Posted by The CBAY Awards were created during the 2024–2025 bar year by Past President John Sciaccotta to personally recognize and say thank you to the people who made his bar year extraordinary. President Judge Nichole C. Patton continued this tradition by presenting the 2025-2026 bar year CBAY Awards on May 20, 2026. This blog post is the first in a series of posts highlighting the winners of the CBAY Awards.
PRESIDENTIAL INITIATIVE AWARDS
Under the theme AI 2035: The Legal Profession and the Judiciary in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, the CBA launched the nation’s first comprehensive bar association AI initiative. This included ten working committees, 70 free continuing legal education programs, and a three-day symposium that brought together the brightest legal minds in this country to wrestle with the most consequential questions facing our profession.
Presidential Excellence in AI Leadership Award
The winners of this award are leaders who understand the law and the moment we are living in. All were instrumental to the success of the AI 2035: The Legal Profession and the Judiciary in the Age of Artificial Intelligence initiative. Justice Rena Van Tine and Judge Megan Goldish served as Co-Chairs of our AI 2035 Strategic Leadership Team. They brought intellectual rigor, judicial wisdom, and an extraordinary commitment to this initiative. And Joel Bruckman served as the Vice-Chair — the engine that kept everything moving forward.
Together, these three individuals guided ten working committees, oversaw seventy free CLE programs, and helped produce a three-day national symposium that put The Chicago Bar Association on the map in the conversation about AI and the law. They did not just lead a committee. They helped make history.
Congratulations to Justice Rena Van Tine, Judge Megan Goldish, and Joel Bruckman.
Presidential Distinguished Committee Chair Award
The Presidential Distinguished Committee Chair Awards recognize the attorneys and judges who said yes to a presidential initiative before they knew exactly what it would require of them. And then they delivered. Each of them led a committee of legal professionals through some of the most complex and consequential questions of our time — questions about AI and criminal justice, data privacy, courtroom operations, ethics, and the future of legal education. They did it with excellence, with dedication, and with the kind of commitment that makes this Association great.
AI and Access to Justice — Judge Corinne Cantwell Heggie.
AI and Courtroom Operations — Judge Kerrie Maloney Laytin.
AI and Criminal Justice — Judge Beatriz Santiago and Judge Ankur Srivastava.
AI, Data Privacy and Cybersecurity — Judge Michael T. Mullen.
AI and Ethics in Advocacy — Judge Debjani Dasgupta Desai.
AI and Fairness, Transparency and Inclusion — Judge Tracie R. Porter.
AI and Future of Legal Education — Judge Lloyd J. Brooks.
AI and Law Firm Economics — Judge Sarah Rodak Johnson.
AI and Legal Practice and Litigation — Judge Michael J. Zink and Judge Loveleen Ahuja.
AI and Legal Research and Writing — Judge Allen P. Walker.
Presidential Distinguished Committee Vice-Chair Award
Behind every outstanding chair is a vice chair who made it possible. The Vice-Chairs of the AI 2035 Working Committees worked just as hard, gave just as much, and deserve to be recognized just as fully.
AI and Access to Justice — Alexis Crawford Douglas.
AI and Courtroom Operations — Margaret Mendenhall Casey.
AI and Criminal Justice — Ashonta Cherron Rice.
AI, Data Privacy and Cybersecurity — Ronak Y. Shah.
AI and Ethics in Advocacy — Madhavi Seth.
AI and Fairness, Transparency and Inclusion — Angela C. Spears, Jonathan Scott Safron, and Taylor Tyler.
AI and Future of Legal Education — Andre Alan Hunter, Jr.
AI and Law Firm Economics — Daniel Jacob Berkowitz.
AI and Legal Practice and Litigation — Roman Edward Solowski and Peter Conrad McNamara.
AI and Legal Research and Writing — Anthony M. Sam.
President’s Special Citation — Joel Bruckman
This award recognizes Joel Bruckman for his outstanding contribution to AI 2035 and for going above and beyond in every instance.
The AI 2035 Symposium required sponsorships. It required someone to pick up the phone, make the ask, and bring in the resources that made a three-day national event possible. Co-Chairs Justice Van Tine and Judge Goldish, as sitting judges, were legally prohibited from raising funds for this initiative, so that responsibility fell entirely on Joel.
His belief in this initiative and his commitment to the CBA led him to secure more than $100,000 in sponsorships for the AI 2035 Symposium. His efforts helped make the impossible possible.