Robert Downs to become ISBA president in 2005
Incumbents Komie, Mirabelli, Bahr are re-elected to board
By Stephen Anderson
Multiple-candidate races for a number of ISBA offices resulted in the election of three members by pluralities as ballots were tallied May 10 in Springfield.
Robert K. Downs of Oak Park emerged the victor among a trio of candidates for third vice president. Downs polled 2,442 votes (41.5%) to top Chicago attorneys Russell W. Hartigan with 2,150 (36.6%) and Stephen M. Komie with 1,287.
The campaign involving three high-profile members of the ISBA Board of Governors either confused or challenged the loyalties of state bar members. The total vote of 5,879 was the lowest in at least 20 years of contested elections, and represented only 20 percent of ISBA membership.
Similarly, a slate of three well-known DuPage County lawyers garnered only 549 total votes for a seat on the Board of Governors from the 18th Circuit, which has 3,645 registered attorneys.
Incumbent Irene F. Bahr of Wheaton, a past president of the DuPage Association of Women Lawyers, was returned to office with 271 votes (49.4%). Christine M. Ory of Wheaton, a past president of the DuPage County Bar Association, was 109 votes back with 162 (29.5%), and ISBA Assembly member Steven B. Levy received 116 votes in his second attempt to unseat Bahr.
Two Cook County board incumbents won re-election, but the most votes among six candidates for four seats went to Assembly member John G. O'Brien of Arlington Heights, president of the Illinois Real Estate Lawyers Association and passionate advocate against the unauthorized practice of law.
O'Brien tallied 1,380 votes, followed closely by incumbent board members Enrico J. Mirabelli (1,368) and Stephen Komie (1,343). The fourth seat was captured by Joseph G. Bisceglia, co-chair of the Special Committee on Federal Practice and past chair of the Civil Practice and Procedure Section Council.
Bisceglia received 1,143 votes 10 more than Assembly member Andrea Schleifer (1,133), chair of the Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Assembly member Albert E. Durkin received 853 votes.
Urbana attorney Keith E. Fruehling, president of the Champaign County Bar Association, was elected to the downstate under-age-37 seat on the Board of Governors that was sought by four lawyers.
The results are: Fruehling, 1,021 (36.5%); Eric P. Hanson of Joliet, 694; Kathleen M. Kenny of Wheaton, 681, and Kevin J. Frost of Rockford, 398.
Winner of the Cook County under-age-37 board position is Assembly member Michele M. Jochner, secretary of the General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section Council. She received 1,081 votes (52.3%) to 986 for Assembly member Franco A. Coladipietro, vice chair of the Young Lawyers Division Council.
Mark D. Hassakis of Mt. Vernon, unopposed for the Area VI seat on the Board of Governors, is automatically elected. Since no candidate filed for the vacancy in Area III, the board will appoint a governor at a future meeting.
Incoming third vice president Robert Downs is a partner in Downs & Downs with his wife, Barbara A. Downs. Their general practice is concentrated primarily in family law.
A graduate of the Stetson University Law School and former state representative who received a Best Legislator Award, Bob Downs has served on the ISBA Assembly since 1993 and on the Board of Governors since 1997.
A past chair of the Family Law Section Council, he served on the Task Force on Attorneys for Children that drafted enabling legislation and he chaired a Special Committee for Child Representative Training.
As his campaign for third vice president neared conclusion, Downs said in a letter to all who supported him that "Regardless of who wins the election, there is no doubt that the ISBA will remain strong and respected."
He said that win or lose, he would work to ensure that the bar association "will remain the open and honest group that it has always been to me."
Downs will take office as third vice president this month during the 126th Annual Meeting at the Grand Geneva Resort. He will become ISBA president in June 2005.
Retiring ISBA board member Sheila M. Murphy, with 1,129 votes, topped balloting last month for the ISBA Assembly during an election in which 55 candidates vied for only 26 seats.
