Sarah Aagaard Receives the 2014 Dolores K. Hanna Trademark Prize
Sarah Aagaard, a third-year student at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, is the 2014 Dolores K. Hanna Trademark Prize recipient. The prize was established at the law school in 2006 by the law firm of K & L Gates LLP (formerly Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLC) to honor Dolores K. Hanna, a 1952 IIT Chicago-Kent graduate who served as the firm's special trademark counsel. Hanna retired from active practice in 2006.
The prize is awarded at the end of the school year to an IIT Chicago-Kent student based on outstanding performance in an intellectual property course. Recipients are selected by faculty who teach in the law school's Program in Intellectual Property Law.
Awardee Sarah Aagaard is a December 2014 J.D. candidate who completed her undergraduate degree in journalism and mass communications at the University of Iowa. Since June 2013, Aagaard has worked on intellectual property issues as a law clerk at the Tribune Company.
Aagaard was a member of the IIT Chicago-Kent team that won first place overall and the best brief award in the International Trademark Association's 2014 Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Regional Competition. Her team advanced to the national competition, where it finished fourth. Aagaard is a member of IIT Chicago-Kent's Intellectual Property Law Society, Sports and Entertainment Law Society, and Student American Bar Association. She is also a member of the Chicago Bar Association, Copyright Society of the USA, and Legal Marketing Association.
Dolores Hanna practiced intellectual property law with distinction for more than 50 years. Prior to joining Bell, Boyd & Lloyd in 2000, Hanna practiced at the law firm of Hill & Simpson and also served as trademark counsel for Kraft Inc. From 1985 to 1987, she chaired the federal Trademark Review Commission, and recommended changes that were enacted into the Trademark Law Revision Act of 1988, the first comprehensive update of trademark law since passage of the Lanham Act in 1946. Active in local, county and state organizations, Hanna has served as president of the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago, the Women's Bar Association of Illinois, the Women's Bar Foundation, and the Cook County Court Watchers. She is also a past president of the International Trademark Association.
Founded in 1888, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, psychology, architecture, business, design and law.
IIT Chicago-Kent currently offers a J.D. certificate program in intellectual property law and in 2002 became the first American law school to offer a one-year LL.M. degree in international intellectual property law. U.S. News & World Report currently ranks IIT Chicago-Kent's Program in Intellectual Property Law tenth in the nation.
