Kirkland Partner Jenna Stupar Receives Exceptional Young Lawyer Award for Pro Bono Work on Behalf of Women
The Chicago Bar Foundation recognized Kirkland & Ellis partner Jenna Stupar with its 2024 Maurice Weigle Exceptional Young Lawyer Award, which celebrates the initiative and exceptional contributions of young lawyers to the profession, the organized bar and the community. Jenna, who focuses her practice on complex commercial litigation, was recognized for her substantial pro bono efforts on behalf of women survivors of gender violence.
In 2023, Jenna devoted nearly 400 pro bono hours toward a case representing a former female prisoner who was repeatedly sexually assaulted and raped for seven months while serving time in the Logan Correctional Center. Jenna, with other lawyers from Kirkland and the Uptown People’s Law Center, led a five-year legal battle that resulted in a federal jury awarding the client nearly $20 million in damages — the largest section 1983 verdict federal Judge Sue E. Myerscough had seen in her nearly four decades on the bench.
“Jenna is such a harder worker,” the client said after the verdict. “She puts her heart and soul into what she does, and she actually cares about what she does and the people she’s working for.”
In addition, Jenna has done extensive pro bono work on behalf of survivors of sex trafficking. In partnership with the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, she worked for three years to get a client’s prostitution-related convictions expunged from her record under the Illinois Justice for Victims of Sex Trafficking Crimes Act. She also joined a Kirkland team and Ascend Justice in representing Crystal Martinez, a gender violence survivor and mother of five who was pressured into pleading guilty to aggravated battery, despite her well-founded claim of self‑defense. A judge granted Crystal the relief requested by the Kirkland team and was released from prison on May 17, 2024, in time for her daughter’s graduation from junior high school.
“One of the most impressive things about Jenna is that she brings an infectious and positive energy to everything that she does,” partner Britt Cramer said in a letter of support for the Maurice Weigle Exceptional Young Lawyer Award nomination. “I have every confidence that Jenna will continue to be a powerful advocate for women inside and outside the law in the years to come.”
