Students Receive Legal Practice Excellence Awards

Twelve second-year law students recently were honored with Carmody MacDonald Legal Practice Excellence Awards for their outstanding performance in Legal Practice as first-year students.

The annual awards are conferred on one student in each Legal Practice section. Each recipient is recognized for consistently drafting high quality memoranda and briefs in his or her section, and for otherwise significantly contributing to the class as a first-year law student.

Gerry Carmody, front row, left; Traci Pupillo, front row, third from right; and Jo Ellen Lewis,
second row, second from left, along with other Legal Practice Faculty, congratulate the
2009 award recipients. Photo by Mary Butkus

The 2009 recipients are: Genevra Alberti, Sophie Fortin, Jeffrey Johnson, Amanda Katz, Ryan Kusmin, Ryan O’Malley, David Osborne, Rupa Rajagopalan, Jarrod Reece, Matthew Schoonover, Zachary Simpson, and Justin Young.

Traci Pupillo, JD ’94, addresses
the award recipients.
Photo by Mary Butkus

Dean Kent Syverud and law school alumna Traci Pupillo, JD ’94, a principal at Carmody MacDonald in St. Louis, addressed the award recipients and stressed the importance of clear and persuasive writing in the practice of law. Gerry Carmody, also a principal at Carmody MacDonald, and Jo Ellen Lewis, professor of practice and director of the Legal Practice Program, presented the students with their book award, a copy of Law in America, at a ceremony in the Crowder Courtyard.