The John Marshall Law School will present diplomas to 329 graduates at its 197th commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 18, 2014.
The law school will award 285 J.D., 33 LL.M. and 11 M.S. degrees at the 3 p.m. program at the Chicago Marriott Downtown. The commencement speaker will be Illinois Appellate Court Justice Joy Cunningham and the law school will award an honorary degree to Harriet Seceley Hausman. The class valedictorian is Elizabeth Winkowski.
Justice Cunningham is a 1982 graduate of John Marshall. A native of New York, she was a nurse before coming to law school. She practiced law with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and with a law firm before clerking for Illinois Appellate Court Justice Glenn T. Johnson. In 1986, Cunningham served as associate general counsel for both the Loyola University Health System and Loyola University-Chicago.
In 1997, Cunningham was appointed an associate judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County. She served for three years before stepping down to assume the positions of senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She left the position in 2006 when she was elected to the Illinois Appellate Court, First District.
Hausman is being recognized for her continued support both of John Marshall students and the community at-large. Her husband, Martin, was a 1937 graduate of the law school who founded Power Parts Inc., a business that made replacement parts for diesel engines. She worked alongside him, but she also got him involved in her personal causes, including working for civil rights, protesting the Vietnam War and protecting the Constitution’s guarantees for all peoples through her work with the American Civil Liberties Union. Hausman was elected to three terms on the River Forest Township board.
Although he never practiced law, Martin Hausman supported John Marshall throughout his career believing his legal education was important to his success. When he died, his wife continued that support by establishing the Martin Hausman Scholarship in 1988. Today, her donations underwrite the Martin Hausman Award that helps cover the cost of bar prep courses. In 2013, the Hausman Award assisted 33 students.
