Monica T. Kociolek
Associate
Monica focuses her practice on litigation. She utilizes the skills gained through her clinical experience and judicial externship to deliver effective legal representation and to convey clear and persuasive legal arguments.
Monica is currently seconded to the in-house legal department of a client.
Monica’s experience includes drafting pleadings, motions, and briefs in both state and federal cases. In addition to assisting case teams throughout various stages of litigation, she regularly researches legal issues and prepares legal memoranda summarizing her research findings. She has represented clients in legal proceedings, during which she has delivered opening and closings statements and conducted direct examinations.
Monica was previously a judicial extern to Hon. Magistrate Judge Susan E. Cox of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. In addition to regularly observing court proceedings, she gained experience researching legal issues, drafting judicial opinions, and facilitating settlement conferences.
During law school, Monica worked for her school’s Supreme Court Clinic, where she co-authored merits briefs, reply briefs, and petitions for writs of certiorari filed before the U.S. Supreme Court, and helped moot advocates for the Court’s oral arguments. She likewise worked for her school’s Civil Litigation Clinic, where she drafted pleadings, interviewed witnesses, and successfully represented a client during an administrative hearing. At the hearing, Monica delivered opening and closing statements, and conducted several direct examinations—ultimately reinstating her client’s housing assistance.
Monica is fluent in Polish.
Recent Experience
Monica was recognized in the 2025 edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America in the area of Commercial Litigation. During law school, Monica received the Arlyn Miner Book Award for best briefs in her first-year Communication and Legal Reasoning course, and the Public Service Award at graduation.
Monica maintains an active pro bono practice. She has represented amici curiae in an asylum case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, educating the Court about the risk factors associated with domestic violence. She has challenged the admissibility of evidence against criminal defendants on the grounds of police misconduct, and has advocated for school children who were denied access to special education services.
Prior to joining the firm, Monica was a Public Interest Law Initiative fellow at the Bluhm Legal Clinic’s Appellate Advocacy Center, where she provided legal services to indigent defendants in federal criminal matters. Among other things, she co-authored an appellate brief challenging the constitutionality of a sentence enhancement, and drafted a motion for new trial based on judicial misconduct.
Before law school, Monica was a Child Welfare Specialist licensed through the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. She worked to reunify parents with their children in foster care and to facilitate adoptions in cases of parental-right termination.
Monica is a member of the Chicago Bar Association and the Northwestern Law Alumni Association. She also volunteers at PAWS Chicago.
Recent Experience
Credentials
Education
Monica received a B.A., magna cum laude, and with highest distinction, in sociology and psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2012. She received a J.D., cum laude, from the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in 2018, where she was managing executive editor of the Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy, President of the Public Interest Law Group, and both a teaching and research assistant.
Admissions
- Illinois
Clerkships
- USCA - Seventh Circuit for the Honorable Thomas L. Kirsch II
- USCA - Seventh Circuit for the Honorable Thomas L. Kirsch II
Languages
- Polish
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