Ann Lousin, ’68: Building a Career from Illinois Constitutional History
Last May, the Illinois state senate presented Ann Lousin, ’68, with a proclamation expressing gratitude for her nearly 50 years of service to the state. “It was a wonderful occasion for me, and deeply moving,” Lousin said. “My father was an immigrant who spoke very little English when he arrived in this country, and my parents worked hard to be sure my sister and I had every opportunity they could provide. They would have been so proud.”
Her service to the state began in 1970, when she was hired as a legal researcher for the nine-month-long convention that drafted the first new version of the Illinois constitution in 100 years. “By the end of the convention, I had been involved with virtually every committee that was drafting an article of the proposed constitution,” she said. “It was a phenomenal opportunity, and I recognized that it was creating a possible career path for me. I saved every scrap of paper I came across—now 16 filing-cabinet-drawers’ worth.”
After the new constitution was adopted in 1970, she became a staff assistant to the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, charged with helping lead a smooth constitutional transition. In 1973 she was appointed as the parliamentarian of the Illinois House of Representatives—the first woman to hold that position in Illinois, and as best as it can be determined the first woman parliamentarian in any US state or federal government entity.
In 1975, she joined the faculty at John Marshall Law School, where she still teaches today. “It of course helped that I knew the state constitution so well, but they particularly wanted me to teach a course on sales transactions,” she recalled. “I had studied with Soia Mentschikoff and Grant Gilmore at the Law School, and no one knew the UCC as well as they did.” Mentschikoff was a mentor to Lousin when she was in law school, and they remained friends until Mentschikoff’s death in 1984.
Lousin recalled that Mentschikoff’s influence was so compelling that when Lousin recognized an incompatibility among some provisions being considered during the constitutional convention, all she had to say to a delegate who was a graduate of the Law School was “Soia would kill us if we let this stand,” and then they both became focused on remedying the problem.
While teaching at John Marshall, Lousin was appointed to take on many civic responsibilities, including chairing the Illinois Civil Service Commission for seven years and serving on other state commissions and boards. Commentaries she has written about Illinois history have received awards from the Illinois State Historical Society in each of the last seven years. Her book on the Illinois constitution is considered to be the definitive resource on that topic. She was elected to the American Law Institute in 2009.
She is a founding member of the Armenian Bar Association, and she has lectured at Armenian universities and made other trips there to work with lawyers and judges. When the Armenian Bar Association created its first award for legal scholars, it was designated the Professor Ann M. Lousin Legal Scholar Award. “I grew up in Chicago’s Armenian community, where every day I encountered survivors of the Armenian genocide,” she recalled. “My work with the Armenian bar has been very important to me, and being honored by that bar is one of the high points of my life.”
Saying that she is now teaching her sales course at John Marshall for “something like the 95th time,” she remarked, “Even though a few of my current students seem to think that I grew up eating dinosaur sandwiches for lunch, I still feel like I am adding value to their legal educations.” She has ideas for many more articles and columns she might write, and she has plans for perhaps organizing her sales-related materials for a broader audience and updating her book on the Illinois constitution. “It might not be realistic to think that I’ll get a second 50-year award from the senate in 2068,” she said, “but I’m still working.”