Hinshaw & Culbertson Partner Joshua Vincent Named Winner of American Lawyer Best Mentor Award

The U.S. law firm of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP announced that partner Joshua G. Vincent was named the winner of The American Lawyer's Best Mentor: Law Firm award. Vincent, a member of the firm's executive committee and a leader of Hinshaw's Appellate Practice Group, was among eight attorneys nationwide to be named as a finalist for the honor. He was announced the winner at a black-tie ceremony that took place at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, on December 5, 2018.

"We are extremely proud to see Josh named the leading mentor in the American legal industry," said Hinshaw Chairman Kevin J. Burke, who started at the firm the same year as Vincent. "Josh has mentored lawyers at Hinshaw and in the Chicago legal community for more than three decades and has worked tirelessly to create a culture of mentoring at the firm—he is a great mentor himself and he creates other great mentors."

The Best Mentor award honors attorneys who have dedicated a significant portion of their time and energy to mentoring younger professionals, according to The American Lawyer. The award is part of The American Lawyer Industry Awards, which honor exceptional work across the entire legal services spectrum.

Vincent, who joined Hinshaw as an associate in 1983 and was elected partner in 1989, is the long-time head of the firm's Professional Development Program—he was named "Dean" of Hinshaw University in 1999 and continues in this position. He has built the program into separate week-long boot camps for basic skills and trial advocacy, which are attended by every new attorney who joins the firm with less than two years of legal experience. The firm estimates some 500 attorneys have passed through "Hinshaw U" under Vincent's tutelage.

"Josh is single-handedly responsible for the development of generations of Hinshaw attorneys because of the curriculum he created," said firm Managing Partner Robert T. Shannon. "We have a reputation for high-quality lawyering, and you can't build and sustain that unless you have a long-term commitment to the development of lawyers from their earliest stages."

Vincent also spearheaded the firm's adoption of its first pro bono policy and the establishment of Hinshaw's nationwide pro bono legal services committee. He leads the firm's pro bono program representing criminal and civil rights defendants before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which enables junior associates to do appellate work, and he supervises new lawyers in other pro bono matters.

"Mentoring junior lawyers is probably the thing I enjoy the most about my life here at Hinshaw," Vincent said. "I think it shapes how we operate as a firm. Mentoring provides a window into what it's like to be practicing as a young lawyer and how the profession has changed."

Vincent's influence goes beyond Hinshaw. He recently was named a Fellow of the prestigious American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and is part of the CLE Advisory Group for the Illinois Supreme Court's Commission on Professionalism. He also serves as the Appellate Forms Subcommittee Chair to the Illinois Access to Justice Commission and on the Board of Directors for the Public Interest Law Initiative.

Vincent earned his J.D. from DePaul University College of Law and his A.B. from the University of Michigan.