Weekly Media Advisory
CHICAGO—May 16, 2013—IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law has experts available to discuss current issues. To reach experts on IIT's Downtown Campus or to reach Chicago-Kent graduates profiled below, please call Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251. Press releases and earlier advisories are available on our website: www.kentlaw.iit.edu/news.
IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law will hold its 2013 Commencement on Sunday, May 19, at 2:30 p.m. at the UIC Forum, 725 West Roosevelt Road, in Chicago. IIT Chicago-Kent will award 281 J.D. degrees and 106 LL.M. degrees. Attorney and author Scott Turow will deliver the keynote address. IIT Chicago-Kent students Luke Harriman and Jingjing Huang will address their fellow graduates. There will also be a live webcast of the ceremony available on the Commencement homepage at www.kentlaw.iit.edu/commencement beginning at 2:30 p.m.
Scott Turow is a partner in the Chicago office of the international law firm SNR Denton (formerly Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal), where he has specialized in white-collar criminal litigation since 1986, while also devoting a substantial amount of time to pro bono matters. Turow is also the bestselling author of a series of legal thrillers set in fictional Kindle County, Illinois. The first, Presumed Innocent, was adapted into a movie starring Harrison Ford. Turow's two nonfiction works include the perennial bestseller One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School and Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty. Turow graduated with high honors with a degree in English from Amherst College and earned a master's degree from Stanford University's Creative Writing Program. He graduated with honors from Harvard Law School. Since 2010, Turow has served as president of the Author's Guild, the nation's largest membership organization of professional writers.
Valedictorian Luke Harriman will deliver the J.D. address. Harriman is an IIT Chicago-Kent Honors Scholar who grew up in Montana and has studied abroad in Mexico. He graduated with honors from the University of Chicago with dual degrees in economics and Latin American studies. He is a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review and completed an externship with U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer. After graduation, Harriman will join Reed Smith LLP in Chicago to practice estate planning law.
Jingjing Huang, a candidate for an LL.M. in International Intellectual Property Law, will deliver the graduate address. Huang came to IIT Chicago-Kent from Beijing, where she practiced at the Beijing Kehua Law Firm. She earned a bachelor of engineering degree in computer science from Beijing Institution of Technology and Information and received her law degree from the University of International Business and Economics. Huang clerked at the Service Center for Intellectual Property Rights Protection before going into private practice. Following graduation, she will sit for the California bar exam before returning to China to resume her practice.
The Class of 2013 Gift Committee is raising money to purchase two flat-screen televisions for students to enjoy while meeting, studying or relaxing in a revamped student lounge area on the fifth floor of the law school.
Three of Jennifer Wood's seven children are autistic. After spending more than a decade as an educator, she decided to attend law school to better advocate for children with special needs and their families. In December 2012, Wood was appointed to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's Select Committee on Special Education. She has served as a national spokesperson for the Organization for Autism Research and successfully lobbied for legislation to mandate group insurance coverage in Illinois for those with autism and developmental disabilities. She writes about these issues for Chicago Parent and Chicago Special Parent magazines.
Honors Scholars Anne and Sarah Marfisi completed an International Rule of Law Externship in Kosovo to study the status of LGBT civil rights in that country. The University of Iowa graduates interviewed gays and lesbians, government officials and NGO personnel to examine problems with institutional compliance with anti-discrimination laws. During law school, the Marfisis were also members of the Moot Court Honor Society team that represented IIT Chicago-Kent in the 2013 William E. McGee National Civil Rights Moot Court Competition.
Dunstan Barnes, who graduated from Oxford and Cambridge with degrees in materials science and metallurgy, is a candidate for a J.D. with a certificate in intellectual property law. As an IIT Chicago-Kent student, Barnes served as president of the Intellectual Property Law Society and as submissions editor of the Journal of Intellectual Property. He is a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review and Moot Court Honor Society. Barnes also serves as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine. After graduation, he will join McAndrews, Held & Malloy Ltd. as an associate.
Amy Harvey came to IIT Chicago-Kent with a degree in visual and critical studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. During her first year in law school, Harvey founded the Art and Cultural Property Law Society. For the past two years, she has coordinated a successful "Gallery Night" event that showcased art by faculty, staff, students and alumni, and provides a forum for dialogue about art and cultural property issues.
Katerina Alexopoulos is president of IIT Chicago-Kent's Hellenic Law Student Association and a member of the Hellenic Bar Association. Alexopoulos, a candidate for a J.D. with a certificate in criminal litigation, has worked as a 711 law clerk in the Narcotics and Domestic Violence divisions of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. She has worked as a legal intern in the Chicago-Kent Law Offices, completed judicial externships in the Illinois Appellate Court and the Cook County Circuit Court, and worked in the Illinois Attorney General's Criminal Appeals Division. Alexopoulos was a member of the IIT Chicago-Kent team that competed in the Buffalo-Niagara National Mock Trial tournament.
