s | b | a CHICAGO-KENT STUDENT BAR ASSOCIATION

**check out our SBA Instagram this week for your chance to win ONE of THREE $5.00 Starbucks gift cards!

Announcements

Graduation Regalia – We know that due to the pandemic graduation looks a little different this year. The SBA wanted to make sure that the cost of regalia was low so that graduates felt like they were able to still participate – no matter how they choose to celebrate! We heavily subsidized the gown and hood, so that the total fee (including tax) is $15.20. Additionally, the school is offering the graduation tam and tassel at no cost. We hope that this lessened cost will allow graduates the opportunity to celebrate and take pictures with loved ones in their regalia! Please be sure to order your regalia by April 16 or else it may not arrive by the virtual graduation ceremony. Additionally, if you plan on participating in the mini ceremonies, please order ASAP as the regalia takes two weeks to ship. https://kentlaw.shopoakhalli.com/.

Congratulations to Emily Barney on her promotion to Digital Education & Internal Resources Librarian. Emily has been instrumental in Chicago-Kent’s successful move to our remote/hybrid environment. Her training videos and guides helped faculty and students enjoy a positive and productive classroom experience. She has been critical to the online hosting of Chicago-Kent’s many online events, including her work during Diversity Week, and her work with student organizations.

Sign up for the Sports and Entertainment Law Society March Madness Tournament Presented by Lexis+ for a chance to win $125! The top 18 finishers will win money or a giftcard and it is free to enter. Click on the link —> HERE to sign up! You are limited to 1 entry, but can get a second if you follow the Lexis+ instructions in the flyer attached. Reach out to Gabe Kahn (gkahn) with any questions.

Events for This Week

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

Monday, March 15

• 5:00 p.m.: Immigration Event at Loyola: Our friends the Immigrants’ Rights at Coalition at Loyola are hosting a panel to discuss what is next in immigration law and policy. Open to all ILS members and anyone else interested.They will be exploring the changes the Trump administration put in place and what can be undone right away, what will take time, and what will be challenging to reverse.

  • Panelists:

    • Claudia Valenzuela, Managing Attorney, American Immigration Council

    • Manoj Govindaiah, Director of Policy, The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES)

• 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

• 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!

• 12:00 p.m.: Join us for Space Sustainability: A Conversation About International Space Policy. featuring 3 prominent figures in the space community: Charity Weedon, VP of Global Space Policy at Astroscale; Louis de Gouyon Matignon, PhD Space Law Holder and French Space Entrepreneur; and Dr. Diane Howard, Chief Counsel of Space Commerce at the United States Department of Commerce. We will be discussing current political developments, sustainability, and space debris. Click here to attend the Webinar! Passcode: Zv2k7AwU . This event will be recorded! We will be sending out a link via email to those who cannot attend as soon as the event concludes.

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

Deadlines for this Week

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.

Wednesday, March 17

• The ACLU and ACPLS are hosting a creative writing contest, and we want to let you know the contest deadline is quickly approaching! We’ve received just a couple of submissions, so your chances to take first place are still good! Of the submissions we received, a few have agreed to have their pieces displayed to the student body. To see the submissions we made available, check out the link: aclu. Also, please let us know if you’re open to having your piece on display before voting is complete. The winning submission will receive $100 and will choose an organization to receive a separate $100 donation. The runner-up will also receive $80. The deadline for submissions is March 17!

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 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 22

• 9:00 AM: ASP Virtual Coffee Chat: How to Make the Most of Second Semester – Learn how to Maneuver Law School Challenges. Zoom link here. You did it. You got through your first semester of law school. Now that we’re in the middle of second semester, you may find yourself facing continuous challenges or perhaps even new challenges that are making this semester tough to maneuver. Ask yourself the following:

• Are you still struggling with managing your time? Are external distractions preventing you from focusing on preparing for class?

• Do you feel like you have to have this appearance of perfection? Do you feel overwhelmed?

• Are you having difficulty reading and briefing efficiently and effectively within a limited period of time?

• Are you struggling with absorbing and synthesizing the material learned in class?

• Are you behind in crafting your outlines? Figuring out what is relevant (and what’s not)?

• Do you wonder what you should be focusing on now "professionally" during law school (job searching, OCI, journals, moot court, law review, etc.)?

• If you’ve answered "yes" to some or all of these questions, please join us for a panel discussion with students who have been in your shoes. Let’s tackle some of these questions, so that you can feel more confident about how you’re studying and using your time this semester.

Thursday, March 25

• 12:00p.m.: Join Cannabis Law Society and Racial Equity and Advocacy Alliance for their virtual event "Chicago Neighborhoods and Cannabis" on Thursday, March 25 at noon! To register, please RSVP to cannabislawsociety.

Friday, March 26

• 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.: SBA Open Door At 4 pm every Friday through April 30, SBA 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. The link is in the SBA Calendar!!

  • On this open door, we would love to hear your “law school origin story.” Did a radioactive Bluebook spider bite you in a lab experiment gone awry? What brought you here?

• 5:00 p.m.: ASP Virtual Coffee Chat – Evening Division. Zoom link here. You did it. You got through your first semester of law school. Now that we’re in the middle of second semester, you may find yourself facing continuous challenges or perhaps even new challenges that are making this semester tough to maneuver. Ask yourself the following:

• Are you still struggling with managing your time? Are external distractions preventing you from focusing on preparing for class?

• Do you feel like you have to have this appearance of perfection? Do you feel overwhelmed?

• Are you having difficulty reading and briefing efficiently and effectively within a limited period of time?

• Are you struggling with absorbing and synthesizing the material learned in class?

• Are you behind in crafting your outlines? Figuring out what is relevant (and what’s not)?

• Do you wonder what you should be focusing on now "professionally" during law school (job searching, OCI, journals, moot court, law review, etc.)?

• If you’ve answered "yes" to some or all of these questions, please join us for a panel discussion with students who have been in your shoes. Let’s tackle some of these questions, so that you can feel more confident about how you’re studying and using your time this semester.

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.

Friday, April 2

• 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.: SBA Open Door At 4 pm every Friday through April 30, SBA 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. The link is in the SBA Calendar!!

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

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

SELS MARCH MADNESS PRESENTED BY LEXIS.pdf