s | b | a CHICAGO-KENT STUDENT BAR ASSOCIATION

*Please complete our new climate survey, prepared by members of our faculty Diversity Committee, by March 14, 2021, at 11:59 PM.

Announcements

• The ACLU of Illinois will be holding our Annual Lunch on March 19, 2021 at 12:00PM. Please join us for this virtual event, where we will come together to celebrate and support the ongoing work to defend civil rights and civil liberties and hear directly from keynote speaker Stacey Abrams on the role that each of us can play in the movement to increase access to the ballot. There will also be an additional Q&A session with Ms. Abrams afterwards. Although this is a ticketed event (currently priced at $50 per ticket), you are invited free of charge! To attend the event please register here! The deadline to register is Monday, March 8th, at 3pm! Register soon!

• Last week the Labor and Employment Law Society and the ACLU hosted a panel addressing the intersection of policing, collective bargaining agreements, and labor law. We had a wonderful discussion featuring a police union-side attorney, a police management-side attorney, and a federal mediator, each of whom spoke on a variety of important issues. Please feel free to watch last week’s panel here! We hope you enjoy the panel as much as we did!

Events for This Week

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

Tuesday, March 9

• 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.: Bar Essay Basics – this program will be recorded and posted to the bar support web page. View the information and links to review sessions here. You may contact Professor Kari Johnson with questions.

Wednesday, March 10

• 12:00 p.m.: Writing an Effective All-Purpose Cover Letter: A How-To Workshop; sign up here.

• 3:00-4:00 p.m.: ACS Presents A Discussion on the Insurrection & More. Prof. Shapiro, Prof. Schmidt, and Prof. Heyman will discuss the January 6th insurrection and the evident display of a racial double standard. Zoom here.

• 4:30 p.m.: J.D. Certificate Programs Fair – Interested in any of Chicago-Kent’s numerous certificate programs? The school’s broad offering of certificate programs provide students with a specialized course of study and training in a particular area of law, under the director of leading faculty, scholars and practitioners. Join faculty from the various certificate programs for this info session. There will be brief introductory presentations for each program and then students will have the opportunity to ask more detailed questions in breakout rooms for each certificate.

Thursday, March 11

• 12:00 p.m.: IPLS Loyola Patent Fair Panel Discussion. Come join us to learn about the Loyola Patent Fair on Thursday, March 11 at 12PM. We will be presenting a primer on what the Loyola Patent Fair is and discuss how IP students can be successful. The zoom details are on the SBA calendar.

Friday, March 12

• 12:00 p.m.: Polish Law Student Kent Association will be holding a general body meeting on Friday, March 12th at 12pm. We will be discussing our May 3rd event and the future of PoLSKA. Click here for the link.

• 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.: Case Western Reserve Law School presents via Zoom “New Models of Mental Health for the Legal Profession” featuring John Thor Cornelius, MD and Candela Bonaccorso, PsyD, with Makela Hayford, 2L at Case Western Reserve Law School. REGISTER TO ATTEND

  • Do you have questions about how to stay sane in the face of the triple threat of challenges posed by COVID, social upheaval and work stress? Bring them, and your fellow law students and lawyers, to this two-hour panel discussion led by seasoned clinicians. Open to all, including legal professionals. CLEs for mental health/substance abuse will be offered.

    • This is the first in a series of co-sponsored CLE webinars dedicated to addressing the questions legal professionals often have around mental health, but can be afraid to ask, including:

    • How do I identify quality treatment, for myself and my clients? And how do I find it?

    • Can I really afford the time to invest in my mental health? Can I really afford not to?

    • Why do people “self-medicate?” How can they stop?

    • How can therapies of depth, insight and relationship go beyond band-aid interventions and lead to better outcomes for my clients and myself?

    • What makes for optimal collaboration between legal and mental health professionals?

• 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.: SBA Open Door At 4 pm on Fridays through April 30, SBA Secretary Kat Hanson has committed to launching an unrecorded SBA Zoom session to lend an ear to students who wish to hang out, vent, problem solve, mingle, ask questions – whatever our peers might need to feel heard. Students and faculty are encouraged to swing by.

Deadlines for this Week

The deadline to complete our new climate survey, prepared by members of our Diversity Committee, is March 14, 2021, at 11:59 PM.

