Law Student Honored by American College of Bankruptcy
The American College of Bankruptcy has chosen Rachel Lehmann ’26 as its 2026 Seventh Circuit Distinguished Student. The Distinguished Bankruptcy Student program aims to “identify and promote prospective leaders in the insolvency and bankruptcy profession,” according to its website. Every year, one student is chosen from each regional federal judicial district.
The 2026 class of distinguished students were honored at the college’s annual induction ceremony for new fellows on March 21, 2026, in San Antonio. Lehmann had the opportunity to meet the country’s leading bankruptcy lawyers and business professionals.
“I find them to be uniquely passionate about what they do and really friendly, encouraging, and welcoming,” she says.
Lehmann dove into bankruptcy law headfirst at Chicago-Kent College of Law. She competed in the 2025 Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition, winning Best Oralist in the Midwest Regional competition in February 2025. She returned to act as lead student coach for the 2026 team. In fall 2025, she externed with the Hon. Deborah L. Thorne ’83 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northen District of Illinois.
Lehmann is also the president of Chicago-Kent’s Bankruptcy, Insolvency, and Restructuring Student Association. During her tenure, the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges held its annual meeting in Chicago, bringing the most prominent legal minds in the bankruptcy field to the city. Lehmann used the opportunity to host a free bankruptcy law forum for Chicago-Kent students featuring several of the visiting judges and attorneys.
She has also written two notes on Chapter 11 and public policy issues, including one on the sale of sensitive health information when large medical technology companies, such as 23andMe, go bankrupt. The other, on the treatment of environmental liabilities in bankruptcy, is due to be published in the upcoming American Bankruptcy Institute Journal’s student gallery.
Lehmann didn’t expect to focus on bankruptcy and restructuring. It’s a niche area of law that she discovered through the tutelage of Professor Adrian Walters, director of Chicago-Kent’s Business Law Program and an American College of Bankruptcy fellow. He served as her adviser for her research and nominated her for the distinguished student award.
“I know I wouldn't have developed this interest and honed it as much as I have—I wouldn't have even known that it was such a rich area to pursue professionally and academically—had he not been the naturally gifted teacher and mentor that he is,” she says.
Lehmann spent summer 2024 and 2025 as a summer associate in Kirkland and Ellis’s Restructuring practice, where she plans to return in the fall full time.
