A 1956 graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law, Levine retired in November from his of-counsel position with Arnstein & Lehr, Chicago. "This does not mean that I am giving up many of the things I like, such as writing, teaching and pro bono," he told M. Lee Witte, executive director of the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation.
"Who can count the hours that Harold Levine has spent instructing our staff attorneys and volunteers, in seminars, in the Attorney Manual and its supplements, in our newsletter, and one-to-one?" Witte asked. "The opportunity to work under his direction has attracted scores of bright young attorneys."
A past chair of the original ISBA Committee on Public Protection from the Unauthorized Practice of Law and a member of the current Task Force on UPL, Levine also has served on the Board of Governors, the Real Estate Law Section Council and the Committee on Delivery of Legal Services.
ISBA past president Herb Franks calls Levine "One of the most respected, competent and capable lawyers I have ever run into in the field of real estate law. Harold has devoted his entire career to being a lawyer's lawyer."
Peter J. Birnbaum, president of Attorneys' Title Guaranty Fund, adds that Levine's entire career has consisted of service to the profession and public. "He has provided thousands of hours of pro bono service to the elderly and the poor, particularly in real estate foreclosure matters," said Birnbaum, who also serves on the UPL task force.
Retired Cook County judge Sheila M. Murphy, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors who nominated Levine for recognition as a Laureate, recalls his help in garnering support for a children's waiting room in a suburban courthouse.
"Rather than ridicule an idea, he weighed whether or not it would be a benefit," Murphy said. "If he found that humanity could be bettered, he went to any length to help with legal aid, moral and monetary support, and his boundless humor."
Levine received an ISBA Pro Bono Service Award in 1990 and a Chicago Bar Association Pro Bono Award in 1998. In 1988, the American Bar Association and American Law Institute presented to him a special Harrison Tweed Award for contributions to continuing legal education.
Prentice Marshall: Up to bat for indigents
Retired federal judge and avid Chicago Cubs fan Prentice H. Marshall would have relished the opportunity to become commissioner of baseball in 1984, when Bowie Kuhn stepped down, but fortunately for the legal profession, he didn't get the job.
"He is an example par excellence, and a mentor to innumerable law students, law clerks, lawyers, law professors and judges," said Martha A. Mills, a 1999 Academy Laureate who prepared Marshall's nomination for the 2003 induction. "His contributions personally, and by encouragement, to pro bono work are second to none."
As a young lawyer, Marshall became active in the Chicago Bar Association Defense of Indigent Prisoners Committee, and he chaired the ISBA Junior Bar Section. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1956 that a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to appeal, he recruited lawyers throughout the state to take appointments to handle the flood of appeals.
Appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District in 1973, Marshall took senior status in January 1989 but remained on the bench until April 1996. Now a resident of Ponce Inlet, Fla., he is of counsel to Cotsirilis, Tighe & Streicker, Chicago.
A 1951 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, Prentice Marshall clerked for Judge Walter C. Lindley of the U.S. Court of Appeals before joining the firm now known as Jenner & Block in 1953. He left practice in 1967 to become a law professor in Champaign for the next six years.
In addition to his practice, Marshall was a special assistant Illinois attorney general, a member of the Illinois Judicial Advisory Council, a hearing examiner for the Illinois Fair Employment Practices Commission, and co-chair of the Illinois Crime Investigating Commission.
Even as a law professor, Marshall represented indigent defendants. He also revamped the law school's trial advocacy program and helped establish the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. A chair at the law school was endowed in his honor in 2000.
The new Northern District court history, "A Court That Shaped America," reports that Marshall considered racial, ethnic and gender discrimination cases against the City of Chicago and its police department as the most important issues he dealt with.
He ruled in 1974 that the department's hiring examination discriminated against minority applicants, and he ordered a new test. In 1976, he ruled that the city had to pay minority police officers for lost earnings, and the result was a $9 million settlement in 1988.
Marshall also was tough on state court judges who abused their powers and developed schemes to extract money from attorneys who appeared before them. In a 1987 judicial corruption decision, he construed federal mail fraud, racketeering and extortion statutes to apply to solicitation of interest-free loans.
