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Justin Heather, Amie Simpson: Young Lawyers of YearJustin Lee Heather of Chicago and Amie Marie Simpson of Joliet will receive Young Lawyer of the Year Awards during the ISBA 132nd Annual Meeting next month at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis Riverfront Hotel. The awards are given each year by the Young Lawyers Division to attorneys under age 36 before the April deadline, one in Cook County and one outside of Cook County. Heather, a 2001 cum laude graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law, is a litigation associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He was nominated by Michele M. Jochner, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors. Simpson, who is managing attorney and executive director of the Will County Legal Assistance Program, graduated with honors in 1996 from the Drake University Law School. Her nominators were Sharon L. Eiseman, chair, and Annemarie Kill, secretary, of the Committee on Women and the Law. Justin HeatherIn addition to a wide variety of complex litigation matters in state and federal courts, Justin Heather has registered more than 3,300 hours of pro bono representation during his six and a half years in practice with Skadden Arps. He is the lead associate for a client on death row in the Mississippi State Penitentiary, working with local counsel in that state and coordinating expert mitigation investigators in Tennessee. He has worked on federal habeas corpus petitions for this client in the Northern District of Mississippi, and previously for an Illinois death row inmate in the Northern District and Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Before joining the law firm, Heather represented death row clients as a Public Interest Law Initiative Fellow with the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern University. In the nomination letter, Jochner noted that he "graciously volunteers a great deal of his time and his talent apart from his busy litigation practice to participate in pro bono representation and bar association work with the goal of bettering our profession and giving back to the community." Heather is a Gold Fellow of the Illinois Bar Foundation, a Life Fellow of the Chicago Bar Foundation, and a member of the Chicago Legal Clinic Young Auxiliary Board. An active member of the ISBA Young Lawyers Division and co-editor of YLD News, Heather has written several articles for the newsletter. His prize-winning article in the 2006 Lincoln Award Legal Writing Contest was published in the Illinois Bar Journal. Also active in the Chicago Bar Association Young Lawyer Section, he serves on the CBA Record board and is co-editor of the YLS Journal. He has edited several chapters of the Chicago Lawyers' Court Handbook and Your Guide to the Law. Heather received the Maurice Weigle Exceptional Young Lawyer Award last year from the CBA and CBF, and before that, the Milton H. Gray Award for Outstanding Project Leadership. The ISBA Young Lawyer of the Year presentation on June 27 will occur three weeks after his 34th birthday. Amie SimpsonA natural fit to become in 2001, at age 29, the head of a major county legal aid program, Amie Simpson prepared herself during law school in Iowa with a number of public interest endeavors. She volunteered with Polk County Legal Aid in DesMoines, did 711 work with the county prosecutor's juvenile division, and worked as a law clerk at Iowa Protection and Advocacy, where she wrote its Americans with Disabilities Handbook. After a stint with a general practice firm, Simpson joined Will County Legal Assistance in 1999 as a staff attorney in orders of protection. She was named executive director just two years later, and has watched the client base grow and the office staff expand to meet the demand. She oversees the Pro Bono Project, talks with clients in Spanish, carries a full caseload, appears in court almost daily, and is acknowledged as the county's leading expert in orders of protection. Simpson has been an active member of the ISBA Committee on Women and the Law for several years, and at one time also served simultaneously on the Committee on Delivery of Legal Services and Committee on Judicial Advisory Polls. She conducted an intensive strategic planning session for Women and the Law in February, and has written a comprehensive statistical and programmatic analysis to guide future leadership. Also active in the Will County Bar Association, Simpson has chaired its Juvenile Committee and served on committees on court facilities, juvenile diversion, family law and mentoring. She was president of the Will County Women's Bar Association from 2000 until 2004, the year she chaired Agencies United for the Joliet area. She serves on the steering committee of the 12th Circuit Family Violence Coordinating Council, and is a member of the Joliet Council of Working Women. "Her substantial accomplishments over a relatively short career reveal an individual and an attorney of integrity and commitment to the highest standards of the profession, and especially to serving the under-represented," Eiseman and Kill said in their nomination letter. Simpson also works into her daunting regimen the responsibilities of a wife, a mother of four, and caretaker of a dog, a cat, a rat and a hamster. Perhaps on her 36th birthday May 27, she'll find time to delve into a few of her many hobbies – painting, gardening, reading, karate and yoga. |
