H.D. Brest van Kempen
Lydia Lazar Francine Soliunas
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H.D. Brest van Kempen
Legal Instructor |
H.D. Brest van Kempen joined Chicago-Kent in the spring of 2002 as an adjunct legal writing instructor,
and in the fall of 2003 was appointed a full-time faculty member in a position created to support
international students in the three professional programs located at IIT's downtown campus. She
brings with her an extensive legal background in international and domestic transactions as well
as a longtime involvement in English as a Second Language.
Prior to coming to Chicago-Kent, Brest van Kempen was assistant general counsel for a small e-commerce
services company in the northern suburbs, and also held several positions at Motorola as an attorney
working the international arena. She has maintained her own practice for a number of years, concentrating
on matters for NGOs and for private clients in the technology sectors, which include work on long-term
projects for a major Canadian telecommunications equipment supplier and for two General Electric
subsidiaries. She also takes on occasional freelance writing and editing projects, most recently
editing the major part of a World Bank-funded project to establish architectural guidelines for
the Lebanese Ministry of Education.
Brest van Kempen teaches legal English and contract and commercial drafting to Chicago-Kent's international
LL.M. students and managerial writing to international and domestic students in IIT's Graduate Program
in Public Administration. She is also director of writing services for Stuart School of
Business.
Brest van Kempen received a B.A. in French from George Washington University, then spent several
years with the Peace Corps in Tunisia, Morocco and Washington. She received an M.A. in linguistics
with concentrations in English as a Second Language and Arabic from the University of Utah. She
began studying law at the University of Utah College of law, where she was associate editor of the
Journal of Contemporary Law. Her legal studies were interrupted when she and her husband, an architect,
relocated to Algiers to set up an office for the Chicago-based architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings
& Merrill. After nearly three years in Algeria, they moved back to the United States, and Brest
van Kempen earned her J.D. from Chicago-Kent. She has since stayed involved in international matters
as much as possible, serving as a board member and general counsel for the National Peace Corps
Association for nine years and as a U.N. elections supervisor in Bosnia.
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Lydia Lazar
Assistant Dean for International Law and Policy Development; Legal Instructor |
Lydia Lazar is responsible for the LL.M. Programs in International and Comparative Law, International
Intellectual Property Law and Financial Services Law, as well as the Global Law and Policy Initiative.
She teaches Introduction to the American Legal System to all LL.M. students, and co-leads the seminar
on Nation Building. Before joining Chicago-Kent as assistant dean, Lazar worked as an attorney in
the corporate and securities group at Sachnoff & Weaver Ltd.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Lazar worked as a consultant on strategic communications issues for
several foundations, and in an executive capacity with Waste Management International (based in
London) and with the City of New York's Department of General Services, Division of Public Structures.
Lazar received her A.B. in International Relations from Dartmouth College, her MA in geography from
Columbia University, and her J.D. with honors from Chicago-Kent College of Law.
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Francine Soliunas
Assistant Dean for Strategy and Student Professional Development; Executive Director, Institute for Law and the
Workplace; Legal Instructor |
Francine Soliunas brings more than 30 years of legal experience, as well as a lifetime of community
and civil involvement, to Chicago-Kent. As executive director of the Institute for Law and the Workplace,
she runs the day-to-day activities of the institute and is part of a management team that determines
the strategic direction of this national training center for labor lawyers and professionals. In
addition, she teaches Chicago-Kent's Labor and Employment externship course and serves as assistant dean
for strategy and student professional development -- a role in which she works with students of color in terms
of counseling, assisting with group-sponsored activities, and facilitating their transition through
law school and into the profession -- and as director of the PLUS (Pre-Law Undergraduate Scholars)
Program, which allows disadvantaged college students to spend a month at Chicago-Kent to get a "taste
of law school."
Prior to joining the law school, Soliunas worked for Ameritech as an attorney in various roles,
including senior director of labor relations and counsel responsible for employment and labor-related
litigation and arbitration over a five-state area. She has been a supervisory trial attorney for
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a state appellate defender for the state of Illinois'
Prison Legal Services Project, and an assistant state's attorney for Cook County.
Soliunas earned a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law and a B.S. in mathematics from DePaul
University.
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