Professor Coyne earned his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1980 and his law degree from The John Marshall Law School in 1984. Following his admission to the bar, he engaged in a private practice with a concentration in criminal defense litigation. Professor Coyne holds a Lead Counsel certification in the Capital Litigation Trial Bar of the Illinois Supreme Court. He has previously been associated with the Mock Trial Project of the Chicago Coalition for Law-Related Education (CCLRE), a program that involved all of the Chicago Public High Schools in a city-wide, mock-trial competition. He coached trial advocacy teams and authored six trial manuals utilized by the project. Professor Coyne has also been active in the Fairy Trial Project of the Circuit Court of Cook County since its inception in 1987, serving as legal consultant to the writing and production teams. Professor Coyne has previously taught at Northeastern Illinois University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northern Illinois University, and has been a guest lecturer at Northwestern University, Iowa State University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was previously associated with the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University, teaching law-related curricula to gifted students that gathered each summer from schools around the world. In March of 2002, Professor Coyne was named by Chicago Magazine in its “Thirty Tough Lawyers” feature. In August 2003, he was featured in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin's Amicus Curious column about the constitutional law curriculum at the Center for Talent Development. Professor Coyne focuses his pro-bono obligation on indigent people with AIDS who require representation in the criminal justice system.