In second place was Joseph G. Bisceglia with 910 votes, but his simultaneous election to the Board of Governors creates a vacancy that the board was to fill at a future meeting (see story on page 3).
Katherine A. Amari, daughter of past president Leonard F. Amari, was next with 850 votes. Also elected are the following, all from Chicago unless otherwise indicated.
Alan Pearlman, Northbrook, 733; Ronald S. Davis, 720; Joan E. Smuda, 702; Dominic R. Fichera, 687; David B. Sosin, Palos Heights, 672; Patrick T. Driscoll Jr., 666; Lisa A. Marino, 655; Jeffrey G. Liss, 649; Jerry A. Latherow, 628;
Willis R. Tribler, 620; John W. Damisch, 613; Joseph A. Bosco, 595; Jeanne R. Cleveland, Evanston, 574; Stephen D. Phillips, 572; John A. Wasilewski, Palos Heights, 558; Jane L. Stuart, 551; Joseph M. Claps, River Forest, 550; Daniel T. Gillespie, Skokie, 544; Mark W. Damisch, Northbrook, 535; Nicholas A. Caputo, 520; Marianne Raimondi, 514; Felicia M. Spina, Elmwood Park, 509; Paul J. Nealis, Palos Park, 506.
Election tellers reported the disqualification of 22 ballots, 17 of which were submitted without signature or identification of the member voter.
McMorrow to succeed Harrison as chief justice
Chief Justice Moses W. Harrison II of the Illinois Supreme Court will retire from judicial service on Sept. 4, for personal reasons, as the next session of the court begins.
In its May 13 order, M.R. 2162, the court appointed Appellate Justice Philip J. Rarick of the 5th District to succeed Harrison on Sept. 5 for a term that will end Dec. 6, 2004. Rarick said he intends to seek election to a 10-year term.
Harrison was elected to the Supreme Court from the 5th District in 1992, and began his tenure as chief justice on Jan. 1, 2000. He had been expected to seek retention in November.
On May 14, the court unanimously elected Justice Mary Ann G. McMorrow of the 1st District to begin serving a three-year term as chief justice on Sept. 5.
Referring to Justice McMorrow as an outstanding jurist and great student of the law, Justice Harrison said she would "reflect well on the court. She is a very caring person and her approach is that of applying the law to the facts."
A 1958 graduate of the Washington University School of Law, Harrison practiced for 15 years in East St. Louis and Collinsville as a partner in Harrison, Rarick & Cadagin. He is a past president of the Madison County Bar Association.
He was appointed to the 3rd Circuit Court in September 1973 and elected in 1974. He served two terms as chief judge before being appointed to the Appellate Court in 1979.
Justice Harrison was elected to the appellate bench in 1980 and retained in 1990, two years before his election to the Supreme Court. He was presiding judge of the 5th District court for two terms.
The ISBA honored Harrison, a former member of the ISBA Board of Governors, shortly after he became chief justice and again in February 2001, when he was given the Access to Justice Award.
He also received the Justinian Society Award of Excellence in 1998, and a Humanitarian Award from the St. Louis chapter of the NAACP in 2000 for his opposition to the death penalty.
In addition to nearly 30 years as a jurist, the chief justice is secretary of the Maryville Colonial Nursing Home and a board member of the Collinsville Lions Club. He served on the Collinsville City Council before he became a judge.
Justice McMorrow was elected to the Supreme Court in 1992, the same year as Justice Harrison. She had served on the Appellate Court for seven years and on the Cook County Circuit Court for nine years.
A graduate of the Loyola University School of Law, McMorrow was an assistant state's attorney before her election to the bench in 1976. She is a past president of the Women's Bar Association of Illinois and a recipient of its Myra Bradwell Award.
She also has received the Illinois Bar Foundation Fellows Award for Distinguished Service to Law and Society, the Loyola Law Alumni Medal of Excellence and the John Marshall Law School Freedom Award.
