U.S. District Court Judge James F. Holderman will address IIT Chicago-Kent conference on "Juries and Lay Participation" October 10

The Honorable James F. Holderman, senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, will deliver the luncheon keynote address at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law's conference "Juries and Lay Participation: American Perspectives and Global Trends" on October 10. The one-day conference will be held from 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Courtroom, 565 West Adams Street (between Clinton and Jefferson Streets) in Chicago.

The conference is co-sponsored by IIT Chicago-Kent's Justice John Paul Stevens Jury Center and the Chicago-Kent Law Review. Judge Holderman's talk, titled "Maximizing Jurors' Understanding," will begin about 12:15 p.m.

"Judge Holderman has been at the forefront of many innovations designed to increase juror understanding," said Professor Nancy S. Marder, director of IIT Chicago-Kent's Justice John Paul Stevens Jury Center. "We are fortunate to have him share his insights and experience with us.

Jury experts will participate in a series of discussions moderated by IIT Chicago-Kent faculty members. The conference continues a discussion of global issues related to juries begun at a conference organized by Professor Marder in Oñati, Spain, last June. The conference in Oñati, which brought together 25 jury scholars from around the world, explored ways in which different countries face similar jury challenges but often resolve them in different ways.

"The upcoming jury conference at Chicago-Kent," according to Professor Marder, "will focus on challenges for the American jury, while still considering what we can learn from other countries' jury systems." One panel at the Chicago-Kent conference will focus on jury practices in other countries and how they might work in the United States.

Jury experts will also examine the challenges of juror bias and the ways in which the jury functions as a political institution. The closing panel, "Lawyers, Judges and Jurors: Practitioners' Perspectives," will offer first-person experiences of those involved in the jury process. The panel will include Judge Matthew Kennelly, a federal district court judge in the Northern District of Illinois; Bruce Kohen, now retired from Anesi Ozmon Rodin Novak & Kohen Ltd.; Alan Tuerkheimer, a jury consultant at Zagnoli McEvoy Foley LLC; James Matsumoto, who served as jury foreman in the 2010 federal corruption trial of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich; and two members of the IIT Chicago-Kent faculty, Richard Kling, a defense attorney, and David Erickson, a former state court judge.

Admission is free and open to the public, however, space is limited and registration is required. To register or for more information, please email Kelly Koss of the Chicago-Kent Law Review at cklawreview.me@kentlaw.iit.edu.

IIT 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.

The Justice John Paul Stevens Jury Center serves as a clearinghouse for information about the jury for academics, students, judges, lawyers, and members of the press and the public. This resource includes a website and other special projects. In addition, the Justice John Paul Stevens Jury Center supports programming and produces publications that foster dialogue about the jury.