ALEXANDRIA, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Joseph
D. Kearney has been selected to receive the prestigious 2019
American Inns of Court Professionalism
Award for the Seventh Circuit. Thomas L. Shriner, Jr., Esquire, will
present the award during the Judicial Conference of the Seventh Circuit
on May 6 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Kearney is dean and professor of law at the Marquette University Law
School in Milwaukee. “Joe instills the qualities of professionalism into
our students both by word and example,” says Shriner, who nominated
Kearney for the award.
Dean since 2003, Kearney is one of the country’s longest-serving law
school deans and has led the school’s transformation into a marketplace
of ideas that encourages public debate on often-controversial legal,
political, and social issues. These groundbreaking public policy
initiatives include the popular “On the Issues” discussion series plus
the Marquette University Law School Poll, now nationally recognized as
the go-to poll for assessing public sentiment in the battleground state
of Wisconsin. Kearney has also expanded the school’s academic lecture
series, bringing prominent scholars, practitioners, and judges to speak
to packed houses.
Kearney also helped to raise more than $100 million in a campaign whose
centerpiece was the construction of Eckstein Hall, a state-of-the-art
building that now houses the school.
Despite his duties as dean, Kearney has continued in the classroom since
joining Marquette’s faculty in 1997, teaching upper-level courses in
advanced civil procedure and the federal courts as well as a Supreme
Court seminar. Deeply committed to the school’s Jesuit emphasis on
service to the most vulnerable, Kearney led the creation of an Office of
Public Service through which about half the student body takes the
opportunity to provide pro bono services supervised by area lawyers to
thousands of low-income clients a year who are facing legal challenges.
The Office of Public Service even includes a mobile legal clinic in
partnership with the local bar association and county clerk of courts.
Before entering academia, Kearney spent six years practicing law at
Sidley & Austin in Chicago. He was also a law clerk for Associate
Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and
Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit. He is an Emeritus member of the Thomas E. Fairchild American
Inn of Court.
Kearney earned a BA summa cum laude from Yale University and a JD cum
laude from Harvard Law School.
The American
Inns of Court, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, inspires the
legal community to advance the rule of law by achieving the highest
level of professionalism through example, education, and mentoring. The
organization’s membership includes more than 31,000 federal, state, and
local judges; lawyers; law professors; and law students in nearly 380
chapters nationwide. More information is available at home.innsofcourt.org.
Contacts
American Inns of Court
Cindy Dennis
Awards & Scholarships
Coordinator
(571) 319-4703
[email protected]
