Miranda L. Huber ’19 Receives the 2019 Sandra P. Zemm Labor Law Prize

Miranda L. Huber ’19 is the recipient of the 2019 Sandra P. Zemm Labor Law Prize. The prize was established in 2009 at Chicago-Kent College of Law by the law firm of Seyfarth Shaw LLP to honor the memory of Sandra P. Zemm, who died in September 2008 after a lengthy battle with cancer. Zemm Prize winners receive $1,000 along with the award.

Huber graduated in May 2019 with a J.D. degree and a J.D. certificate in Labor and Employment Law. During law school, she was the president (2018–19) and vice president of external affairs (2017–18) for the Labor and Employment Law Society and a student editor for the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal and of the Illinois Public Employee Relations Report. She earned CALI awards for the highest grades in Employment Discrimination, ADR in the Workplace, International and Comparative Labor and Employment Law, the Justice and Technology Practicum, and Public Interest Law and Policy.


“The personal connections I made within the program defined my experience at Chicago-Kent,” says Huber. “The program allowed me to develop a strong support system of people doing similar work—students, alumni, and professors—and their investment in me truly made law school meaningful.” 

Huber received fellowships from the Peggy Browning Fellowship Program—which provides stipends to law students advocating for workers’ rights—to work at the Raise the Floor Alliance and at the Chicago News Guild. She was a teaching assistant for Professor Martin Malin and a research assistant for Professor César F. Rosado Marzán. She helped edit four chapters of Rosado Marzán’s book Principled Labor Law: U.S. Labor Law through a Latin American Method (Oxford University Press 2019), which was co-authored with Professor Sergio Gamonal C. of Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile.

“As my Contracts teaching assist, Miranda displayed a very high level of maturity and good judgment in assisting me in dealing with some very sensitive situations and maintained confidentiality completely,” says Professor Martin Malin, co-director of the Program in Labor and Employment Law.

Huber graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Elmhurst College. During college, she studied abroad in Israel and Costa Rica and won the David Goetz Essay Contest for her essay “A Philosophy of Social Justice.”

The Sandra P. Zemm Labor Law Prize is awarded annually to a third-year Chicago-Kent student in the Labor and Employment Law Certificate Program who exemplifies the qualities that Zemm possessed: "a commitment to pursue a career in labor and employment law, a pioneer spirit and willingness to take the initiative whenever possible, and a gracious and generous attitude toward helping those in need," according to Seyfarth Shaw.

A Chicago native, Zemm earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois. She received her J.D. from Florida State University, where she served as managing editor of the law review.

She joined Seyfarth Shaw in 1975 as the first female associate in the Labor and Employment Practice. In 1982 she became the firm’s first female equity partner in Labor and Employment. Her practice concentrated on traditional labor matters, and on matters involving employment discrimination, wage-hour, and employment litigation. She negotiated collective bargaining and/or shutdown agreements with major labor unions, and represented management in more than 200 hearings before arbitrators, the National Labor Relations Board, and various state labor agencies. In 2002 Zemm was elected to the American College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.

Seyfarth Shaw has more than 850 attorneys located throughout the United States, as well as internationally in London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Melbourne, Australia. The firm provides a broad range of legal services in the areas of labor and employment, employee benefits, litigation, corporate, and real estate.