For more information, please contact:
Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251
ADVISORY TO PRODUCERS, COLUMNISTS, AND ASSIGNMENT, LEGAL, HIGHER EDUCATION, BUSINESS, PLANNING, CITY DESK, FEATURES AND DAYBOOK EDITORS
CHICAGO–May 16, 2008–Chicago-Kent College of Law and Stuart School of Business have experts available to discuss current issues. To reach any of our experts, call Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, at (312) 906-5251. Press releases and earlier advisories are available on our Web site: www.kentlaw.edu/news/advisory.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan will deliver the commencement address at Chicago-Kent College of Law’s 2008 ceremonies. A native Chicagoan, Madigan earned her B.A. from Georgetown University and her J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. In November 2002, she became the first woman elected to serve as the Illinois attorney general and one of only a handful of female state attorneys general in the country. Madigan was elected to a second term in November 2006. Before her election as attorney general, she served in the Illinois Senate from 1998 to 2002. She has also worked as a litigator for a Chicago law firm and as a teacher and community advocate. Attorney General Madigan’s complete biographical sketch is located on our Web site at: http://www.kentlaw.edu/depts/alums/commencement/keynote.html.
The Class of 2008. More than 300 students will receive their J.D. degrees on May 18. Individually and collectively, the class will be remembered for its competitive sprit and its commitment to service. For example, Vincent Kan and Carrie Wineland are among the recipients of the Dean’s Distinguished Public Service Award, given to students who have contributed 250 hours or more of volunteer service over the past year. Kan spent more than 565 hours working for the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. Wineland devoted more than 271 hours as a Court Appointed Special Advocate at the juvenile court. Graduates Joshua Jones and Mark Griffin are the winners of the 2008 National Trial Competition, the premier trial advocacy tournament in the United States. Graduates Lalania Gilkey-Johnson and Rachel Moran, along with their teammate Joanna Brinkman ’09, won the National Moot Competition. Chicago-Kent is the first law school to win both the National Trial Competition and the National Moot Court Competition in the same year.
Valedictorian Sarah Suma will deliver the student address. Suma earned a liberal arts degree from St. John’s College. A Chicago-Kent honors scholar, she competed in the 2007 ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition as a member of the Moot Court Honor Society and currently serves as an executive articles editor for the Chicago-Kent Law Review. Suma completed an externship with Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. After graduation she will join the Cleveland office of Jones Day.
Daniel Robertson is a J.D. candidate in the Program in Environmental and Energy Law. A native of South Africa, Robertson immigrated with his parents to the United States in 2002. He earned his undergraduate degree in politics and government from Illinois State University. At Chicago-Kent, Robertson served three years as the elected representative to the Student Bar Association and as a student board member of the Illinois State Bar Association. He spent his 2007 spring break with the Student Hurricane Network providing pro bono legal assistance to Gulf Coast residents victimized by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Honors scholar Rachel Moran, a member of the Chicago-Kent teams that won the National Moot Court Competition and the National Ethics Trial Competition, also received individual honors as Best Oral Advocate in both tournaments. As a member of Chicago-Kent’s Moot Court Honor Society, Moran won the 2006 Ilana Diamond Rovner Award for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy and placed as a national semifinalist and Top Ten Best Advocate in the 2007 ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition. She is also a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review and participates actively in the Criminal Defense Clinic. After graduation, Moran will join the law firm of Meckler Bulger & Tilson LLP.
Jessica K. Fender came to Chicago-Kent with undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemistry from the University of Washington in Seattle. In law school, Fender served as editor-in-chief of the Chicago-Kent Law Review and as an associate editor of the Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property and the Seventh Circuit Review. She worked as a research assistant for Chicago-Kent’s Institute for Science, Law & Technology and wrote a chapter in a book on nanotechnology as a result of that experience. Following graduation, she will work as a Public Interest Law Initiative fellow for the Criminal Defense Litigation Program in Chicago-Kent’s Law Offices. A registered patent agent, next year Fender will clerk for the Honorable Sharon Prost of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C.
After graduation, National Trial Competition champion Joshua Jones will take a position with the Federal Defenders of San Diego as a trial attorney representing indigent people accused of federal crimes. A member of Chicago-Kent’s 2007 and 2008 winning teams, Jones is the first student in the history of the competition to win two national championships back to back. He also won the competition’s Best Oral Advocate award. Jones is a graduate of the University of Iowa, where he triple-majored in English, philosophy and political science and was captain of the school’s two-time national champion mock trial team.
LaVonne Meyer is a J.D. candidate in Chicago-Kent’s Public Interest Law certificate program. Prior to law school, Meyer worked as a journalist in Minneapolis. At Chicago-Kent, she has been active in student organizations and as a volunteer for the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic, the ABA’s Center for Pro Bono, and the Illinois Attorney General’s Civil Rights Bureau. Meyer volunteered more than 282 hours and received the Dean’s Distinguished Public Service Award and the Public Interest Resource Center’s Certificate of Service for her efforts. She worked in Chicago-Kent’s Immigration Clinic and was a legal extern at Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers (CLAIM). As an Equal Justice America fellow, she clerked at the Public Justice Center in Baltimore during the summer of 2007. Following graduation, Meyer work as a National Domestic Violence Law fellow with the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence in Washington, D.C.
Dana Lobelle graduated with honors from Albion College in English and psychology. Prior to law school, Lobelle worked as a private social work technician and as a substitute teacher. As a Chicago-Kent student, she has volunteered with the Migrant Assistance Project and the Divorce Pro Se Clinic at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, served as an extern under Judge Richard Cudahy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and worked for the ACLU of Illinois through the Public Interest Law Initiative internship program. Following graduation, she will spend two years as a staff attorney for the South Carolina Supreme Court.
Jill Roberts is a J.D. candidate in the Public Interest Law certificate program. Roberts, a Dean’s Distinguished Public Service Award recipient, spent nearly 285 hours as a volunteer at the Cabrini-Green Legal Aid Clinic’s Expungement Help Desk in the Daley Center where she assisted pro se clients with filing to have their criminal records expunged or sealed. She has also served as a volunteer with the Legal Assistance Foundation, Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing and the National Immigrant Justice Center. After graduation, Roberts will work with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office of Immigration Review in Detroit as a judicial law clerk for the court’s three judges.
Lubna El-Gendi was a member of the Chicago-Kent team that participated in the 2007 Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Court Competition in Vienna. El-Gendi and her teammates won the 2007 Illinois Appellate Lawyers Association Midwest Moot Court Competition, with their brief cited as the tournament’s best. She has served as an intern with the Zhong Lun law firm in Shenzhen, China, and as a legal extern in Chicago-Kent’s Immigration Law Clinic. After graduation, El-Gendi will become an associate with the Pittsburgh law firm of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP.
Downtown Campus Events
May 18: Chicago-Kent Commencement. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan will deliver the commencement address. Commencement ceremonies begin at 2 p.m. at the Arie Crown Theater at McCormick Place’s Lakeside Center, 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive, in Chicago. More than 300 students are expected to receive Juris Doctor degrees, and approximately 75 Master of Laws degrees will be conferred.
May 30: Identifying Professional Responsibility Issues in Business Transactions. This program is designed for corporate and other transactional attorneys, those with small business clients, and attorneys interested in developing alternative fee-generating models. Speakers include Chicago-Kent Professor Vivien C. Gross and Jeff Thomas, former director of Chicago-Kent’s small business program. Registration is required. To register or for more information, please call (312) 906-5090 or visit www.kentlaw.edu/depts/cle.
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