Stephen Gee '14 receives American Bankruptcy Institute Medal of Excellence

Stephen Gee '14 has been awarded a Medal of Excellence from the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) for outstanding performance in his bankruptcy course work. In addition to the medal, Gee received a Certificate of Excellence in Bankruptcy and a complimentary one-year ABI membership.

The Medal of Excellence program was developed by Christopher F. Graham of the New York law firm of Thatcher Proffitt & Wood and inaugurated by ABI in 1997. Participating law schools may nominate the student with the highest grade in a bankruptcy course or other area of bankruptcy scholarship for the award.

"Stephen is a worthy winner of the 2014 ABI medal of excellence," said IIT Chicago-Kent Professor Adrian J. Walters, who nominated Gee for the award. "His intuitive grasp of bankruptcy issues and his timely work on the role municipal bankruptcy is playing in the management of public pension deficits singled him out for this well deserved recognition."

"I was very surprised and humbled by the award nomination," said Gee. "I could not have earned this award without the help of many people, most notably, my very supportive and lovely wife, Rachel."

Gee earned a J.D. with a certificate in labor and employment law at IIT Chicago-Kent. In law school, he served as a student editor of the Employee and Employment Policy Journal and was a member of the executive board of the Chicago-Kent Law Review. He currently is a law clerk at Laner Muchin, Ltd., a Chicago law firm that specializes in labor and employment law.

"I cherished working with Professor Walters on my seminar paper on Detroit's Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy because we were able to combine his knowledge of bankruptcy law with my knowledge of labor and employment law," explained Gee. "I learned more about a previously rarely litigated area of bankruptcy law that has now become important due to public pension funding controversies. As a result, I was able to write a paper that could help public labor and employment lawyers better understand a Chapter 9 filing and properly advise their clients."

Founded in 1888, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, also known as Illinois Tech, a private, technology-focused, research university offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, architecture, business, design, human sciences, applied technology, and law.

The American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) is the largest multi-disciplinary, non-partisan organization dedicated to research and education on matters related to insolvency and one of the leading national organizations of the bankruptcy bar.

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