Benefit auction nets $15,590

Backstage tickets to this summer's Grateful Dead concert, an autographed picture of Mr. Spock from "Star Trek," tickets for a Chicago Cubs game with 20 packs of Wrigley's gum, and an afternoon with Cass Sunstein's dog helped raise $15,990 in the annual Law Students Association charity auction last month. All proceeds will benefit the Blue Gargoyle Youth Service Center in Hyde Park.

Richard Epstein, the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School, served as auctioneer, taking bids on over 90 items donated by students, Law School faculty members and Chicago law firms. The item receiving the highest bid was a wine-tasting tour for eight students with Joseph Isenbergh, the Seymour Logan Professor in the Law School and resident wine expert, which sold for $1,525. Two tickets and backstage passes for the Grateful Dead concert at Soldier Field this summer, donated by Provost Geoffrey Stone and the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir, sold for $1,100, while 20 packs of Wrigley's gum plus two tickets to a Cubs game with David Strauss, the Harry N. Wyatt Professor in the Law School, sold for $500.

Other items included an autographed picture of Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, which sold for $80; autographed books by members of the Law School faculty, which brought $200; four Chicago Bulls tickets, donated by the law firm of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd, which went for $250; and an afternoon with the dog of Cass Sunstein, the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School, which sold for $140 -- an increase of $60 from last year's winning bid.

Since the auction began in 1991, the LSA has raised more than $50,000 for the Blue Gargoyle.