Rebecca Berfanger was an associate editor of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly in Boston for three years before going to graduate school at Northwestern University for her MSJ in magazine publishing, which she received in 2005. The experience included three months as a Washington, D.C., correspondent for a Boston-area newspaper. She returned to her hometown of Indianapolis after living in other cities for eight years and freelanced for Indianapolis and Boston publications. She joined the Indiana Lawyer staff in 2006 covering law schools, bar associations, pro bono, and social justice issues.

In 2008, the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists awarded her third place for her Indiana Lawyer article, “Advancing Press Freedoms,” which was published in 2007. The previous year, she received SPJ honors for IL articles about the Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program and asylum cases.

For her coverage of social justice issues, Berfanger also received in 2008 the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana’s Media Defender of Liberty award, which is not given every year.

She majored in journalism and French at Ball State University as an honors student, and received first-place reporting awards from the BSU journalism department and the Indiana Collegiate Press Association. In 2006, the SPJ awarded her first place for non-deadline reporting for a 2005 article in Nuvo.