Alyssa Janicki

Assistant State’s Attorney with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in Chicago, IL.

 As a German major, I spent my entire Junior year studying abroad in Freiburg, Germany, which gave me the opportunity to live with students from all over the world, to travel, and to take classes at a German university. The classes were overwhelming at first, for example, when I had to give a presentation in German about the reforms in the Habsburg monarchy to a room full of native speaking history majors. The classes, though, forced me to learn to communicate my thoughts more clearly; I also learned it was okay to be wrong and that making mistakes and being corrected was often the best way to learn. As a prosecutor, clear communication, whether to a judge, jury, opposing counsel, or victim, is a skill I use every day, and I am grateful for my experiences in the German program at Xavier for teaching me those skills. I am also thankful for the mistakes, past, present, and future, and for the lessons that come with those mistakes.

She graduated from Xavier in August 2014 and Summa Cum Laude from the John Marshall Law School in May 2019.