Many Chinese lawyers, officials, judges, and prosecutors are studying at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago. The State Intellectual Property Office in Beijing has a joint program with The John Marshall law School since 1993. Also in recent years, the school has extended its cooperative program to train Chinese jurists with other universities. At present, there are nine jurists from the Chinese office and 21 judges, prosecutors, and lawyers from Jilin Province studying at the school. "Now more than 60 lawyers from the state Intellectual Property Office have studied in our school," said Dorothy Li, associate dean at John Marshall who has helped coordinate the program since its inception. "Then they go back to China to work with the government, which is the beauty of the program," said she, " and 15 of the 60 jurists are department heads working in leadership positions. The 21 judges and prosecutors from China's Jilin Province will spend the entire semester, participating in special seminars every weekday morning. Retired Cook County Circuit Judge Sheila M. Murphy who lectured on capital punishment at a the seminar. "They analyzed the current situation of the snipers, and they said it's clear this deterrence is not working, "Murphy said. Di Jiang, a John Marshall graduate who works as a clerk for Judge Paul R. Michel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, traveled to China last summer to teach courses in a joint degree program at the East China University of Politics and Law with John Marshall. "These are very good judges and lawyers from China and they are very interested in having a modern legal system in China." (Source: Adam W. Lasker, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Nov. 1, 2002).
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