Justice Warren D. Wolfson Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Illinois Appellate Court Justice Warren D. Wolfson has received a lifetime achievement award from the Center for Excellence in Advocacy at Stetson University College of Law. The award was presented March 5 at Stetson’s second national advocacy conference in Gulfport, Florida. Justice Wolfson is founder and director of the award-winning trial advocacy program at Chicago-Kent of Law and a member of IIT Chicago-Kent’s Board of Overseers.

“Stetson University College of Law’s lifetime achievement award is presented to a deserving member of the legal community to recognize excellence in all facets of advocacy, from teaching others to representing clients,” said Professor Charles H. Rose, III, director of Stetson’s Center for Excellence in Advocacy. “Justice Warren Wolfson exemplifies the legal profession’s commitment to furthering the art, science and skill of advocacy instruction.”

Justice Wolfson established IIT Chicago-Kent’s Trial Advocacy program in 1971 and has served as director since its inception. He developed the program’s core curriculum, which comprises three courses: Trial Advocacy I, Trial Advocacy II and Litigation Technology. Twice a year, the program also offers an eight-day intensive trial advocacy course. The program is taught by an experienced adjunct faculty selected by Justice Wolfson from a cross-section of the legal community -- judges, prosecutors, public defenders and private practitioners.

In addition to course work, the trial advocacy program fields student trial teams that compete in local, regional and national competitions. Under Justice Wolfson’s leadership, IIT Chicago-Kent trial advocacy teams have amassed an enviable record. IIT Chicago-Kent has won the prestigious National Trial Competition’s regional championship 20 times in the past 27 years and won the tournament’s national championship and best advocate awards in 1988, 2007 and 2008. IIT Chicago-Kent also won the 2008 National Ethics Trial Competition.

Justice Wolfson is a co-author of Trial Evidence, 4th ed. (2009), and Materials in Trial Advocacy, 6th ed. (2007), both by Aspen Publishers. He also taught trial advocacy at the University of Chicago Law School from 1985 to 2000 and has taught and lectured for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.

A Chicago native, Justice Wolfson is a graduate of Gregory Grammar School and John Marshall High School. He earned his undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Chicago and his law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law.

In 1975, after eighteen years of criminal defense practice, Justice Wolfson was appointed to the Circuit Court of Cook County. He was elected to that position the following year, where he served until his appointment to the Illinois Appellate Court in 1994.

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. IIT Chicago-Kent’s advocacy programs have a tradition of excellence. IIT Chicago-Kent is also the only law school ever to win the National Trial Competition and the National Moot Court Competition in the same year (2008), and the first school in more than 30 years to win the National Moot Court Competition in two consecutive years (2008 and 2009).

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.