Sandra Frantzen, ’99, didn’t set out to become a lawyer. Her college degrees were in chemistry and environmental science; she had her eyes set on medical school.
“My family immigrated to the United States from Lebanon after the outbreak of civil war in 1975,” she said. “In our culture, becoming a doctor was a highly valued accomplishment and, at that time, becoming a lawyer was less understood as a career choice.” It wasn’t until college that she got to know someone who was a lawyer, and that relationship inspired her.
“I felt like I could have a chance to do interesting work, perhaps make a difference in the world—and debate important things, which I have always loved to do,” she said.
Frantzen’s work has indeed been interesting, and she is very good at it. Her focus at McAndrews, Held & Malloy—where she has worked since she left the Law School—is patent litigation and worldwide IP portfolio management in fields that include medical devices, pharmaceuticals, consumer products, and biotechnology. She was recognized as one of the top “40 under 40” Illinois lawyers, and as a top woman lawyer by Super Lawyers. The leading ranking service, IAM Patent 1000, described her as “exceptionally strong when working in the medical device, pharmaceutical, chemical and biotechnology fields.”
McAndrews, she said, is a perfect place for her practice: “At many firms, you might find a generalist attorney taking the lead in patent cases, backed up by a team of science ‘nerds.’ I say ‘science nerds’ in the fondest sense, in part because I am one of them. I enjoy learning the technology. At McAndrews, my colleagues are superb attorneys that also have the deep scientific understanding to win today’s amazingly complex cases.”
Much recognition has come to her for the difference she has made in the world. Last year, she received the Vanguard Award from the Chicago Bar Association, honoring her for having “made the law and legal professional more accessible to and reflective of the community at large.” She is active in the Arab American Bar Association of Illinois and served as its president; she has provided extensive pro bono services to asylum seekers and others; and last year she had a big role in founding the National Arab American Bar Association, where she is the vice president. The Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism cited her as an exemplar of lawyers who “demonstrate the ideals of professionalism in their daily lives.”
Frantzen received the annual Building Bridges Award, jointly given by the Decalogue Society of Lawyers (the Jewish bar association in Illinois) and the Arab American Bar Association of Illinois. “The ways that our associations have worked together has been a model of how we should wish society would be, standing against intolerance and hate in all its forms,” she said.
As for spirited debate, it was one of the things she loved about the Law School. “The faculty invited challenges and welcomed examining all facets of an issue, and we students knew that accepting intellectual challenges from each other was part of the culture. It was marvelous.”
Frantzen is deeply committed to helping uplift the presence of Arab American lawyers in the industry and sees herself continuing to do this work as she looks to the future: “I want to ensure that our ethnicity is never a handicap. I want to help increase diversity in patent law, where people of color are vastly underrepresented. I want to help resist the growing bigotry and repression against all people with backgrounds like mine. The law stands at the gateway of fairness, justice, and equity in our society, and I want to help it fulfill our profession’s highest aspirations and ideals.”
Original source can be found here.