FELLOWSHIPS
Loyola’s
Fulbright
Scholars
T
wo Loyola law students,
Jessica Sanchez and
Brenda McKinney (both JD ’13),
recently received fellowships
from the Fulbright U.S. Student
Program. The program provides
study and research grants to
students or young professionals
to undertake advanced
research and international
graduate study overseas.
Sanchez was awarded a
Fulbright-García Robles Grant.
She will work with a Mexican
Supreme Court justice and
human rights attorneys in
Mexico to investigate and
document how Mexico’s
judicial system implements
new legal safeguards for human
rights. McKinney will travel to
New Zealand to explore that
country’s approach to restorative
juvenile justice, specifically
through observing its use of
Family Group Conferences
(FGCs). New Zealand has been a
leader in restorative justice and
conferencing, which adopts a
non-punitive, family-focused
approach to juvenile offenders.
■
Loyola University Chicago School of Law continues to lead with innovative curricula
and programming. Here’s a sampling of what’s new and notable at the law school.
LEGAL BRIEFS
DEPARTMENT UPDATE
»
L
oyola’s intellectual
property (IP) program
provides a student-
centered approach
to learning that
offers not only core intellectual
property courses, but also an
individualized approach to choosing
complementary electives capitalizing
on the strengths and goals of each
student. Complementary classes
include options that span the
curriculum, including corporate
law, advocacy, health law, or even
classes in other departments, such
as graduate-level biology courses.
“I always tell prospective
students that we’re a small but very
rich program that offers them a
strong academic background plus a
lot of personal attention,” says Cynthia
Ho, professor and program director.
“I can easily get to know all the
students interested in IP—so, when
an alum calls and asks for a student
with a particular strength, I can make
the connection.”
Ho and her colleagues have
thus far consciously decided against
offering an IP certificate, having
learned from close connections with
the IP community that employers are
not necessarily looking for students
with the maximum number of IP
classes. Rather, employers sometimes
seek students with specific technical
backgrounds, or expect a student
without a technical background to
have knowledge of related areas such
as labor law and sales. “We find our
personalized approach works better;
for instance, an employer may really
need an electrical engineer more
than they need someone who took IP
litigation,” Ho explains.
Unusual among law schools,
Loyola offers a first-year writing
course and other first-year electives
focusing on IP, allowing students
interested in IP careers to build
writing samples and coursework early
on. Second-year appellate advocacy
options include an IP course. An
advanced research class that focuses
solely on IP also fine tunes common
legal skills, like giving an oral report
to a partner.
Other academic and cocurricular
offerings include a growing number
of externship options, plus two moot
court teams that focus exclusively
on IP issues. 2012 marked the 10th
year Loyola has cohosted the Chicago
IP Colloquium, bringing national
scholars to Chicago to discuss their
current research with Loyola students
and local attorneys. Loyola annually
cohosts the Patent Law Interview
program, the largest single-practice
job fair in the country, which includes
students from more than 100 law
schools and 200 legal employers from
across the United States.
Graduates of the IP program have
achieved significant career success in
the public and private sector. Recent
examples include Amy Fuetterer
Greywitt (JD ’10), who has clerked
with Hon. Richard Linn, U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,
the highest court to hear exclusively
patent cases in 2011-12; Jenna M.
Smith (JD ’12), now clerking with Hon.
John Love, U.S. District Court, Eastern
District of Texas, which hears many
patent cases; Janet M. Garetto Cantelo
(JD ’97), immediate past president
of the Intellectual Property Lawyers
Association of Chicago, the oldest bar
association focused on IP; and Linda
A. Kuczma (JD ’81), an administrative
trademark judge at the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office since 2011.
Ho teaches and writes in the area
of patent law, with a special focus on
issues that intersect patent and health
care policy. Other full-time professors
include Matthew Sag, who teaches
and writes about copyright law
and the broader area of intellectual
property; Ann-Marie Rhodes, who
teaches and writes in the area of art
law; and Spencer Weber Waller, whose
teaching and research interests in
antitrust often dovetail with IP.
“We’re also blessed with a great
adjunct faculty teaching all our
writing classes and many specialized
courses. For example, Nanette
Norton, previously a trademark
partner at the IP boutique Brinks
& Hofer, is a fabulous resource for
trademark law,” says Ho.
■
Cynthia Ho leads Loyola’s IP program.
IP program layers personalized studies
over a solid foundation of core courses
F O R M O R E I N F O R M A T I O N O N T H E I P P R O G R A M , V I S I T
L U C . E D U / L A W / C E N T E R S / I N T E L L E C T U A L / I N D E X . H T M L .
T
wo national studies have a
powerful message for legal
employers: hiring graduates of Loyola
University Chicago School of Law is a
great decision. Loyola graduates have
a significantly higher partnership
success rate in National Law Journal
(NLJ) 100 law firms than graduates
from other elite law schools.
In “Where Do Partners Come
From?,” an August 2011 article in the
Journal of Legal Education
, Loyola Los
Angeles’s Theodore P. Seto placed
Loyola Chicago 29th on the list of
the nation’s top 50 “partner feeder
schools.” The rankings refer to the
number of partners each school has
in U.S. offices of the NLJ 100. Those
included in the study received their
JDs in 1986 or thereafter. Loyola
outperformed its
U.S. News & World
Report
ranking by a notable 42 places.
“What do these numbers mean?”
Seto asks. “First, they tell us that not
all schools produce national law firm
partners at rates consistent with their
U.S. News
rank, even controlling for
size. Some produce more; some less.
The data do not tell us why. It may be
that, for whatever reason, students
interested in becoming big-firm
partners tend to be attracted to a
particular school. Or perhaps the
school’s admission practices favor
such students. It may be that, because
of the culture of the school, graduates
who accept associate positions do so
seriously, with the intention of really
trying to make partner, not just to ‘get
some experience’ before moving on.
“It may even be that some
schools actually provide superior
preparation for big-firm practice—
that some schools teach law and/or
practice skills more effectively than
others,” Seto continues. “Whatever the
reason, 25 years of data is probably
enough to capture real differences,
even if we cannot explain them.”
In a March 8, 2012, post called
“Too Good for Big Law,”The Careerist,
a lawjobs.com blog published by
ALM, excerpted research by William
Henderson, a law professor at the
University of Indiana. Using NLJ job
data, Henderson looked at the ratio
of first-year associates who make
partner at a big firm. The author
found that Loyola Chicago law grads
are more likely than graduates of all
but one other law school to make
partner and are six times more likely
than University of Chicago law alumni
to make the cut. Henderson told The
Careerist’s Vivia Chen, "The strivers
tend to be more concentrated in the
regional law schools.”
Of course, far more University
of Chicago (and other elite school)
graduates are hired by large firms,
but this is powerful evidence of the
success of Loyola alumni.
These studies focus on large-
firm hiring, probably because that is
where the most complete statistics
are maintained. Only around 15
percent of law school graduates go
to work for large firms, but these firms
have very broad influence within
the legal profession. So, too, do
Loyola’s graduates.
■
6x
LOYOLA LAW ALUMS ARE
SIX TIMES MORE
LIKELY THAN U OF CHICAGO GRADS
TO
MAKE PARTNER AT LARGE FIRMS
Recent studies show Loyola graduates excel at making partner at NLJ 100 firms.
HIGH-ACHIEVING ALUMS
Jessica Sanchez (left) and
Brenda McKinney
Loyola alums outperform elite law
school grads in making partner
SPRING 2013
3
2
LOYOLA LAW
