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July 2, 2009
Chicago-Kent alumnus receives ISBA Young Lawyer of the Year Award
Sean Wieber '07 is the recipient of the Young Lawyer of the Year Award from the Illinois State Bar Association. The award was conferred at the association's annual meeting in Fontana, Wisconsin, on June 26. The association selects two outstanding young lawyers each year for the award.
Mr. Wieber is a second-year associate at Winston & Strawn LLP in Chicago. He was nominated for the award by former Illinois Governor James R. Thompson, managing partner at the firm.
A scholar athlete and football standout on the Big Ten championship team at Northwestern University in 2000, Wieber decided to do something after watching a teammate, Rashidi Wheeler, die after collapsing at a practice.
In January 2007, while studying at Chicago-Kent, Mr. Wieber took a course in Legislative Advocacy. For a class assignment to develop a legislative initiative with potential real-world applications, he drafted a bill that would require outdoor athletic facilities to have external defibrillators and trained users present during workouts. The R.A.W. Initiative was submitted as Illinois House Bill 1279 by Rep. Dan Burke, enacted by the House and Senate, and signed into law by then Governor Rod Blagojevich.
After graduating from Chicago-Kent with high honors, Mr. Wieber joined Winston & Strawn and began to devote significant time to pro bono representation. He helped obtain a sentence of time served plus six months for an indigent defendant who faced a 30-year sentence as a Class X offender. He also represented a retired school teacher in a civil rights case, receiving a higher settlement for her than that of other plaintiffs.
And while serving an appointment as a special assistant Illinois attorney general, Mr. Wieber was able to get Governor Blagojevich dismissed from a federal civil rights action on the grounds of legislative immunity. Mr. Wieber currently is a member of the firm's multi-partner teams in two federal cases: defending Ernst and Young in Birmingham, Ala., and William Cellini in U.S. v. Blagojevich in Chicago.
"It is hard to imagine a young lawyer packing all of these achievements … into his first two years of practice," Governor Thompson wrote of Mr. Wieber in his nomination letter.
Still active in athletics, Mr. Wieber is a captain and organizer of football and soccer teams for the Chicago Sports and Social Club, and was a volunteer coach in the Evanston Township Junior Wildkit Football Program.
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