SIU law student earns award for public service

Andrea Taylor of Murphysboro, a second-year student at the Southern Illinois University School of Law, is the 2009 ISBA Law Student Division Public Service Award recipient.

Chosen from finalists who represented ISBA-affiliated law schools, she will be honored on Friday, June 26, during the 133rd Annual Meeting. A $250 contribution in her name will be made to The Women’s Center in Carbondale.

The other finalists were Matthew P. Kellam of The John Marshall Law School, and Mary Koll of the University of Illinois College of Law.

Taylor received SIU Law Public Interest Awards in both 2008 and 2009, and she has been nominated for a Women’s Bar Foundation Public Interest Scholarship.

She chairs a committee of the student organization, Equal Justice Works, which recruits and trains volunteers for the campus Self Help Legal Center. She also is the center’s public relations coordinator.

Other initiatives in which she has participated are the Immigrant Detention Center Project, the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic, the Women’s Law Forum, and the International Law Society.

For six years before entering law school, Taylor assisted domestic assault victims for Legal Advocates for Abused Women, providing intervention, emotional support and information about the criminal justice system.

She also helped battered women and children at St. Martha’s Hall with counseling, advocacy, empowerment and escorting to orders of protection hearings.

A Dean’s List law student who has received academic excellence awards, Taylor has a master’s degree in theological studies, with concentration in world missions.