The John Marshall Law School gave special recognition to three faculty members for their outstanding service. Each was honored at the May 2013 commencement.
Professors Walter J. Kendall III and Joanne Hodge received the Dedicated Service Award.
Professor Walter J. Kendall III is congratulated by Associate Dean Kathryn Kennedy upon receiving the Dedicated Service Award.
Kendall III was honored for his outstanding service to the community. Kendall is known as a person not afraid to raise issues of conscience. He has been working tirelessly to bring about just solutions to major issues of the day.
After five years as an attorney for a multi-billion dollar corporation, Kendall began questioning his priorities. He served as the assistant to the director of the Illinois Department of Public Aid for several years before joining the John Marshall faculty in 1975.
Kendall was an elected member of Community Consolidated School District 15 in the northwest suburbs. He was the pro bono legal advisor to many groups, including the Residents Management Organizations at the Chicago Housing Authority’s Dearborn Homes and Wentworth Gardens and counsel for the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network in its dispute with the Illinois Commerce Commission on how to shield caller-ID information.
Kendall has served as chair of the Illinois Chapter of the American Association of University Professors; chair of Access Living, an advocacy group for people with disabilities; and co-chair of Illinois Peace Action.
Since 1974, he has been on the board of Citizen Action Illinois, the state’s largest consumer organization. He is past chair of the Administrative Law Section Council of the Illinois State Bar Association, and was an arbitrator for the National Futures Association.
Kendall was an invited guest presenter at the Peace History Society in Oslo, Norway. He was one of 18 participants at the Silberman Seminar for Law Faculty organized by the United States Holocaust Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. He has served as a member of the Commission on Human Rights of Cook County, and helped write an amicus brief in the 2005 case United States v. State of Oregon on the rights of persons with disabilities.
Professor Joanne Simboli Hodge (left) accepts the Dedicated Service Award from Associate Dean Kathryn Kennedy.
Hodge was honored for her outstanding teaching, work as the associate director of the Moot Court Honors Program and mentoring students as they prepare for competitions and arbitration hearings. She came to John Marshall as a visiting professor in 2004, after serving as an administrative law judge, and joined the full-time faculty in 2006. She has taught required courses, including Contracts and Lawyering Skills; electives, such as Employment Law, Disability Law, and Alternative Dispute Resolution; and the summer special admission SCALES Program.
As a certified mediator, Hodge uses her skills to assist students in the Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program, so that homeowners can have a meaningful opportunity to save their home. Professor Hodge also has worked with the Circuit Court of Cook County to develop its new Elder Law Justice Center and court mediation program.
Outside John Marshall, Hodge serves as a judge for the American Bar Association at the national level rounds of its trial, arbitration, and mediation competitions. She is the co-chair of the Amicus Committee of the National Association of Women Lawyers.
Professor Jason Kilborn is delighted to be receiving the Scholarly Achievement Award at commencement. The award was presented by Associate Dean Kathryn Kennedy.
Professor Jason J. Kilborn was honored with the Scholarly Achievement Award. A nationally recognized expert on bankruptcy and insolvency, Kilborn has offered his expertise in the United States and around the globe as a frequent adviser, lecturer, and media consultant. He currently chairs a first-of-its-kind drafting group for a World Bank project on the treatment of insolvency of natural persons, and he has advised several national governments on their development of personal insolvency laws.
In addition to his position at The John Marshall Law School, since September 2010 Kilborn has occupied the Van der Grinten Chair in International and Comparative Insolvency Law at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He also served a semester appointment in 2011 as the Robert M. Zinman Scholar in Residence at the American Bankruptcy Institute and the Southeastern Bankruptcy Law Institute Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2012.
Kilborn is the author or editor of eight books, and he has written more than 20 law review articles and book chapters, as well as many magazine columns, blog posts, and other shorter works.