Retired appellate justice R. Eugene Pincham said Marshall "represented the epitome of what a judge ought to be. He was impeccably honest, eminently fair, compassionate, firm, courteous and kind, and with all that, he was a warm, considerate human being."
District Court Judge James E. Holderman added that Marshall "inspired countless students to aspire to the heights of the legal profession by fully accepting what he called the primary responsibility of the profession: providing justice in a world of conflict."
Judge Ilana D. Rovner of the Court of Appeals said, "of you opened the dictionary and looked for the definition of 'judge,' Prentice Marshall's picture would be there. He is the embodiment of all we hope for from our system of justice ... and his devotion to the rule of law is legendary."
Among the many honors that Marshall has received are the Justice John Paul Stevens Award from the CBA, the Edwin Rothschild Award from the ACLU, the Freedom Award from The John Marshall Law School, and the Lifetime Distinguished Service Award from NITA.
He was recognized as a Distinguished Judge by the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and he received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Denison University. He even earned a Pro Bono Award from the local bar association in Volusia County, Fla.
Madalyn Maxwell: Role model for women
Having spent 47 years serving Illinois as an assistant attorney general, Academy Laureate Madalyn Maxwell retired in 2001 and is now doing what time didn't always permit during her working years: traveling.
"I was in the U.K. for three weeks," Maxwell said, "then I spent 10 days in Hawaii and, in January and February, I'll be in Australia." She's also been active and continues to be in her church and other civic organizations. "I did not retire to sit at home in my rocking chair," she added.
"She worked tirelessly for the Springfield Women's Political Caucus, which advocated the election and appointment of women to public office, regardless of political affiliation," wrote Springfield attorney Mary Lee Leahy, who also is an Academy Laureate.
"She furthered female equality and gender issues long before it was popular to do so," said Springfield attorney Donald A. LoBue, a member of the ISBA General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section Council.
Christine G. Zeman, a former colleague in the attorney general's office, added that "I have looked to Madalyn as a role model who successfully balanced professional goals and personal relationships with great competence, grace, civility, humor and wisdom.
"I hope that I may be as fine a role model as she was for me, and that I may contribute as much to our profession and the community as she has," Zeman said.
It is no surprise that Maxwell chose the law as a profession. As a Presbyterian, she believed in predestination, and her father (Ralph L. Maxwell) and grandfather (H. H. House) both served terms as Washington County state's attorney.
Ralph Maxwell also was elected to the Illinois Supreme Court, serving from 1951 to 1956. "Both of these men were my heroes," Madalyn Maxwell said, "and I learned by example from them."
She attended the University of Illinois College of Law and was admitted to the bar in 1951. She began to practice in Nashville and in 1953 she joined the attorney general's office. She had been chief of the Public Aid Bureau for 37 years when she retired.
In October, it was announced that the attorney general's new Public Aid Bureau office in Springfield will be dedicated to Maxwell.
Maxwell's tireless efforts on behalf of women and children, both in and out of that office, are well documented. She's especially proud of her 20 years of work with the National Child Support Enforcement Association.
"We made a number of trips abroad to speak with our counterparts in foreign government to try to establish informal means of dealing with international child support," she said. She negotiated letters of understanding that reciprocal child support laws would be enforced.
There are days when she misses the office. "But after 47 years, there comes a time when you want to change your horizons," she said. "I think it's more the people I miss. I received so much good advice from so many people in the office.
"You go in as a young attorney who's pretty green and you need help. And I have had, over the years, a lot of help, a lot of good friendships and a lot of sound professional advice."
A former board member of the League of Women Voters and the Government Bar Association, Maxwell is a past president of the Central Illinois Women's Bar Association. She served for seven years on the board of Sojourn House, a shelter for battered women in Springfield, and she still volunteers.
Nat Ozmon: Trial lawyer's trial lawyer
"Professionally, Nat P. Ozmon has lent his considerable energy and intellect to every phase of the law," said Dawn Clark Netsch, law professor emeritus at Northwestern University, in her letter of nomination to the Academy of Illinois Lawyers.
"He is, first and foremost, a superb trial lawyer who has received virtually every award and accolade of the trial bar up to and including the prestigious Leonard M. Ring Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, Netsch said.
She noted that Ozmon, after 48 years of high visibility personal injury practice, has "his integrity intact, his knowledge and skills respected and honored, and his person surrounded with good will and affection from those who have known and worked with him."
