FTC Commissioner William E. Kovacic to Address 2009 IIT Chicago-Kent Graduates
William E. Kovacic, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), will deliver the commencement address at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law’s 2009 ceremonies on Sunday, May 17, at 3 p.m. Commencement will be held in the Arie Crown Theatre at McCormick Place’s Lakeside Center, 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive, in Chicago. More than 320 students are expected to receive Juris Doctor degrees, and approximately 90 Master of Laws degrees will be conferred.
Kovacic has served as an FTC commissioner since January 2006, following his nomination by President George W. Bush to a seven-year term and confirmation by the U.S. Senate. In March 2008, the President Bush named him FTC chairman. He served as chairman until March 2009.
Kovacic has held three previous positions with the FTC. Between 1979 to 1983, he first worked with the Bureau of Competition’s Planning Office and later served as an attorney-advisor to former FTC commissioner George W. Douglas. He was the FTC’s general counsel from 2001 through the end of 2004.
A recognized expert in both antitrust law and government contracts law, Kovacic has published extensively in both fields. Prior to his current position with the FTC, Kovacic spent eight years as the E. K. Gubin Professor of Government Contracts Law at George Washington University Law School. From 1986 to 1999, he was the George Mason University Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law where he taught courses in antitrust, contracts, government contracts, and a seminar in comparative government procurement law.
He is a past chair of the Antitrust and Economic Regulation Committee of the Association of American Law Schools. Kovacic is a co-author, with Andrew I. Gavil and Jonathan B. Baker, of Antitrust Law in Perspective: Cases, Concepts and Problems in Competition Policy (Thomson West 2002) and is a co-author, with Ernest Gellhorn and Stephen Calkins, of the Fifth Edition of Antitrust Law and Economics in a Nutshell (Thomson West 2004).
Earlier in his career, he spent one year on the majority staff of the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which was chaired by the late Senator Philip A. Hart (D-Mich). Since 1992, Kovacic has served as an adviser on antitrust and consumer protection issues to the governments of Armenia, Benin, Egypt, El Salvador, Georgia, Guyana, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Panama, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
Kovacic completed his undergraduate education at Princeton University in 1974 and earned his J.D. from Columbia University in 1978. Following graduation from law school, he clerked for the Honorable Roszel C. Thomsen, U.S. District Judge for the District of Maryland.
Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, design and law.
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting university with more than 7,300 students in engineering, sciences, architecture, psychology, design, humanities, business and law. IIT's interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum is designed to advance knowledge through research and scholarship, to cultivate invention improving the human condition, and to prepare students from throughout the world for a life of professional achievement, service to society, and individual fulfillment. Visit www.iit.edu.
