Jerome Coenic-Taylor

Winning for the Good Guys

"From the age of five, I have been saying I wanted to become a judge," recalls Jerome Coenic. "The initial reason was that my father was killed when I was two years old, and I wanted to put the 'bad guys' in jail."

Reaching the judicial bench was a tall order for the second child of eight raised on public aid by a widowed mother in Altgeld Gardens, a low-income housing complex on Chicago's far south side. "It was a neighborhood filled with drugs, violent crimes, and people without many dreams, goals, or aspirations," Jerome says. "Most of my childhood friends did not even plan to attend college, and many of them did not complete high school. In neighborhoods like that, only one thing is constant: the vicious cycle of poverty."

Jerome's involvement with Chicago Scholars began in 2002, when, as a junior at Morgan Park High School, he was admitted to the Chicago Scholars program. "Chicago Scholars really meant a lot to me because it was intimate and the directors were highly invested in seeing us successfully complete college, and in my case law school," he says. "They made personal calls, knew my family, and were just an ear when I wanted to talk. They also got me my first internship at Winston & Strawn LLP, which I maintained throughout college." Being able to interact with the attorneys there allowed him to learn the ins and outs of "the culture of a big law firm," gave him a competitive edge over his law school peers, and helped him land a Summer Associate position at Ice Miller LLP-the first of many professional achievements in the legal world.

However, by the time he graduated magna cum laude from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was preparing to attend the University of Iowa College of Law, Jerome had a new set of questions. "I had questions about how rigorous the first year would be, and, since I was going to be out of state, how difficult it would be for me to transition back to Chicago after I graduated from law school. I also had questions about how I should dress for class, which, looking back, should have been the least of my worries."

Now, with several scholarships and awards under his belt, Jerome recently moved from an estate planning law firm to a new position as an Employment Law Associate at Gonzalez, Saggio & Harlan LLC-not a direct track toward the Illinois Supreme Court, but certainly another step toward ensuring fairness and equity for all. "My desire to become a judge has evolved," he explains. "There are several other things I want to do as well, such as being an adjunct professor at a law school and working in the family court system. But I have a passion for justice and equality, and I know that the bench could use an integrity-filled person like myself."

In the meantime, he is working hard to give back to his community-from grammar school students, to whom he speaks about the importance of having a vision of success at a young age, to the minority law school graduates he helps train for the Illinois bar exam through Minority Legal Education Resources. In 2009, in honor of his father, he founded the Dennis Jerome Taylor "Choices" Scholarship, which helps graduating Morgan Park seniors who have "clearly made good choices," in 2009. "The award is named after my deceased father, who was extremely intelligent and received excellent grades throughout school," he explains, "but who made some poor choices, which ultimately caused him to lose his life."

At this rate, Jerome seems unlikely to rest until everyone in Chicago enjoys the same opportunities, and makes the same kinds of choices, that helped him from the vicious cycle of poverty to an ongoing cycle of accomplishments. "I have very strong ties to Chicago  and Chicago Scholars, I love my city," he says.