A founding partner of Horwitz, Anesi, Ozmon & Associates now Anesi, Ozmon, Rodin, Novak & Kohen, Chicago Ozmon graduated first in the class of 1954 at the Northwestern University School of Law. He is a past chair of the ISBA Tort Law Section Council and former trustee of the Illinois Lawyers Political Action Committee.
He is a past president of ITLA, a charter member and Fellow of the Roscoe Pound Foundation, and a board member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the Society of Trial Lawyers and the Appellate Lawyers Association.
Ozmon also is a past chair of the Chicago Bar Association Civil Practice Committee and Appellate Court Congestion Committee, and former vice chair of the American Bar Association Trial Techniques Committee.
He is a founder of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice and the Institute for Injury Reduction, and is a Diplomat of the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys and Court Practice Institute. He is a past president of the Harvard, Ill., Board of Education, and a member of trial lawyers associations in Indiana and Texas.
Ozmon received a Jurisprudence Award in 1998 from American ORT, and he has been honored by the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education for extraordinary contributions. He has served on the visiting committee and dean's advisory committee of Northwestern's School of Law.
ISBA past president David A. Decker calls Ozmon one of the state's "finest civil litigators and champions of the civil justice system." In addition to his courtroom skills and accomplishments "are the voluntary contributions of time and energy to the justice system that have set him apart from many others," Decker said.
Law partner Curt N. Rodin lauded Ozmon for countless appellate cases he has personally "handled over the years that have molded many aspects of Illinois law." Rodin said Ozmon's "hands-on approach and pride in workmanship has been a career lesson for me."
He added, "Nat has always taught us that 'we all owe a little rent for the space we occupy' we participate in continuing legal education, we write for the bar, we teach, we hold office in bar associations, and we contribute our time and resources for charitable and political purposes."
Philip H. Corboy, who was inducted as a Laureate in 1999, emphasized Ozmon's capacity for compassion "for his clients, for his community, for his family, and for anyone he is able to help.
"He starts each day knowing he is 'in service' to others." Corboy added. "Nat cares about how he conducts himself, and how his actions impact our world."
Bill Quinlan is exemplar in public service
"William R. Quinlan is one those rare individuals who are endowed with all the attributes of a great man," said Appellate Justice Allen Hartman of the 1st District.
In support of Quinlan's nomination as an Academy Laureate, the jurist listed his attributes as "the highest levels of intelligence, knowledge of and dedication to humanity, superb judgment and common sense, wit and humor, humility, warmth of personality and professional competence."
That would say it all about Bill Quinlan, a partner in the Chicago firm of Quinlan & Carroll, if it were possible to capsule the four distinguished decades of his service as a lawyer and judge in one paragraph.
ISBA past president Tim Eaton, who nominated Quinlan, said "he exemplifies the caliber of lawyers that the Academy was intended to honor." Eaton pointed specifically to a record of accomplishments that have taken place since Quinlan retired from the Appellate Court in 1989.
Chairman of the Cook County Board's Judicial Advisory Council since 1991, Quinlan helped resolve issues that engendered a unique lawsuit against the Appellate Court by incarcerated criminal defendants.
There weren't enough court-appointed lawyers to handle their appeals expeditiously, so "Bill rolled up his sleeves and coordinated the successful effort to recruit a number of lawyers from private firms to handle pending cases on a pro bono basis," Eaton said.
Quinlan also saw to it that the recruits were properly trained, "so that representation of indigent prisoners would be at the best attainable level," Justice Hartman added. "His selfless efforts in this regard helped the prisoners, the system, the court and the state budget in succeeding to dissipate the backlog significantly."
A 1964 cum laude graduate of the Loyola University School of Law, Quinlan then served as a captain in the Army. He received a master of laws degree in 1988 from the University of Virginia.
His early law practice included being city corporation counsel under three mayors - Richard J. Daley, Michael Bilandic and Jane Byrne and general counsel of the Chicago Urban Transportation District and the Chicago Building Commission.
Elected to the circuit court in 1980, he presided in complex litigation matters involving asbestos, salmonella, the Union Oil explosion and the Horizon stadium collapse. He was appointed to the Appellate Court in 1985 and elected in 1986.