CHICAGO — Juliet Sorensen, the Northwestern University law professor and former federal prosecutor, has agreed to join Injustice Watch as executive director, the Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom announced Tuesday.
Ms. Sorensen, who spent the past nine years as a professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, said that she was “”thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to lead Injustice Watch in its next phase of growth and social justice impact.”
Board president Jeffrey Singer said that Ms. Sorensen, who served as director of the Bluhm Legal Clinic at the law school the past two years, “stood out as the outstanding choice” to himself and other members of the board committee, which recommended the hiring of Ms. Sorensen. The full Injustice Watch board approved the board recommendation last week.
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Ms. Sorensen “shares with Injustice Watch a deep commitment to social justice,” Mr. Singer said, citing her work at the clinic as well as her activities on behalf of international human rights and public health.
“I have admired the work of Injustice Watch since its inception,” Ms. Sorenson said after the board vote. “I know first hand from my work at the Bluhm Legal Clinic the wide range of social justice challenges in our city and country, and I appreciate the rigorous scrutiny and in-depth reporting that Injustice Watch undertakes to expose those problems.”
As executive director, Ms. Sorensen will oversee the strategic planning and development of the non-profit, working in collaboration with the journalism co-directors Rick Tulsky and Rob Warden to expand its impact and reach.
Before joining the law school, Ms. Sorensen spent seven years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, where she was assigned to public corruption and fraud cases. She and David Hoffman, the city’s former Inspector General, co-authored a casebook on public corruption law.
Founded in 2015, Injustice Watch is dedicated to exposing systemic problems that obstruct justice and equality. Recent Injustice Watch projects revealed thousands of troublesome posts by current and former police officers on public Facebook pages; provided comprehensive reviews of the 59 Cook County judges asking voters to grant them new terms on the bench; and documented more than 100 prisoners in Illinois who were serving 50 or more years in prison, with no hope of parole, for crimes committed as juveniles.
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