January 08, 2014

Media Advisory – ‘Women in Leadership’

The Southern Illinois University School of Law will host a program this week that focuses on preparing women law students to be leaders while also learning about challenges they will face within the legal profession.

Reporters, photographers and camera crews are welcome to attend the fifth “Women in Leadership Program,” Thursday and Friday, Jan. 9-10, in the Hiram H. Lesar Law Building at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.  The workshop runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.

The annual two-day workshop culminates with a dinner at 6:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 10, that features Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon as keynote speaker. Simon was a clinical assistant professor at the law school prior to becoming lieutenant governor after the November 2010 election.

The media is also welcome to attend the keynote speech at 17th Street Bar and Grill, 214 N. 17th St., Murphysboro.  The evening begins with a reception at 6 p.m.

Simon began her work at the law school in November 1998 as a staff attorney in the clinical law program, directing the domestic violence clinic.  She also taught in the law school’s lawyering skills program.

A total of 32 current SIU School of Law students, including male students, will participate in the workshop with topics that include gender and communication, negotiation, interviewing, networking, gender issues in the workplace, developing a personal-professional brand, and balancing career and family, and running for political office.  The program features law school faculty, other faculty on campus, alumni, local attorneys and judges participating in lectures, small group discussions, group exercises and panel discussions.   Johnson County State’s Attorney Tambra Cain and statewide political party leaders Barb Brown and Terri Bryant are among the featured speakers during the workshop.

Law school professors Cindy Galway Buys and Alice M. Noble-Allgire created the “Women in Leadership” program in 2010 to address gender inequities they see within the legal profession. 

For more information about the event, contact Alicia Ruiz, the law school’s director of communication and outreach, at 618/453-8700.