Justice Rarick, a 1966 graduate of the St. Louis University School of Law, became a 3rd Circuit judge in 1975 and was chief judge from 1985 to 1987. Elected to the Appellate Court in 1988 and retained in 1998, he serves on the Industrial Commission Division.
He was a member of the Illinois Courts Commission for seven years and of the executive committee of the Illinois Judicial Conference for 15 years, and he chaired the Complex Litigation Study Committee from 1988 to 2001.
Rarick had previous experience in private practice as Collinsville city and township attorney, and as an assistant Madison County state's attorney.
Bar Foundation provides funding for statewide legal aid conference
By Stephen Anderson
The Illinois Bar Foundation has provided funds for development of a Statewide Advocates Conference of about 200 representatives of legal aid providers that is tentatively scheduled in September.
The Bar Foundation grant of $5,000 was awarded to Prairie State Legal Services, which is the fiscal agent for the project consortium. The award was recommended by Gilda Hudson-Winfield, chair of The Fellows of the Illinois Bar Foundation, who reviewed the application.
The Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois has agreed to contribute $25,000 half of the projected $50,000 budget for the two-day conference that will be organized around an Access to Justice theme.
Participants will focus on issues that affect low-wage workers and learn how to work effectively with the Illinois Technology Center for Law and the Public Interest, which recently received a $10,000 grant from the Bar Foundation (ISBA Bar News, May 15, page 2).
The Statewide Advocates Conference is planned as a major step toward a goal of integrating the efforts of the various agencies that deliver legal services to low-income individuals and families throughout the state.
"To obtain the benefits of becoming a true statewide legal services community, we need to make integration a working reality for all advocates," said Sarah Megan, deputy director of litigation in Prairie State's Kane County office in Batavia.
She said the conference would secure active participation by all the agencies, whether or not they receive federal funding through the Legal Services Corporation, and build on their experiences in meeting the civil legal needs of qualified Illinois residents.
Conference sessions will center on access to legal services through such delivery methods as telephone hotlines and advice clinics for pro se litigants. Community education and economic development issues also will be discussed. Opportunities will be created for affinity groups domestic violence practitioners, senior citizen specialists, etc. to network and share perspectives.
Multiple tracks on consumer issues related to low-wage workers, which cut across many fields of legal practice, will include transportation to workplaces, predatory lending, public benefits, tax credits, child support, health insurance, and the effect of domestic violence as a barrier to employment.
In addition to Sarah Megan of Prairie State, the conference planning committee includes Margaret C. Benson, deputy director of the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation and past chair of the ISBA Committee on Delivery of Legal Services.
Other conference planners who are members of the Committee on Delivery Services are Leslie Corbett, executive director of the Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services, and Richard Jay Hess, supervisory attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.
Others are Gwendelyn Daniels, staff attorney and information systems manager for the National Center on Poverty Law, and Linda Zazove, development director of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation.
For more information, call Megan at (630) 232-9420 or Prairie State executive director Joseph A. Dailing at (815) 965-2134.
ISBA, ABA Foundation Fellows named
Illinois Bar Foundation board member Nicholas J. Bertschy of Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, Peoria, recently increased his contribution to the foundation to the level of Silver Fellow.
Upgrading their contribution levels to Gold Fellow status are Paul E. Freehling of D'Ancona & Pflaum, Chicago, newsletter editor of the Administrative Law Section Council, and Enrico J. Mirabelli of Nadler, Pritikin & Mirabelli, Chicago, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors.
New Fellows of the Bar Foundation include Chicago attorneys Mary E. Doherty, secretary of the Committee on Continuing Legal Education; Michele M. Jochner, member of the Assembly, newsletter co-editor of the Bench and Bar Section Council, and secretary of the General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section Council, and Michael J. Hossack.
Other new Fellows are Joseph A. Dailing of Rockford, past chair of the Law Office Management and Economics (Standing Committe on) Council and member of the Committee on Delivery of Legal Services; Laura Otten Grahek of Washington, vice president of the Lawyers' Assistance Program;