Patrick Ferrell is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism whose reporting for the Sun-Times News Group's suburban Chicago newspapers on a series of unsolved murders and missing persons cases earned him a 2006 Peter Lisagor Award for exemplary journalism from the Chicago Headline Club. At IIT Chicago-Kent, Ferrell is a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review. As a member of the trial advocacy team, he won an Outstanding Advocate award in the 2013 South Texas Mock Trial Challenge. Ferrell is also the recipient of a 2012 Justice John Paul Stevens Public Interest Summer Fellowship. Since 2008, he has served as board chairman of Operation Snowball, an organization that oversees teen leadership and drug prevention programs in 125 Illinois communities.
After graduation, Student Bar Association President Emily Acosta will join Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney Ltd. as an associate attorney in the toxic tort practice group. A Texas native, Acosta graduated cum laude with a bachelor of business administration in entrepreneurial management from Texas Christian University's Neeley School of Business. She serves as a student member of the IIT Chicago-Kent Alumni Board of Directors and the Young Alumni Council. She is also a member of the Chicago Bar Association, the Women's Bar Association of Illinois, and the American Bar Association Litigation Section. Acosta has clerked for Rosenfeld, Hafron Shapiro & Farmer; the Center for Open Government at IIT Chicago-Kent, and Anesi, Ozmon, Rodin, Novak & Kohen Ltd.
Jordan Lebovitz will work as an attorney in the Cleveland law firm Nurenberg, Paris, Heller & McCarthy Co. LPA. Lebovitz graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in political science. He was a member of the IIT Chicago-Kent team that won the 2012 National Ethics Trial Competition.
Jeanette Samuels is an aspiring mystery writer who has published two short stories while attending law school. Samuels earned an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. At IIT Chicago-Kent, she has served as vice president of the Black Law Students Association and has completed clerkships in the office of the Illinois Attorney General and for the Independent Police Review Authority. Samuels has volunteered on the expungement help desk at Cabrini-Green Legal Aid. After graduation, she will work on civil rights cases as an associate with the Law Office of Jared S. Kosoglad PC in Chicago.
Daniel Zapata, a candidate for a J.D. with a certificate in labor and employment law, is the recipient of the 2013 Sandra P. Zemm Labor Law Prize. Zapata earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Arlington, where he majored in political science with a minor in mathematics. At IIT Chicago-Kent, he serves as president of the Labor and Employment Law Society and as student editor of the Illinois Public Employee Relations Report. Zapata has interned at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, served as a law clerk in the Industrial Claims Unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, completed an externship with the Illinois Labor Relations Board, and clerked for the Chicago law firm of Asher, Gittler & D'Alba.
Bernadett Guy is the 2012 Michael J. Angarola Scholar. The scholarship is given annually to a student based on outstanding performance in IIT Chicago-Kent's award-winning trial advocacy program. Guy was a member of the team that won the National Ethics Competition in 2012, and she represented the law school in the third annual winner-take-all Top Gun Trial Competition. She earned her undergraduate degree from Loyola University Chicago with a double major in psychology and political science with a minor in international studies. Guy, who is fluent in Hungarian, completed a summer internship with the U.S. State Department in Budapest. After graduation, she will join Delta Capital Partners LLC as an associate.
Erin Forbes is a candidate for a J.D. with a certificate in intellectual property law. After graduation from the University of Georgia with a degree in biology, Forbes held research positions with St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital's Pharmaceutical Sciences Department and the Knight Cancer Institute of the Oregon Health and Science University. At IIT Chicago-Kent, she was a member of the 2011–12 Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition team. Forbes completed a legal internship with Walgreen Co. and clerked in Seyfarth Shaw LLP's Intellectual Property Group. She is a founding member of Chicago-Kent Sportfeasors, an organization of students, professors and alumni who promote positive competition and the healthy resolution of stress through group participation in local races and sporting events. After graduation, Forbes will join Rakoczy, Molino, Mazzochi, Siwik LLP in Chicago.
Emily Chase-Sosnoff will join the litigation department of the Modrall Sperling Law Firm in Albuquerque. Chase-Sosnoff is an honors graduate of the University of Chicago, with a bachelor's degree in political science and a minor in environmental studies. As an undergraduate, she studied Mandarin Chinese and taught English in Beijing. At IIT Chicago-Kent, Chase-Sosnoff was an Honors Scholar, served as a vice-president of the Moot Court Honor Society, and was a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review. She won the 2011 Ilana Diamond Rovner Competition and best advocate award in the 2012 National Appellate Advocacy Competition. Chase-Sosnoff was a member of the IIT Chicago-Kent team that advanced to the 2013 National Moot Court Competition from the regional tournament and finished as quarterfinalists in the national tournament.