Moot Court Association Names Participants in the 2021 Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition

The Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition is the appellate moot court competition for Marquette law students and is the capstone event of the intramural moot court program. Students are invited to participate based on their top performance in the fall Appellate Writing and Advocacy course at the Law School.

Congratulations to the participants in the 2021 Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition:

Olanrewaju (Lanre) Abiola
Lauren Brasington
Carsyn Bushman
Zach Caley
Alexandra (Sasha) Chepov
Ashleigh Dickey
Ben Edelstein
Laura Federico
Jack Flack
Kyle Frank
Charlie Hoffmann
Rebecca Klongland
Josh Kundert
Kevin Landgraf
Josh Le Noble
Alex Lux
Morgan Minter
Natalie Mulvey
Greg Procopio
Matt Rademacher
Thomas Sucevic
Christopher Vandeventer
Taylor Van Zeeland
Zak Wroblewski

The Jenkins preliminary rounds begin March 20, 2021, with the winning teams progressing through the quarterfinals, then semifinals, to the final round. The final round will take place the week of April 5, 2021. All rounds will take place virtually. Stay tuned for more details.

Any questions about the competition should be directed to Kelsey Pelegrin, Associate Justice of Intramural Competitions.

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Remembering Shirley S. Abrahamson: Wisconsin’s First Woman Supreme Court Justice

Shirley Abrahamson with raised right hand, taking oath in 1976.
Shirley Abrahamson is sworn into the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1976 by late Chief Justice Bruce Beilfuss.

On Saturday, December 19, former Wisconsin Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson, died after battling pancreatic cancer. She was 87. Just two ways she was like another famous, short, tough, trailblazing Jewish jurist: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Abrahamson, the daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants who arrived in the United States in the early 1930s, grew up in New York City. She graduated magna cum laude from NYU with her bachelor’s degree in 1953. Three years later, she graduated first in her class from Indiana Law School; she was also the only woman.

She met her husband Seymour in Indiana; they moved to Madison in the early 1960s, where Abrahamson earned her S.J.D. from UW Law in 1962. Thereafter, she became the first female lawyer at the Madison law firm La Follette, Sinykin, Doyle & Anderson. She was named a partner within a year. All throughout the time she was in practice, she also taught at UW Law.

In 1976, then-Governor Patrick Lucey appointed her to the Wisconsin Supreme Court’ she was the first woman to serve there.

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Remembering Chief Justice Abrahamson

A photo of Shirley Abrahamson[The following is a guest post from Daniel Suhr ’08, a prior guest alumni contributor to the Blog.]

While working as a junior lawyer in Governor Scott Walker’s office, my phone rang one clear winter’s day.  It was the judicial assistant for Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.  The Chief had asked Dean Kearney if anyone else was traveling to that evening’s Hallows lecture from Madison, such that she could carpool. The Dean had kindly offered me up for the task. Could I meet her in an hour at the Capitol’s MLK Drive exit?

After quickly consenting, I rushed out to my Subaru Legacy and started grabbing granola bar wrappers off the floor. I ran to the BP on East Wash, which had a car wash, and did my best on short notice. I pulled into the Capitol’s covered roundabout five minutes early and retrieved my passenger.

She got in the front seat, and didn’t bring any reading material, so we just started chatting.

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