News 26 - College of Law

Kaplan recognized with Lifetime Achievement Award

Professor Richard Kaplan is the recipient of the 2025 AALS Aging and Law Section’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The award honors his distinguished career of teaching, service, and scholarship in aging and the law. A letter from the AALS Aging and Law Section explained his selection, noting “dedicated service to the profession, to your students, to colleagues in mentorship, and to advancing scholarship in the field with your valuable contributions.”

Professor Kaplan has been teaching since 1979, has seven published books, and over 80 publications. He also has dedicated his career to enabling others to succeed. Under his leadership, the Elder Law Journal has created a forum for scholars from around the world to publish quality articles related to elder law, while simultaneously encouraging new generations of lawyers and law students to pursue work in this area.

Kaplan will be recognized at the Section on Scholarship’s Award Ceremony on Friday, January 10, 2025.

SSRN features Q&A with Gerke

Main Library at the University of Illinois in early fall.

Professor Sara Gerke was recently featured on the SSRN blog, discussing her extensive research. As part of their “Meet the Author” series, Gerke participated in a question and answer session covering her research on the ethical and legal challenges of artificial intelligence and big data for health care and health law in the United States and Europe. She shared some of her background and much about her research in the interview.

Read the full post on SSRN.

Kaplan presents at the American Tax Policy Institute Symposium

Professor Richard Kaplan presented “Gender Discrimination in Retirement Plan Distributions” at the American Tax Policy Institute Symposium, It’s a Man’s World: Revealing and Addressing Hidden Gender Bias in Tax Law and Policy, in Washington, D.C. His paper will appear next year in an issue of the Pittsburgh Tax Review devoted to the Symposium’s presentations.

Sixth Judicial Circuit honors Aronson

Congratulations to Professor Lauren Aronson on being selected by the Sixth Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee for the 2024 Community Legal Service Award. She was honored at an event on October 24 for her volunteer work in Champaign-Urbana, including work with the Immigration Law Clinic, the New American Welcome Center, and as the only Spanish-speaking guardian ad litem providing services to community members in Champaign County. On behalf of the entire College of Law, we express our sincere pride to call Professor Aronson one of our own.

Gerke brings CLASSICA research to Illinois Law

New faculty member Sara Gerke has an extensive background in research prior to her time at Illinois Law and she has brought her work on CLASSICA with her to Champaign. CLASSICA is an EU-funded project examining cancer classification via AI technology across several clinics, surgical teams, and countries. Professor Gerke is one of the heads of the study of the legal and ethical implications raised by AI-assisted surgery as part of the project.

Learn more about CLASSICA.

Sherkow presents before New York Intellectual Property Law Association

In September, Professor Jacob Sherkow delivered a presentation on the legal aspects of DNA sequencing cases to the New York Intellectual Property Law Association. His presentation, titled “Trade Secrets Committee Meeting: Litigating DNA Trade Secrecy,” covered whether DNA sequences are protectable by trade secrecy and if recent advances in DNA sequencing technology might destroy trade secrecy protection for certain kinds data. He reviewed the technology in the field and cases focused on DNA trade secrecy as well as provided practical suggestions for litigating DNA trade secrecy cases.

The Street features Kaplan on changes to retirement planning

In a video interview, Professor Richard Kaplan spoke to The Street’s Retirement Daily about the six major changes enacted by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. The changes, he explained, represent Congressional efforts to address deficiencies in employer-provided retirement savings plans and continue a pattern of pension plans accommodating an array of social initiatives that are not always related to providing income in retirement.

Watch Kaplan’s interview with The Street.

Watson publishes article on precedent in Northwestern University Law Review

“Over the last few years, the Roberts Court has repeatedly obstructed precedent,” Professor Bill Watson states in his new article, “Obstructing Precedent,” published in the Northwestern University Law Review. Obstructing precedent, he explains, is when a court does not cooperate with its prior self in building a coherent body of law; however, while it is concerning, there is nothing inherently illegitimate about the Court obstructing precedent.

Read his full article online.

Illinois LawCast: Acting locally and globally with Abass Sesay

This episode features Abass Sesay, an LLM student from Sierra Leone and founder of the nonprofit, Campaign for Social Justice and Human Rights. We discussed his work promoting climate change action, youth empowerment, and justice, as well as attending the United Nations’ Summit of the Future in and IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings.

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If you have any comments or suggestions for the podcast, please contact podcast@law.illinois.edu.

Illinois LawCast: Veterans Legal Clinic with Yulanda Curtis and Luke Hemmerla

Founder and director of the Veterans Legal Clinic, Yulanda Curtis, joins the podcast to discuss her passion for providing civil legal services to the veteran community. In the second half of this episode, 3L student Luke Hemmerla, a current member of the Missouri Army National Guard, joins to discuss his work as a clinician and how his military background has helped him in this role.

More information about the Veterans Legal Clinic can be found on their website. If you would like to contact the Clinic to see if their services might be right for you, the number to call is (217) 244-9494 or you may email law-clinics@illinois.edu.

Listen online.
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If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, please email podcast@law.illinois.edu.