Clark Hill Attorney Aurora Abella-Austriaco gave Welcome Address and Introduced Justice John Paul Stevens at the Chicago Bar Association’s 13th Annual Justice John Paul Stevens Award Luncheon

CHICAGO, IL –

Clark Hill Attorney Aurora Abella-Austriaco gave the welcome address and introduced Justice John Paul Stevens at the Chicago Bar Association’s 13th Annual Justice John Paul Stevens Award Luncheon. The Award Luncheon was held on Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at The Standard Club, 320 S. Plymouth Ct., Chicago.

The award luncheon honors Illinois attorneys who have demonstrated extraordinary integrity and service to the community throughout their careers. The 2012 Award recipients are: Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez; Jeffrey D. Colman, partner at Jenner & Block LLP; the Hon. Joan B. Gottschall of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois; Thomas Z. Hayward, Jr. of counsel at K&L; Gates, LLP; the Hon. James F. Holderman, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois and Willie J. Miller, Jr., Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel with Kraft Foods Inc.

For more information on the Justice John Paul Stevens Award, please visit: http://www.chicagobarfoundation.org/justice-john-paul-stevens-award. The Award ceremony was also featured on PBS WTTW’s Chicago Tonight program on October 2, 2012: http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/10/02/former-supreme-court-justice-chicago.

Austriaco concentrates her practice in the areas of commercial and real estate litigation, construction litigation, mechanic’s liens, mortgage foreclosure, mortgage fraud, title insurance claims and other special chancery remedy cases.

Austriaco is currently serving as President of the Chicago Bar Association, an organization of more than 22,000 lawyers. She serves on the board of the Chicago Bar Foundation and served on the board of the Center for Conflict Resolution (CCR) for five years and as its vice president for two years. She was elected as the first female and minority president of the Illinois Real Estate Lawyers’ Association (IRELA), an organization of approximately 1,500 real estate lawyers throughout Illinois. Austriaco also served as board member of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois (WBAI). She is a founding board member of the Filipino American Bar Association, past board member and current member of the Asian American Bar Association, and past member of the ISBA Real Estate Section Council. She also was elected to the Board of Directors of Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund Inc., a bar related title insurance company. Austriaco was appointed by Chief Judge Holderman to serve as Chair of the 2012 Magistrate Merit Selection Panel.