This summer DePaul College of Law student Dima Khalidi will head to New York where she will learn through experience how public interest lawyers practice their craft. As the recipient of the maiden Honorable Lawrence X. Pusateri Endowed Fellowship in Public Interest Law, Khalidi, an aspiring public interest attorney, will be the first to take advantage of a charitable gift designed to honor the memory and legacy of Lawrence X. Pusateri, a former Illinois Appellate Court judge and 1953 graduate of the DePaul College of Law. Pusateri succumbed to cancer in 2005.

“I was truly honored to learn that the Pusateri family chose me to receive the first Pusateri fellowship,” said Khalidi, a second year law student. “It is uplifting to know that there are families such as the Pusateris who recognize the importance of public interest work and who are willing to encourage students to follow that path.”

Because of the generous gift, the amount of which the Pusateri family has asked remain confidential, each summer a College of Law student will receive a $5,000 scholarship to work in the area of public interest law. The gift also will name the law school’s welcome center. Funding the scholarship, however, is the family’s personal tribute to a husband and father who always encouraged his family to be ambassadors of service to the public welfare.

“One of the strongest things that my father constantly instilled in our family was supporting people who were trying to do the right thing,” said Paul Pusateri, one of Lawrence Pusateri’s five children. “Public interest law provides those people with the opportunity to fine tune their skills and to assist those who can most benefit from their expertise.”

It was a lesson that Lawrence Pusateri taught by example. The College of Law alumnus, who was the first recipient of the law school’s summa cum laude degree and the editor of the DePaul Law Review, charted an illustrious legal career that was highlighted by his commitment to public service. Pusateri worked as a special assistant to the attorney general of Illinois and as an assistant state’s attorney, a position from which he rose to become chief of the Narcotics Bureau.

Pusateri also served as an assistant staff judge advocate in the United States Army where he was a prosecutor in the famed seven man Bamberg, Germany rape trial, which became the subject of the movie “Town Without Pity” in 1961. He was appointed to the Illinois Appellate Court in 1977 where he authored a number of significant opinions, including People of Illinois ex rel. State’s Attorney Carey v. Lincoln Towing Service, which upheld that the towing of an automobile from a private parking lot at the request of a person other than the owner does not create a possessory interest in the vehicle.

Pusateri’s volunteer work also exemplified his commitment to public service. Aside from being appointed to numerous boards and committees, Pusateri served as chairman of the Defense of Prisoners Committee of the Chicago Bar Association during the time that rioters took to the street in the aftermath of the Martin Luther King, Jr. assignation. Pusateri worked for 48 hours straight to obtain bond for those who were arrested. When Pusateri later joined the law firm of Peterson & Ross, where he retired as a capital partner in 1995, he continued his pro bono work through the firm.

Students, like Khalidi, who capture the annual scholarship named for Pusateri must have a demonstrated commitment to public service, display academic excellence and have a financial need. They also must design a project on which they will work during the summer.

For Khalidi that project will entail, among other things, conducting research and penning briefs and legal memos to help advance a variety of cases, such as those advocating for racial, social and economic justice, international human rights and challenging the post September 11th legal environment.

Len Cavise, who directs DePaul’s Center for Public Interest Law, notes that the programs suggested by scholarship winners are designed with an eye toward what Pusateri would have wanted. Winners are selected with heavy input from Pusateri’s widow, Eve, and their children.

“The Pusateris opted to fund a student who was going to work on cutting-edge legal issues,” said Cavise. “The Center for Constitutional Rights is on the forefront of litigating in the area of terrorism. It is a compliment to the Pusateris that they could recognize how important this placement would be for DePaul.”