Herschella G. Conyers, ’83, Honored for Career of Service in Juvenile Sentencing Work
The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY) recently honored Herschella G. Conyers, ’83, for her decades of work against extreme sentencing of children.
Conyers is the Lillian E. Kraemer Clinical Professor in Public Interest Law. A nationally recognized leader in trial skills, Conyers was a driving force behind the Law School’s Intensive Trial Practice Workshop since it began.
Conyers represented Xavier McElrath-Bey, executive director of CFSY, as a 13-year-old charged with first-degree murder. The experience “changed my entire practice of law,” Conyers told the audience as she accepted the award.
McElrath-Bey said, “Herschella believed in me when others saw only a lost cause. She fought for me not just as a lawyer but as a mother ‘in law’, and her advocacy saved me from decades of incarceration. Without her, I wouldn't be where I am today.”
Before joining the Law School, Conyers served as an assistant public defender, supervisor, and deputy chief in the Office of the Cook County Public Defender from 1986 to 1993. A native of the South Side of Chicago, Conyers became interested in criminal defense and juvenile justice after doing her law school clinical work at the Criminal Defense Consortium of Cook County in Woodlawn.
Conyers is actively engaged in criminal and juvenile justice policy, locally and nationally. She received both her JD and her BA from the University of Chicago.