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!

The Black Law Students Association and the Student Bar Association are pleased to announce 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. Click here for the application. Students can download the application by clicking on the documents in the guide, or find it attached to this newsletter.. The competition funding is donation based, and if you would like to donate, there is information provided below on how to do so. The hope is to raise $1,000 each year, which will allow the student who wins to be awarded $500, with the other $500 going to implementing the student’s proposal. The writing prize will take place from March 1 to April 19. A panel of judges will read the proposals from April 19 to May 10 and announce the winner on the May 10.

If you would like to donate to the Nickolas Johnson Writing Competition, please go to arogers11.

Future Events

Monday, March 15

• 5:30 – 6:30: A Fireside Chat with Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Please join the SBA Career Committee, Society of Women in Law, and Black Law Students Association as we host Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx for a fireside chat on March 15, 5:30-6:30pm. SA Foxx is the first African American woman to lead the CCSAO – the second largest prosecutor’s office in the country. Prior to being elected State’s Attorney, she served as Chief of Staff to the Cook County Board President where she was the lead architect of the county’s criminal justice reform agenda to address racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Attendees will hear about SA Foxx’s journey through the law, receive an overview of the functions of the CCSAO, and have a chance to ask questions to State’s Attorney Foxx. All students, faculty, and staff are welcome. RSVP here: https://forms.gle/bcFhPnHwPbrJ5gaaA

Friday, March 19

• SBA Open Door will not take place due to Break.

• 12:00 p.m.: The ACLU of Illinois will be holding our Annual Lunch on March 19, 2021 at 12:00PM. Please join us for this virtual event, where we will come together to celebrate and support the ongoing work to defend civil rights and civil liberties and hear directly from keynote speaker Stacey Abrams on the role that each of us can play in the movement to increase access to the ballot. There will also be an additional Q&A session with Ms. Abrams afterwards. Although this is a ticketed event (currently priced at $50 per ticket), you are invited free of charge! To attend the event please register here! The deadline to register is Monday, March 8th, at 3pm! Register soon!

Friday, March 26

• 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.: SBA Open Door At 4 pm every Friday through April 30, SBA Secretary Kat Hanson has committed to launching an unrecorded SBA Zoom session to lend an ear to students who wish to hang out, vent, problem solve, mingle, ask questions – whatever our peers might need to feel heard. Students and faculty are encouraged to swing by.

Monday, March 29

• 5:00 p.m.: Please join the Land Use and Real Estate Society for an alumni happy hour! On March 29th at 5 PM, alumni from throughout the real estate industry will be attending a virtual happy hour. This will be a great opportunity to network with current attorneys and other students interested in real estate & land use law. lure.

Tuesday, April 6

• 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.: Bar Performance Test Basics – this program will be recorded and posted to the bar support web page. View the information and links to review sessions here. You may contact Professor Kari Johnson with questions.

Future Deadlines

Monday, March 15

• Judicial Externship – Fall Application Process: Applications for Fall 2021 Judicial Externships are now available online. 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:

• As part of the Chicago-Kent Law Library’s mission to support the needs of faculty, students, and staff of the law school, our newest library guide highlights resources to support the work being done to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Chicago-Kent: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources. In the guide, find links to books, specialized digital collections, study guides, and journals, with many titles you can access digitally through our collections even if you’re not visiting our library in person or requesting books via I-Share at this time. You’ll also find recommendations for antiracism books and authors to support the ongoing work of the Chicago-Kent Antiracism Statement from 2020.

• We hope you’ll review the resources and use the CK Suggests page if you have suggestions, reviews, or content you’d like to see in the guide in the future.

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 – March:

03/02 – Callie Folke, 1L

03/04 – Ashley Morris, 1L

03/06 – Patrick Bovie, 2L

03/07 -Brett Simon, 3L

03/16 – Emily Jarrette, 1L

03/17 – Annora Alfonso, 1L

03/21 – Spencer Davidson, 2L; Aylissa Ritterhoff, 1L

3/24 – Lorianna Anderson, 2L

03/30 – Angelica Jalasco, 1L; Saynyenoh Warner, 1L

03/31 – Aaron Weiss, 2L

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