Story of Kathleen Vannucci

During my time at Loyola College, I was active with the Center for Values and Service serving as a tutor in inner city schools, working with CHOICE, being a part of Spring Break Outreach Baltimore, and a team member of Project Mexico. My volunteer experiences through CVS revealed to me how important service is in my life and how I want to graduate from Loyola never forgetting the important lessons I had learned from my participation in CVS projects. I did not want to become one of those people who graduates and moves on and forgets that we are here to be men and women for others. That is the main reason that I decided to continue my education at another Jesuit University.

I started law school at Loyola University Chicago and committed myself to public interest. Loyola has an excellent program and offers so many opportunities to do public interest work. So many lawyers only care about making the big money, but Loyola University Chicago emphasizes that even if you go on to a big firm, you have an obligation to use your law degree to help those in need and those who otherwise would have no voice. So far at Loyola, I have attended both the Norman Amaker Public Interest Law Retreat and the Equal Justice Works Public Interest Conference in Washington, D.C. These have been amazing opportunities to meet other law students and lawyers who share the same passion as I do. I will never forget why I am here and doing what I am doing—I am here to be a voice for the voiceless in our society.

This past semester I served as an extern for the Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center here in Chicago. I worked for the Equal Justice Works fellow and helped immigrants with their legal issues including deportation defense, asylum, and helping immigrant victims of domestic abuse. It was also amazing to work on an impact litigation project trying to work for immigrant right’s to counsel. There was not a day where I did not think about my Project Mexico experience. 

This past Spring, I was fortunate to be a member of Loyola’s Moot Court Program. I served on the Family Law Team where I competed at the National Adoption and Child Welfare Moot Court Competition in Columbus, Ohio. This was a competition where the focus was how adoption laws intersect with the new technological frontiers of assisted reproduction. Specifically, there was a fictitious statute which stated that frozen embryos could only be transferred through formal adoption procedures and the question was whether this was constitutional. In December, my teammate, Dina Rachford, and I began the process by writing a brief to the Supreme Court of Capitana, a ficticious state. After completing this part, we practiced oral arguments every day for approximately one month before heading to Columbus, Ohio. After an intense competition, Dina and I were crowned the national champions, best oralists and the third best brief of the competition. It was an unbelievable experience where we learned so much about child welfare and adoption law but it also gave us the opportunity to be advocates on this issue in front of the national experts in this area. It was truly something I will never forget.

Loyola College helped solidify for me what I want to do with my life. I will never forget the lessons my Jesuit education taught me.