Law School Award Recipients

HOWARD B. EISENBERG SERVICE aWARD

Katherine McChrystal, Law '10
Milwaukee

Serving at Marquette’s Volunteer Legal Clinics taught Kate how to handle the emotional responsibilities that come with being a lawyer. She now uses those skills to help clients navigate the difficulties of family law.

Kate is an attorney with Gagne, McChrystal, De Lorenzo and Burghardt LLC, a firm she co-founded in 2015.

“I meet a person when they are facing one of the scariest challenges of his or her life and I get to help them figure out a way to move through that experience and figure out a new normal,” she says. “Professionally, there is nothing better than seeing a client move from a place of sadness to a place of hope.”

Kate has been a volunteer with the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinic-Family Law at the Milwaukee Justice Center since 2011 and is the former president and founding member of the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin junior board. A former teacher, she also volunteers for the Highland Community School.

Her father, Michael, Law ’75, is a professor of law at Marquette — but her family ties to the Law School don’t end there.

“I had the pleasure of being hazed my entire 1L year by my husband (then-boyfriend), Jake Manian, Law ’07, brother Caz McChrystal, Law ’07, and sister-in-law Erin Manian, Arts ’02, Law ’07, who were all 3Ls at the time,” she says. “My husband’s grandfather, Vic Manian, attended the Law School while working full-time as a cop and graduated in 1960, then went on to be a prosecutor and a judge.”

Fun fact:
When Kate was in grade school, she wanted to be a cocktail waitress when she grew up because her family watched Cheers on TV. “I accomplished that career goal at 19, so it took me a while after that to figure out my life path,” she jokes.