Outstanding Young Alumni Award
Grant Anderson '11
Government and global trade associate for Mayer Brown LLP; Chicago
At 23 years old, Grant Anderson was president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal. At 29, he was a law clerk in the Office of the Governor of Illinois. At 31, he earned a law degree from Harvard Law School.
In a little more than a decade after earning a bachelor’s degree in political science at Illinois State University, the 33-year-old Anderson has already accomplished what many would be happy to do over the course of a lifetime.
He’s currently an attorney in the Chicago headquarters of Mayer Brown, a global white-shoe law firm with a roster of 1,800 lawyers spread amongst offices in 27 cities across the globe. Anderson’s practice focuses on complex public infrastructure projects, affordable housing development, and various public law and political law matters. In addition, he maintains a robust pro-bono practice, recently advising on the creation of 2-1-1 Metro Chicago, a partnership between the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the United Way of Metro Chicago that connects people to essential health and social service resources.
During his time at Harvard, the Illinois State alum served as a research assistant for the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative and gained experience as a law clerk with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and the Office of the Governor of Illinois JB Pritzker.
Anderson previously served in leadership roles in two chapters of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, first as CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal before two years as president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Southwest County in Temecula, California. In Bloomington-Normal, Anderson erased debt, grew the program’s budget, and increased capacity and daily attendance. Anderson spent the year prior to his time with the Boys & Girls Club in AmeriCorps Vista, a national service program addressing poverty.
Anderson has received numerous awards and recognition for his service, including being named a 2016 Edgar Fellow by the University of Illinois’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs.