Professor Carolyn Shapiro honored with 2017 Abner Mikva Award from ACS Chicago Lawyers Chapter

Professor Carolyn Shapiro received a 2017 Abner Mikva Award from the Chicago Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society at a luncheon June 19 at the Union League Club in Chicago. The award, renamed last year in honor of the late Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, recognizes attorneys who have advanced the American Constitution Society's progressive mission. [See the full list of attorneys honored at the luncheon.]

"I can't think of a more humbling experience than to receive an award named for the great Abner Mikva—other than to receive it in this room full of people who are, or have been, my teachers, my mentors, my bosses, my coworkers, my classmates, my students and my friends, not to mention to alongside my co-honorees who, as criminal defense lawyers, civil rights lawyers, and public servants exemplify the best of our profession," said Professor Shapiro in her acceptance speech.

A member of the Chicago-Kent faculty since 2003, Professor Shapiro is the founder and co-director of Chicago-Kent's Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States. She teaches classes in legislation and statutory interpretation, constitutional law, and public interest law and policy. She is also the director of the Public Interest Law Certificate Program.

Professor Shapiro took a leave of absence from Chicago-Kent to serve as solicitor general of Illinois from 2014 to mid-2016. She has argued cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit, the Illinois Supreme Court, and the Illinois Appellate Courts. Prior to coming to Chicago-Kent in 2003, she was a law clerk for then-Chief Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and for Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court; an associate with Miner, Barnhill & Galland; and a Skadden Fellow with the National Center on Poverty Law.

Professor Shapiro earned a B.A. in English from the University of Chicago, an M.A. from the University of Chicago Harris Graduate School of Public Policy, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

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.