s | b | a CHICAGO-KENT STUDENT BAR ASSOCIATION

*check out our SBA Instagram this week!

Announcements

Law Students Needed for You(th) Decide: ISCOTUS and the Constitutional Democracy Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law are seeking law student volunteers to help us

with You(th) Decide: A High School Student Forum on the U.S. Supreme Court. This real-time discussion of a current case before the Supreme Court of the United States will be held via ZOOM on Friday, March 5, 9:00 AM-1:30 PM.If you wish to participate or if you have any questions, please contact Dee Runaas (Project Director).

The ACLU is sponsoring a team for the Fifth Annual Notre Dame National Appellate Advocacy Tournament for Religious Freedom. The prompt for the tournament will be made available February 26, and the competition will be taking place from April 9th, 2021 through April 11, 2021. We are currently accepting applications! To be considered, please submit your resume, a writing sample, and a brief statement of interest to aclu. The deadline to submit your documents and be considered for the team is by 9 a.m. on February 25, 2021. Please see the attached flyer below to learn more. We look forward to seeing our university represented at this event!

Events for This Week

Events may be found on the SBA calendar. Please make sure you are accessing via your Kent email address.

Distinguished Labor Leader Lecture: Chicago-Kent’s Institute for Law and the Workplace, in partnership with the Chicago Federation of Labor presents our Distinguished Labor Leader Lecture on Wednesday, February 24 at 3 p.m. The speaker will be Elizabeth Shuler who, as Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO is the highest ranking woman in AFL-CIO history and in line to become the first woman president of the AFL-CIO when current president Rich Trumka retires. She will speak on Breaking Barriers at the AFL-CIO. Register here.

Policing Today: The Use of Collective Bargaining Agreements and the Role of Management: The Labor and Employment Law Society and the ACLU will be hosting a panel on modern day policing, the use of collective bargaining agreements, and the role of management. This event will be happening on Thursday, February 25th, at 12:00pm to 1:15pm. Please join us for a discussion by an exceptional panel featuring:

• Tamara Cummings, General Counsel for Fraternal Order of Police

• Yvette Heintzelman, Attorney for Municipalities and Police Departments

• Michael Green, Professor of Law and Incoming Director for the Labor Program at Kent Law

• Emil Totonchi, Professor of Law and esteemed Mediator and Arbitrator

To attend the event, please register here using the link below and the Zoom information will be forwarded to your email address. We look forward to seeing you there!

Corporate Counsel Night: Corporate Law Society and APALSA are hosting Corporate Counsel Night on February 25th from 5:30-7:30pm! We have an incredible lineup of attorneys who will come to discuss their careers and impart some wisdom on all of us about practicing in-house. After the panel, we will break into breakout rooms for networking and more question/answer time. This is a great event to both hear from some experienced attorneys and make some connections! (And, it’ll be fun!)

Please RSVP cls.

PACCK General Body Meeting, February 26, 2021 at 12:00 pm CST: Please join Parents and Caregivers of Chicago Kent “PACCK” for our first General Body Meeting of the 2021 Spring Semester. At this meeting, we will discuss upcoming events and opportunities for students to become more involved with PACCK initiatives. Details are in the SBA Calendar. We hope to see you there!

1Ls: Planning for What’s Next: The SBA Curriculum Committee and upper-level students will host TWO panels on Friday, February 26, 2021, to help 1Ls plan for what comes next after Spring. They’ll cover a range of institutional resources to guide 1Ls, and discuss clinic, externships, extracurriculars, certificate programs, credits, planning for future coursework, the MPRE, and more!

• The Day Division presentation will take place at 3:30 pm via Zoom.

• The Evening Division event is tentatively scheduled for 6 pm via Zoom.

Zoom links are in the SBA Calendar, and students are encouraged to submit questions ahead of time via this Google Form. They must access the form with their IIT gmail to complete it.

Environmental Law Society Game Night: Join the Environmental Law Society for our first event of the semester this Friday, February 26th, from 5-7PM via Zoom. Join us for game night to hang out, play games and raffle off $100 worth of prizes for a good cause: All proceeds supports the ELS scholarship fund, which is awarded to a student doing an unpaid, public interest summer internship in environmental law. How it works:

• There will be one silent auction item from Patagonia, two raffle prizes and gift cards for Grubhub, Starbucks, and more.

