The Steve Herman Correspondents Award is presented annually to a JURIST correspondent working anywhere in the world who has demonstrated extraordinary commitment to providing accurate and extensive coverage of critical law-related events in their local jurisdiction. The award is named after VOA Chief National Correspondent Steve Herman, who, during his 2022-23 tenure as JURIST’s Journalist in Residence, was a stalwart supporter of JURIST’s volunteer law student staff and their mission to defend the rule of law through reporting. The recipient of the award is honored at JURIST’s annual awards and recognition ceremony and receives a certificate of appreciation.
Steven Herman is Chief National Correspondent for the Voice of America in Washington, DC, and was formerly VOA’s White House Bureau Chief. He spent more than a quarter of a century in Asia, including years of reporting from Tokyo and subsequently as a VOA correspondent and bureau chief in India, Korea, and Thailand. Herman also served in 2016 as VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent, based at the State Department. His travels have taken him to approximately 75 countries, doing on-scene reporting from combat zones, civil uprisings, and areas struck by major natural disasters.
For JURIST’s own correspondents in the field, there is no better role model of dedication, tenacity and trustworthiness in a distinguished journalistic tradition of public service.
The inaugural 2023 recipient of the Steve Herman Correspondents Award is:
Justin Esiobu
Justin Esiobu is a Senior Ukraine Staff Correspondent at JURIST, an undergraduate (fourth-year) law student at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and a Pre-LL.M program graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law (IIT).
Justin joined JURIST at the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Since then, he has reported for JURIST “on the ground” by video from Kharkiv, Kyiv, Khmelnytsky, and other Ukrainian cities, as well as frontline areas. While working with JURIST, he has appeared on CNN, Telerama, US-Africa, RTÉ, TF1, and other international media outlets.
Professionally, Justin is a Project Manager at CFC Big Ideas, where he is mainly devoted to crisis communications, government relations, and event management. Prior to joining CFC, Justin was a legal intern at the Leavitt Institute for International Development (TLI) and a Government Relations Manager at the Students League of the Ukrainian Bar Association (UBA), a youth NGO.
Justin is also the Coordinator of Legal and Advocacy Projects at the Youth Department of the NGPO Women’s Union of Lviv region (NGPO WU) – Youth Ukrainian Changes (YUC), a youth peacekeeping diplomacy networking platform. In addition, he is Communications Coordinator at Ukraine Direct Aid (UDA), an activist within the Ukrainian Students for Freedom (USF), as well an Auditing Committee Member at the European Youth Parliament (EYP), all NGOs.
During his ongoing undergraduate law studies at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, one of his scientific papers was published in an international Kyiv-Mohyla Law and Politics Journal.
Justin has also been a professional basketball player. He is fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English.
