The Foundation recognized Peggy McCormick for her life-long service and dedication to advancing the administration of justice and respect for human rights in the field of immigration and nationality law on September 19, 2003.

Peggy McCormick is a principal in the Chicago immigration law firm of Minsky, McCormick & Hallagan, P.C. The firm was founded by Joseph Minsky (1925-1992), an early champion in civil rights law and the emerging field of immigration law in the 1970s. James Hallagan is Ms. McCormick's brother and her partner since 1980. Fluent in Spanish, Ms. McCormick began her professional career at the Immigrants' Services League of Chicago in 1978. Today, her practice is primarily employment based immigration, but the firm handles a variety of immigration matters, including family based immigration, asylum, removal, waivers and naturalization.

From 1999 until 2003, Ms. McCormick served as President of the American Immigration Law Foundation. As president of AILF, she established the Immigration Policy Center to counteract an intense campaign of misinformation about immigration and to provide accurate information and studies about the benefits of immigration to the U.S. In addition, she established the first Curriculum Advisory Board, comprised of teachers from around the country, to build AILF's Curriculum Project.

Ms. McCormick is the past national President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (1997-98). While she was president, her focus was to build stronger liaison with the government, following massive immigration amendments passed in 1996. While president of AILA, she testified in Congress on a variety of immigration issues. From 1991 to 1998, she served on AILA's national Executive Committee and was Chair AILA's Search Committee for a new Executive Director in 1996. In 1991, she was Chair of the AILA national conference in Chicago. In 1989, she was AILA Chicago Chapter Chair.

Since 1986, Ms. McCormick has been an adjunct professor of immigration law at Loyola University School of Law, where she co-teaches a survey course on immigration law with the Hon. Robert Vinikoor, an immigration judge. She also teaches a seminar on Workplace Enforcement and Immigration.

Ms. McCormick serves on the Board of Directors for the Federal Bar Association of Chicago, where she chairs an annual program on Workplace Enforcement and Immigration at Northwestern University law school. She is also on the Board of Directors of the American Refugee Committee, an international organization that provides humanitarian assistance to refugee communities in seven countries around the world. She is chair of Governance.

Ms. McCormick has been named Master Teacher of Immigration Law by the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education and has written extensively and has spoken widely on a variety of immigration issues.

Included in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, Ms. McCormick has held the Martindale-Hubbell rating of AV (very high to preeminent) for many years; she has been listed in Woodward/White's Best Lawyers in America since 1992; she is also listed in International Who's Who of Professionals, International Who's Who of Corporate Immigration Lawyers, and she is a lifetime member of the National Registry of Who's Who. Named an Illinois SuperLawyer (top 5% of lawyers chosen by peers) she is also honored as an Advisory Board member by the Leading Lawyers Network of Illinois in immigration law (top 1% of lawyers in Illinois) and has been named one of the top 50 Women Business Lawyers in the state of Illinois.

Ms. McCormick earned her B.A. from Loyola University of Chicago (Mundelein College) in 1973 and her law degree from De Paul University Law School in 1977. She has been married to Steve McCormick, a trial lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, since 1980. They have four children, Kevin, Marjorie, Luo Yao and Daniel. Kevin is a lawyer in Chicago, married to Angela McCormick, an Emergency Room doctor. Marjorie works in publicity at Random House in New York. Their daughter, Luo Yao, came to the U.S. from China at age 13 and they later adopted her. She is pursuing her Masters in Mathematics in Chicago. Daniel is a student at Fordham University in New York.