career in 1974 as an assistant attorney at the Chicago Board of Education moving up to general counsel (1982-1990) and acting general counsel (1993-1995). She was the Board’s first female, its youngest, and to date, its longest-serving general counsel, where she was responsible for the supervision and control of the Board’s legal department for the nation’s third largest school district. Patti is a member of numerous bar associations as well as being a founding member and former chair of the Illinois Council of School Attorneys, where she currently serves on its executive board and special education committee.

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Young Alumni Award

Given to an alumnus or alumna who has graduated within the past ten years and has made an outstanding contribution to one or more of the following fields: 1) the practice of law, 2) the judiciary, 3) public service/government, 4) business/commerce, or 5) the media or who has made a significant financial or volunteer contribution to the law school.

Nicholas A. Caputo ‘01
Shareholder, Caputo Law Firm

Nicholas A. Caputo '01Nick Caputo serves as an outstanding example of how alumni can make a difference at Chicago-Kent. Since graduating in 2001, Nick has served as a junior coach (2001-2004), and assistant and head coach (2004-present) for numerous Chicago-Kent trial advocacy teams that have won invitational, regional and national championships. He also dedicates his time outside the courtroom to the classroom, teaching as an adjunct professor and passing on his knowledge of trial advocacy, evidence and litigation technology for a combined 25 semesters. In 2011, the Student Bar Association recognized Nick with its Adjunct Professor of the Year Award. Recently, Nick joined professors David Erickson and Dan Coyne as part of an entourage that traveled to Mexico on a grant to teach Mexican lawyers and law students.

Currently, Nick is a shareholder in private law practice that he founded with a fellow alumna, Ljubica Popovic ‘98. Their firm handles a wide variety of cases ranging from labor, employment and contract disputes to complex commercial matters. Nick is also experienced in managing, developing, coordinating, and implementing litigation strategies, factual and expert defenses, and case resolution tactics on a national basis. He serves on the Illinois State Bar Association’s standing committee on legal education, admission and competence and has lectured on the use of technology in courtroom proceedings for presentations sponsored by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois & the Southern Illinois University School of Law. 

 

Scott M. Curran '01
Assistant General Counsel, William J. Clinton Foundation

Scott M. Curran '01A 2001 graduate of Chicago-Kent, Scott Curran is assistant general counsel for the William J. Clinton Foundation, a global nonprofit organization. In this role, he manages legal matters and provides strategic counsel to senior leadership regarding the work of the Foundation’s approximately 1,400 employees and volunteers working in over 40 countries around the world on the Foundation’s eight major initiatives and special projects. The Foundation’s initiatives work to address issues including HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, climate change, economic development, childhood obesity, and entrepreneurship, and its special projects include relief and recovery efforts following natural disasters, such as post-disaster recovery work following the Indian Ocean tsunami, hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Prior to his work with the Clinton Foundation, Scott was an associate at Patzik, Frank & Samotny Ltd., a mid-sized corporate law firm, where he remains serving as special counsel. Scott is also currently serving as a member of the Chicago-Kent Career Strategies Task Force. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a nonprofit organization that began as a joint initiative of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association, and which works to eliminate the prevalence of childhood obesity and to empower children and families to make healthy lifestyle choices. 

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Institutional Partner Award

Given to a law firm or corporation that has had a significant impact on the law school and/or on the lives of alumni and students by assisting in the advancement, growth and/or development of Chicago-Kent, especially as their involvement directly impacts students and alumni.

These firms or corporations have demonstrated a commitment to Chicago-Kent by: 1) funding internships/part-time jobs for students; 2) recruiting graduates for career opportunities; 3) funding scholarships or fellowships; 4) supporting annual student and alumni activities; 5) arranging for in-kind donations, and/or; 6) fostering mentoring programs between employees and students.

MecklerBulgerTilsonMarick&Pearson LLP

 

The law firm of Meckler Bulger Tilson Marick & Pearson LLP (MBTMP), founded in 1994, has a prominent record of important legal victories on behalf of some of the country's largest public and private companies. It is well-known among insurance companies for coverage representation; among employers for labor and employment counsel; and Fortune 1000 companies in legal audit matters and commercial disputes. Today, with headquarters in Chicago and offices in Dallas, Phoenix and San Francisco, MBTMP has over 100 attorneys and is among the 35 largest law firms in Illinois.

MBTMP has had a significant impact on Chicago-Kent, its alumni and students. For several years, the firm has partnered with the law school’s Institute for Law and the Workplace, offering an internship to a Chicago-Kent student each semester to work in the firm’s labor and employment group, making annual financial contributions, and participating in the planning and presentation of the annual Illinois Public Sector Labor Relations Law Program. MBTMP also started an externship program with the law school for a student to clerk in its insurance coverage litigation and counseling group, which includes five Chicago-Kent graduates as practicing attorneys. Over the years, the law firm has consistently hired several Chicago-Kent students for part-time jobs as well as recruited graduates for full-time positions. 

The law firm’s Chicago-Kent graduates, making up nearly 25% of its Chicago-based lawyers, demonstrate their dedication to the law school by coaching the trial advocacy team, mentoring students in the Moot Court Honor Society, serving as alumni board directors or officers, and funding various scholarships.

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