Sarah Gibbs Leivick (CAS’03, GRS’03)
When Christopher Szczerban passed away suddenly at the age of 41, his wife, Sarah Gibbs Leivick, decided to support the BU community that brought them together.
Leivick (CAS’03, GRS’03) and Szczerban (CAS’03, Questrom’03) met during their freshman year, at a Boston University Mock Trial meeting. They quickly became friends, spending hours preparing for mock trial competitions and studying together for their political science classes—a major they shared. Over time, their friendship blossomed into a relationship, which lasted through law school—he at Harvard, she at Georgetown—and into marriage in 2010.
After law school, Szczerban served as a clerk in Delaware and then joined a law firm in New York City, where he became a respected litigator and supporter of the Legal Aid Society. Leivick joined another firm, focusing on antitrust, securities, and complex civil litigation. Their twin daughters, Isabel and Juliet, were born in 2019. Less than four years later, Szczerban passed away.
Sarah wanted to honor her husband’s legacy in a way that would have been meaningful to him. She reached out to the BU prelaw advising staff to find out how she could give back to future generations of BU mock trial students.
“I don’t think he had any idea of the impact that he left on people. It was part of who he was. I wanted to continue that legacy,” she says. “I thought if there was a way to give back to students with similar interests, that would honor his legacy in a way that was befitting who he was as a person.”
In June 2025, Leivick established the Christopher Szczerban Memorial Fund, which provides annual awards to College of Arts & Sciences undergraduates to support their participation in extracurricular activities, with a preference for students involved in student-run law groups like the BU Mock Trial Organization and Mock Mediation team. The first scholarships will be given in fall 2026.
Leivick, who now coaches high school mock trial, sees the fund as a way to support the next generation of lawyers. She looks forward to meeting the scholarship recipients and following their journeys at and after BU.
“Giving money to the University, you’re impacting the next generation. That’s really the way to make a difference—at the individual level,” she says. “I hope Chris would be proud of it.”