2024 Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Speakers
Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner at Clifford Law Offices, will moderate the two-hour program.
Kevin L. Hopkins
Brody-O’Neill Endowed Faculty Scholar
University of Illinois Chicago School of Law
After law school, Kevin Hopkins joined the firm of Woodward, Hobson & Fulton in Louisville, Kentucky, where he practiced in the areas of tort law, corporate defense, and civil litigation. He has taught at Widener University School of Law and has been a visiting professor at Washington & Lee School of Law, Rutgers University School of Law, Seattle University School of Law, East China University of Politics & Law (Shanghai, China), and the State Intellectual Property Office in Beijing.
Professor Hopkins received the Georgetown University Law Center's W.M. Keck Award in Legal Ethics for his essay, "Law Firms, Technology, and the Double-Billing Dilemma." His scholarship has been published in several law journals, including the Georgetown Law Journal, the Rutgers Law Review, the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, the Boston College Third World Law Journal, and the New York University Review of Law & Social Change. He researches and writes in the areas of tort law, legal ethics, and race.
In 2004, Professor Hopkins was appointed Director of the Asian Alliance (the Law School's foreign programs in China and Asia), a position he held for many years. He joined the faculty in 1996 and has received the Best Professor Award. He teaches Torts.
Hon. Mary Cay Marubio
Acting Presiding Judge, Pretrial Division
Circuit Court of Cook County
Mary Catherine Marubio is a Judge for the Circuit Court of Cook County assigned to the Pretrial Division as the Acting Presiding Judge. Judge Marubio was appointed as an Associate Judge in 2016 and elected to a Circuit Court Judgeship in 2020.
Judge Marubio is an active member and past president of the Alliance of Illinois Judges, an LGBTQ+ and ally judges organization, whose mission is to promote and encourage respect and unbiased treatment for LGBTQ+ individuals as they relate to the legal profession and the administration of justice. During her tenure as president, she produced two short films Coming Out Stories and From Chiola to Quinn to celebrate LGBTQ+ judges and diversity in the legal profession.
Judge Marubio serves on the Illinois Judicial Ethics Committee, a collaborative effort of the Illinois Judges Association, ISBA and CBA to answer any state judge’s ethics questions, and to publish written Advisory Ethics Opinions. IJEC recently drafted and submitted an updated Proposed Code of Judicial Conduct to the Illinois Supreme Court, which went into effect January 1, 2023.
Judge Marubio has served as a Board Member of the Illinois Judges Association and Illinois Judges Foundation. She holds active bar memberships with International Association of LGBTQ+ Judges, Alliance of Illinois Judges, Chicago Bar Association, North Suburban Bar Association, and LAGBAC Chicago’s LGBTQ+ Bar Association.
Just prior to joining the bench she was an Administrative Law Judge and the Ethics Officer for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation after serving as a Bureau Prosecutions Chief at IDFPR. For 15 years, Mary Cay was in private practice concentrating in state and federal criminal defense and consular law.
Judge Marubio is a frequent presenter on judicial ethics, pretrial best practices, and extradition law. She presents a course in diversity and LGBTQ inclusivity to Cook County Probation Officers. She is an Adjunct Professor for DePaul University's College of Law.
Judge Marubio received her B.A. and J.D. from DePaul University and serves on the DePaul Law Alumni Judges Committee. In her free time, she is a birder, amateur photographer and avid live music fan. She is married to the lead singer of Sideshow Villains, Dante Ingram.
Melissa A. Smart
Director of Education, Senior Counsel
Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois
Melissa A. Smart is the Director of Education at the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois (ARDC) where she develops, implements and presents programs and materials to educate lawyers regarding their professional responsibilities, and supervises a team of lawyers and paraprofessionals dedicated to helping lawyers serve their clients effectively within the bounds of the Rules of Professional Conduct. She also investigates and prosecutes lawyer disciplinary cases, including cases involving allegations of conversion, billing fraud, conflicts of interest and public corruption.
Ms. Smart obtained her B.A. in Liberal Arts and Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her law degree from The John Marshall Law School, graduating cum laude. Ms. Smart began working at the ARDC as a law clerk in 1997 and became Counsel for the Administrator in 1999. As a member of the Commission’s staff for over twenty years, she has investigated thousands of charges of professional misconduct and has been responsible for over 100 different formal disciplinary proceedings filed in the Supreme Court of Illinois or before various Commission Boards. She has tried dozens of matters before the Commission Hearing Board.
Ms. Smart is past Chair of the YLS Professional Responsibility Committee of the Chicago Bar Association and currently serves on the Illinois State Bar Association Standing Committee on the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission and the Illinois State Bar Association Committee on Legal Education, Admission and Competence. She has lectured and presented workshops regarding professional responsibility and disciplinary law to numerous bar association groups, government agencies, law firms, private organizations and law schools. She has appeared as a guest on various radio programs to discuss her knowledge of the Rules of Professional Conduct and issues related to professional responsibility. She has been selected to work on pilot programs for the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, which have developed model courses on professional responsibility and CLE course facilitation. She was named a Member of the Joint Illinois State Bar Association/Chicago Bar Association Special Committee on Ethics 2000 which reviewed existing Illinois ethics guidelines and suggested changes to the Illinois Supreme Court, which formed the basis for the New 2010 Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct. Ms. Smart is the Editor of the National Organization of Bar Counsel Current Developments Project. In that capacity, she summarizes professional responsibility statutory changes and case law throughout the United States and analyzes and summarizes developments and trends at national conferences held twice a year. Ms. Smart also serves as a member of the Ad Hoc Committee of the National Organization of Bar Counsel to review and make recommendations regarding the Report from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being. Ms. Smart is an adjunct faculty member at Loyola University School of Law where she teaches professional responsibility.