Catching up with Joanna Perini
Like many people, Joanna Perini has a hard time believing how fast time seems to slip by. But, the 2000 Huntington High School graduate isn’t so far removed from her alma mater that it has disappeared from her consciousness. During a recent dinner with an old classmate, Huntington was on her mind.
A third-year student at Northwestern Law School, Ms. Perini is leading an exciting life and will soon co-second chair a felony trial in federal court. When asked to reflect on the past eight years and share her experiences with the Huntington school community she generously opened up. “I have to say that getting an e-mail to write about life since high school seems so strange because it does not seem like it was that long ago that I graduated - until I think about my life since then, and then it feels like forever,” she said.
“Looking back on my time since graduating from Huntington High School really makes me realize what a solid foundation the Huntington schools gave me for becoming the person I am today,” Ms. Perini said.
“Numerous teachers and coaches throughout my time there inspired my interests in academics and athletics, which have carried through to this day. But what is far more notable is the way the teachers at Huntington High School, and Finley and Huntington El inspired in me a sense of compassion and responsibility to the community. For those teachers who remember having me in class, I'm talking to you.”
Ms. Perini said she took all the lessons learned during her high school years to Washington & Lee University in Virginia where she was involved in the Shepard program for the interdisciplinary study of poverty and human capabilities. “Through the Shepard program I worked at a number of agencies around Lexington, Virginia with kids and adolescents, primarily doing reading tutoring work and helping form a community service club at one of the local elementary schools.”
The Shepard program provided an avenue for Ms. Perini to work with a public defenders office in London, Kentucky one summer and it sparked a passion for criminal defense work for indigent clients and particularly death penalty related work.
During her years at Huntington High School, Ms. Perini participated in the club and sports programs and enjoyed a very well-rounded experience. At Washington & Lee, she played four years of varsity lacrosse and the team advanced to the NCAA tournament three times, “which was an amazing experience,” she said. “In June 2004, I took my degree in public policy and psychology, packed up my car with everything I owned, and drove to Gallup, New Mexico to start with the Teach for America Program.”
That two-year experience involved working on a Navajo Reservation teaching special education on the middle school level. “People love to ask what kind of special education teacher I was and I always have to laugh,” Ms. Perini said. “If a seventh grade student at Thoreau (pronounced Through) Middle School had an IEP, it was my job to figure out how to provide those services. I taught resource room for students with learning disabilities and behavior disorders. I co-taught inclusion math and science classes. I taught life skills for students with severe and profound needs and I had a gifted student’s class that ran in the back of my classroom while I taught basic reading skills.”
Far from home and with a challenging workload, life was made easier for Ms. Perini by an exceptional group of people around her. “Luckily, while I was out in New Mexico I had an amazing support network; an inspirational mentor teacher who was like a mother to me, an amazing support staff with the Teach for America office, an incredible group of fellow TFA teachers out there with me, and of course, I always had my family to lean on even though they were so far away, back in Huntington.”
Although she doesn’t have any regrets about her time on the reservation, after a two year stint, she was ready to resume the pursuit of her dream of becoming a criminal defense attorney. In May 2006, Ms. Perini packed a U-Haul trailer and headed to Chicago to begin studies at Northwestern Law School.
“I spent my first two years buried under books learning the incredibly interesting topics of property, torts and contracts,” she wryly joked. “But, starting last year, and even more so this year, I have been able to really dive into trial advocacy work. In the state of Illinois, third year law students can essentially function as attorneys as long as we are working directly under a licensed attorney. I'm taking advantage of that by working in the Northwestern Legal Clinic's Center on Wrongful Convictions. I am working on a range of criminal cases and in about a month I will be co-second chairing a felony trial in federal court.”
After her expected graduation in May 2009, Ms. Perini intends to use the summer months to study for the Illinois bar exam and then spend a year clerking for Judge Joel Martin Flaum who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 and served as the panel’s chief judge from 2000-2006.
“After that I'm not quite sure what my plans are,” Ms. Perini said. “Hopefully I will find my way into criminal work and possibly even become a clinical professor at a law school, but the immediate goal will be to pay off some of my student loans!”
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