Erika Auger '18 receives the 2017 Dolores K. Hanna Trademark Prize
Erika Auger, a third-year student at Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Tech, has won the law school's 2017 Dolores K. Hanna Trademark Prize. The prize was established at the law school in 2006 by the law firm of K & L Gates LLP (formerly Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLC) to honor Dolores K. Hanna, a 1952 Chicago-Kent graduate who served as the firm's special trademark counsel.
The prize is awarded to one or more Chicago-Kent students based on outstanding performance in an intellectual property course. Recipients are selected by faculty who teach in the law school's Program in Intellectual Property Law.
Erika Auger graduated from Northwestern University, where she majored in English and vocal performance/opera. Her work in intellectual property began before she enrolled in law school. She lived and worked as a professional singer and songwriter in Los Angeles, where she also founded Siren Sessions, an independent music publishing firm, in 2011, and started ENR Music Inc., a music management firm, in 2010. As an artist and songwriter, she has performed with Grammy Award winners David Foster and Jennifer Hudson and has written songs for such artists as Girls Generation and Christina Milian. Her songs have been included on the soundtracks for various television shows on Bravo, MTV, Showtime and other networks.
During her first year of law school, she researched IP case law as a 1L IP Fellow for Professor Edward Lee. In spring 2017, she and her teammates won best-brief and placed second in the William E. McGee National Civil Rights Moot Court Competition. She is also a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review. Since 2016, she has been the head law clerk at Corboy & Demetrio PC. This semester, she is also an intellectual property extern at Seyfarth Shaw LLP, through the law school’s Legal Externship Program. Upon graduating, she will join Reed Smith LLP as an associate in the firm’s Entertainment & Media Group.
Dolores Hanna practiced intellectual property law with distinction for more than 50 years before retiring from active practice in 2006. Prior to joining Bell, Boyd & Lloyd in 2000, Hanna practiced at the law firm of Hill & Simpson and also served as trademark counsel for Kraft Inc. From 1985 to 1987, she chaired the federal Trademark Review Commission, and recommended changes that were enacted into the Trademark Law Revision Act of 1988, the first comprehensive update of trademark law since passage of the Lanham Act in 1946. Hanna has served as president of the International Trademark Association, the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago, the Women's Bar Association of Illinois, the Women's Bar Foundation, and the Cook County Court Watchers.
Chicago-Kent currently offers a J.D. certificate program in intellectual property law and in 2002 became the first American law school to offer a one-year LL.M. degree in international intellectual property law. Law Street Media currently ranks Chicago Kent's Program in Intellectual Property Law first in the nation.