• The silent auction will go live when the event begins, and will close at 6:45PM.

• In addition, the raffle will take place at the end of the night–and you can buy tickets throughout the night. To enter the Zoom Event, we ask that you please donate any amount towards the ELS Scholarship. This will also automatically get you one raffle ticket! Once you have entered, you can always purchase more raffle tickets, at $2 for one ticket and $3 for two tickets!

• We will play virtual Bingo (everyone will be able to get free cards through a link we send out) and National Parks and Parks and Rec Trivia! Compete for your chance to win one of several gift cards above. Bring your beer, come hang out with your friends, play some games, and raise money during a happy hour event to raise money for ELS. We look forward to seeing everyone!

• We will release details about the times each game will start and end, and about how to participate in the silent auction and raffle. We look forward to seeing everyone on Friday! Zoom link: https://kentlaw.zoom.us/j/8457085696

Writing Competitions

(we have so many that we now have a heading!)

Interested in submitting a paper to a competition? The law library has created a guide to student legal writing competitions. For more information, please see the library blog post about the guide.

The ACLU & ACPLS will be hosting a Creative Writing Contest! This will be an opportunity to engage in a more creative and enjoyable part of writing. The topic or guiding purpose of this contest is to write about freedom, fellowship, community, and the purpose of our work. We are also interested in hearing about helping others, the value in volunteering, and why we do the work we do. The theme of this contest is broad, such that you can write about what speaks to you most. To learn more about this contest, please see the flyer below! The deadline for submissions is March 17!

This year BLSA and SBA are presenting the Nickolas Johnson Writing Competition. In 2018, we lost a fellow classmate and BLSA member. This writing prize in Nickolas Johnson’s memory is to encourage students to tackle issues of mental health on campus and propose an idea to be implemented by BLSA and SBA for the upcoming school year. The competition funding is donation based, and if you would like to donate please donate here, arogers11.

Future Events

Diversity Week will take place the week of March 1, 2021. Stay tuned for more information on upcoming events!

PracticePro’s 2021 East Coast (Virtual) Career Conference will take place on Friday, April 2. Early registration is open through February 28 at midnight, subject to availability.

Whether you’re looking for summer or post-graduate jobs, or already have something great lined up, join us to learn both the framework and tools to develop a sustainable and fulfilling practice. Conference attendees will also be invited to participate in:

• Summer webinar series focused on business frameworks, professional branding, strategic career planning, advanced networking and interviewing techniques, and other topics this summer. The webinars will be conducted on Saturdays and will also be available for on-demand viewing.

• Recruiting and networking (virtual) receptions with our law firm partners this spring and summer.

• (Virtual) PracticePro Job Fair this summer with our law firm partners.

• Can’t make it to the East Coast Conference? Check out the Southern Conference (March 12) and West Coast Conference (March 19).

Future Deadlines

Judicial Externship – Fall Application Process: Applications for Fall 2021 Judicial Externships will be available online by Thursday, February 25, 2021. They will also be available in the Symplicity Document Library which can be accessed by clicking on “Resources” on the left side of the student Symplicity homepage. Completed Fall applications should be submitted to Suzanne Blaz by Monday, March 15, 2021, no later than 12 p.m.

Resources

From ASP: How to improve second semester grades: Leveraging your first semester to fuel success.

From the Library: Improving your Internet Connection at Home.

American Bar Association: Did you know that you get a free ABA membership as a law school student? Sign up using this link for all the perks of membership, including networking opportunities and awesome discounts to study resources! If you have any questions, email your ABA Rep Daniel Kfoury.

Birthdays & Special Days – February:

02/01 – Patrick Owens, 1L

02/02 – Maeghann Hoal, 1L

02/04 – Sofia Lischewski, 1L

02/06 – Sofia Valdivia, 3L

02/11 – Ryan Martin, 1L

02/16 – Patrycia Piaskowski, 1L

02/25 – Professor Laurie Silvestri

02/27 – Christian Sanchez, 2L

*if you wish to share your special date with the student body, click here

Policing Today Flyer.pdf
Creative Writing Contest.pdf
Religious Freedom Tournament.pdf
Youth Decide Contest.pdf
02-24-2021 Distinguished Labor Leader Lecture with Elizabeth Schuler.pdf