Lisa T. Scruggs
CHICAGO, February 10, 2014—Duane Morris LLP is pleased to announce that Lisa T. Scruggs has joined the firm's Trial Practice Group as a partner in its Chicago office. Scruggs bolsters Duane Morris' strengths in serving the education industry, bringing to the firm extensive litigation and counseling skills. Scruggs joins the firm from Jenner & Block LLP.
Scruggs, founder and leader of her former firm's Education Industry team, provides counsel and representation to education reform organizations; charter school organizations, networks and individual schools; school districts; and private schools. Her practice has included handling issues regarding new school development, teacher quality reform, virtual education, public/private education ventures and student and parent rights.
Scruggs has provided service to the Chicago Public Schools, the third-largest school district in the U.S., first as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Chief Executive Officer (2004–2006) and then as a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission to Evaluate Magnet and Selective Schools Admission Policy (2010–2011). She has also served as an Expert Review Panelist for the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement.
Among her numerous awards was the National Diversity Council Most Powerful and Influential Women in Illinois Award in 2012. Other awards include Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice's Commitment to Justice Award in 2011; as well as listings in Illinois Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, Crain's Chicago Business' "40 Under 40” in 2010, Chicago Lawyer's "40 Lawyers Under 40 to Watch” in 2009, Who's Who in Black Chicago in 2007 and 2009; and being named a Fellow of Leadership Greater Chicago (2007–2008). Scruggs received the Chicago Bar Association Alliance for Women's Alta May Hulett Award in 2006.
Scruggs is a member of the Alliance of Public Charter School Attorneys Advisory Board and a founding board member of the Young Women's Leadership Charter School of Chicago. She also serves on the board of trustees of the Ancona School and is a steering committee member of the University of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research.
Scruggs earned her J.D. in 1998 from University of Chicago Law School, where she won the Beale Prize for Legal Research and Writing and the Ann Watson Barber Outstanding Service Award, and also earned her M.A. there in Education Policy in 1994. She earned her B.A., cum laude, in 1993 from Georgetown University. After law school, Scruggs served as a law clerk to the Honorable Ann C. Williams on both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She is admitted to practice in Illinois.
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