Emily Bock and Elizabeth Zink receive 2013 Fleischman Family Awards for Excellence in Criminal Clinic

Emily Bock and Elizabeth Zink are the recipients of the 2013 Fleischman Family Awards for Excellence in Criminal Clinic at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.

The awards, which include a cash stipend, are made at the end of the academic year to IIT Chicago-Kent students who have demonstrated dedication to the criminal defense litigation program and who have provided "zealous advocacy" on behalf of the program's clients. Recipients are selected by IIT Chicago-Kent faculty who teach in the law school's Certificate Program in Criminal Litigation. Bock and Zink will receive their J.D. degrees on May 19 at Commencement ceremonies at the UIC Forum.

Emily Bock completed her undergraduate education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she majored in political science. Bock minored in East Asian Languages and Cultures with a concentration in Mandarin Chinese. She also spent a semester abroad at Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prior to law school, Bock worked at the Chinese American Service League in Chicago.

At IIT Chicago-Kent, Bock served as a law clerk in the Law Offices of Linda M. Perry, where she worked on state and federal felony criminal cases; Illinois Department of Children and Family Services administrative hearings; and numerous matters before the Cook County Courts Law Division, Small Claims Court, and Domestic Violence Court. Since May 2011, Bock has served as a legal intern in IIT Chicago-Kent's Criminal Clinic under the supervision of criminal defense attorney and clinical professor Daniel T. Coyne.

"Throughout her time in Criminal Defense Clinic and in the criminal litigation certificate program, Emily has consistently demonstrated the highest standards of professionalism and legal ability," said Professor Coyne. "Utilizing her Rule 711 license, she has litigated first-degree murder cases in the Criminal Division at 26th and California [streets in Chicago], and she recently argued a Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act petition before the First District Illinois Appellate Court. Emily's contributions to the clinic, her clients and her colleagues cannot be adequately detailed in this short statement. Suffice it to say, Emily Bock has set the bar extremely high for those students following her."

Elizabeth Zink graduated magna cum laude from Lake Forest College with degrees in politics and sociology/anthropology. Prior to law school, she served as a legal intern at Stone & Associates Ltd., where she worked on an Innocence Project case involving DNA testing. At IIT Chicago-Kent, she was an intern on former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's defense team working on issues related to the jury selection process. She has also served as a 711 law clerk in the DuPage County Public Defender's Office and on the Cook County Public Defender's Homicide Task Force. Since August 2011, Zink has interned in the IIT Chicago-Kent Criminal Clinic, under the supervision of criminal defense attorney and clinical professor Richard S. Kling. She has worked with numerous clients at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. In addition, she served as second chair to Professor Kling in a federal drug conspiracy trial.

"Elizabeth Zink is a team player and a leader," said Professor Kling. "She exercises independence, but takes direction. She is dependable, feisty, cannot be intimidated, and is phenomenal at organization. In short, Elizabeth would make an ideal law partner."

The Fleischman Family Awards for Excellence in Criminal Clinic were established by IIT Chicago-Kent alumni and criminal defense attorneys Jack and Sidney Z. Fleischman in 2008 to recognize outstanding students in the criminal defense section of the IIT Chicago-Kent Law Offices. In establishing the award, the Fleischmans also pay tribute to the contributions made to Chicago's legal community by their late grandfather, former Cook County Circuit Court judge Phillip A. Fleischman, and their father, attorney Marshall A. Fleischman.

Jack and Sidney Fleischman are identical twins who participated in IIT Chicago-Kent's criminal law clinic before they earned their law degrees in 1987. The Fleischman brothers currently are partners in their own criminal defense law firm, Fleischman & Fleischman PA, located in Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, Florida. Jack began his career with the Public Defender's Office in Palm Beach County. Sidney worked with the Cook County and Broward County State's Attorney offices before entering private practice with his brother.

Founded in 1888, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is celebrating "125 years of distinctive legal education." IIT Chicago-Kent is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, psychology, architecture, business, design and law.

IIT Chicago-Kent's Certificate Program in Criminal Litigation is designed to give students a comprehensive and balanced professional education that prepares them for the practice of criminal law. The IIT Chicago-Kent Law Offices is a teaching law firm whose dual mission is to provide high-quality clinical education to the more than 150 student interns and externs who enroll each semester and to deliver outstanding legal services to its clients.