John P. Heinz was among the first group of honorees selected to receive an Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alumni Achievment Award from Washington University in St. Louis. These new annual awards celebrate the accomplishments of exceptionally successful alumni who have also served their communities and the university. Heinz, who is the Owen L. Coon Professor of Law at Northwestern and an IPR faculty fellow, was honored May 15 at Washington University’s commencement exercises.

During his long and distinguished academic career, Heinz served as executive director of the American Bar Foundation, where he is currently a Distinguished Research Fellow.

Heinz has also served as president of the John Howard Association (prison reform), as chairman of the professional advisory committee to the Cook County State’s Attorney for the eight years that Richard M. Daley held that office, and as a member of the National Science Foundation’s advisory committee for the social sciences.

Heinz is currently completing a large sociological study of the Chicago Bar, analyzing questions he posed to Chicago lawyers in 1995, and revisiting issues from a similar study he conducted two decades ago. The earlier results were published in his co-authored 1982 book, Chicago Lawyers: The Social Structure of the Bar. His most recent book is The Hollow Core: Private Interests in National Policymaking (1993).