Mark T. Banner Scholarship

The Richard Linn American Inn of Court is a labor of love. The engagement of Inn members in the activities of the Inn gains them not prestige, time, or money, but joys and opportunities. Mark T. Banner, a founding member of the Inn, passed on in the Inn's formative first year, before we had the chance to enjoy his contributions to the Inn at any length. The Inn names its scholarship and awards the scholarship to those who deserve to receive it in the name of Mark T. Banner, however, for many reasons - in honor of his passion in the practice, to accelerate more "Marks" into our field, to help fill the hole his absence leaves behind, and to remind us all, donors and recipients, of not only the tasks of gaining civility, ethics and professionalism in ourselves and others, but also the joys and the opportunity the Linn Inn scholarship surely provides.

The son of a Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, and the youngest in a family of lawyers including four IP lawyers, Mark T. Banner channeled into his IP legal practice all the wit, intellect and passion of an experienced, savvy, fun-loving family who argued IP law at the dinner table. Mark loved life and was a born litigator, with an uncanny ability to phrase memorable, compelling arguments in words of life's experiences, and that drove home key points from complicated legal and factual patterns. He applied his gifts in litigating tirelessly, but also in educating nationally. Once a Chicago Transit Authority bus driver, he taught Patent Trial Advocacy at Georgetown University Law Center using images of buses on city streets, and the message that for best litigators, "All Roads Lead To Trial."

Mark wowed juries. He had a presence at an appellate podium the bench called "astounding." He rose in heated ABA debates to rooms that would quiet because his insightful views would be memorably phrased. His abilities as a teacher were called a "privilege" to experience.

His purposes in teaching lawyers who in the future would compete with him, rather than just devoting himself completely to handling a first-level litigation practice, committing full-tilt to leading high level ABA activities, and always having time for friends, family, and a Rob Roy, he best described himself:

This is a labor of love. ... It has to be. As any adjunct professor of law today knows, teaching ... while engaged in a full-time law practice in today's environment is not something that earns one more prestige with your peers, more time with your family, or more money. What it does earn is the sheer joy of helping younger and eager students progress in their professional development We are grateful for the opportunity and most of all to meet and work with the many young professionals who make this labor of love so rewarding.

The teaching of civility, ethics and professionalism that occurs within the Inn is a matter of Mark's labor of love, and naming our Inn scholarship for Mark, we remind ourselves and recipients of the "sheer joy" of right thinkers in "helping younger and eager students progress in their professional development" and "the opportunity" it surely is "to meet and work with the many young professionals who make this labor of love so rewarding."

Download and print the Mark T. Banner Scholarship Application Form