Nicole Murphy ’17, Nicholas Pangere ’18 and Laura Reichel ’18 receive the 2017 Fleischman Family Awards for Excellence in Criminal Clinic

Nicole Murphy '17, Nicholas Pangere '18 and Laura Reichel '18 are the recipients of the 2017 Fleischman Family Awards for Excellence in Criminal Clinic at Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Tech.

The awards, which include a cash stipend, are made at the end of the academic year to 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 Chicago-Kent faculty who teach in the law school's Certificate Program in Criminal Litigation.

Nicole Murphy earned a bachelor's degree in criminology, law and justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. During college she interned at the Chicago office of U.S. Senator Dick Durbin. During law school, she clerked for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office and for the criminal defense clinic at the C-K Law Group of Chicago-Kent.

Nicholas Pangere earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from Illinois Institute of Technology. He was a legal intern for criminal defense attorney and professor Richard Kling at the C-K Law Group of Chicago-Kent. He is currently a judicial extern for Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne M. Burke and a member of the Chicago Lighthouse Junior Board.

Laura Reichel earned a bachelor's degree in international studies at Roosevelt University. She is a legal intern with the criminal defense clinic at the C-K Law Group of Chicago-Kent. She volunteers at the Self-Help Web Center at Chicago's Daley Center and recently interned at the Clerk's Office of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The Fleischman Family Awards for Excellence in Criminal Clinic were established by 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 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 Philip A. Fleischman, and their father, attorney Marshall A. Fleischman.

Jack and Sidney Fleischman are identical twins who participated in 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.

Founded in 1888, Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, also known as Illinois Tech, a private, technology-focused, research university offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, science, architecture, business, design, human sciences, applied technology, and law.