CHICAGO POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY FORUM 2022
Presented by the Collaboration for Justice
On Thursday, July 28, 2022, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts &
Chicago Council of Lawyers will host our Annual Forum on Chicago Police Accountability.
Moderator Sharon Fairley (Professor from Pratice, University of Chicago Law School) will be joined by Sheila Bedi, Clinical Professor of Law & Director of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law; Andrea Kersten, Chief Administrator of the Chicago Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA); and Adam Gross, Executive Director of Chicago’s new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability.
CONFIRMED PANELISTS
Sharon Fairley
Professor from Practice,
University of Chicago Law School
Andrea Kersten
Chief Administrator of the Chicago Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA)
Sheila Bedi
Clinical Professor of Law & Director of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
Adam Gross
Executive Director of Chicago’s new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability
Sharon Fairley has taught courses on criminal procedure, legal ethics, and public corruption at the University of Chicago Law School since 2015, becoming a Professor from Practice in 2019. Before joining the Law School, Ms. Fairley held positions as a federal prosecutor with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois and the First Deputy Inspector General and General Counsel for the City of Chicago Office of the Inspector General.
Following the police murder of Laquan McDonald in 2015, Sharon Fairley served as the Chief Administrator of the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) and then helped create and build Chicago's Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA).
Andrea Kersten is the Chief Administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA). She has previously served as a domestic violence advocate, an Assistant State’s Attorney in Cook County, and an Administrative Law Judge for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, and has been instrumental in forming COPA’s Special Victims Unit, a group of specialized investigators dedicated to victims of sexual assault, sexual abuse, and domestic violence.
In 2020, Ms. Kersten helped form COPA’s Protest/Civil Unrest Unit, which is organized to address mass protest-related complaints against the Chicago Police Department.
Sheila A. Bedi is a clinical professor of law at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and director of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, a law school clinic that provides students with the opportunities to work within social-justice movements on legal and policy strategies aimed at redressing over-policing and mass imprisonment. Professor Bedi litigates civil-rights claims on behalf of people who have endured police violence and abusive prison conditions. She also represents grassroots community groups seeking to end mass imprisonment and to redress abusive policing.