Richard Hart, an ATG founder, has served 40 years on board
By Stephen Anderson
For 40 years, Attorneys' Title Guaranty Fund has helped its members write title insurance for Illinois homeowners and has been a leader in the fight against encroachments by purveyors of the unauthorized practice of law.
And for 40 years, Richard O. Hart of Benton has served on the ATG board of directors and provided guidance to the management team that has enhanced the company's leadership in protecting parties who buy homes.
A 1954 graduate of the Washington University Law School, Hart will become an ISBA Senior Counsellor during a Chicago luncheon Thursday, Sept. 9. He became a founding board member of ATG just 10 years out of law school.
"Our original goals were to preserve the role of the lawyer in real estate transactions for the benefit of the public, and to provide services and support for lawyer-shareholders," Hart said in 1994, when he was elected to chair the ATG board.
"These goals have been met to a greater degree than any of us ever imagined," he said. "Having a lawyer involved in the real estate transaction is essential to the client's overall protection" in what often "is the largest financial transaction most people ever engage in."
The senior partner in the 117-year-old law firm of Hart & Hart, Dick Hart is a grandson of founder William Henry Hart. His father, Marion M. Hart; an uncle, William E. Hart, and a cousin, William W. Hart Jr., were members of the firm.
Dick Hart's son, Murphy C. Hart, is a fourth-generation partner and a chip off his elder's block in terms of participation in Illinois State Bar Association initiatives.
Dick was a founding board member of the Insurance Risk Retention Group, which evolved into the ISBA Mutual Insurance Co., and Murphy has served on its board for several years. Both have been members of the ISBA Assembly and the Real Estate Law Section Council.
An Illinois state representative from 1968 to 1978, Dick Hart became a member of the ISBA Committee on Legislation in 1980 and has served continuously. Prior to that, he was secretary of the Real Estate Law Section and a member of the Judicial Administration Section.
Hart was elected to the ISBA Assembly in 1984 and served until 1989, and he began six years of elective service on the Board of Governors in 1991. He also was a trustee of the Illinois Lawyers Political Action Committee for four years and its chair in 1990-91.
As a member of the Committee on Insurance Program from 1986 to 1991, Hart was selected for the Task Force on Professional Liability Insurance Program that resulted in formation of the bar association's captive malpractice carrier in 1988. He has served on the Elder Law Section Council since 1997.
A past president of Franklin County Bar Association, the Benton Area Chamber of Commerce and the Benton Civic and Industrial Association, Hart has served on the city's Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals.
He has been a board member of the Shagbark Girl Scout Council and the Bank of Sesser. Former chair of the Southern Illinois University School of Law Board of Visitors, he has received an SIU Founders Medal and an honorary life membership in the law alumni association.
Alfred Gallo a John Marshall mainstay
By Stephen Anderson
Alfred E. Gallo of Hillside, a 1949 graduate of The John Marshall Law School who has been president of its board of trustees since October 2000, will be honored Sept. 9 as an ISBA Senior Counsellor. He was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1954.
A member of the law school's governing body for 34 years, Gallo has encouraged countless marginal applicants to enter the school's conditional summer program. Many have graduated with high honors and become leaders of the bar.
"I dread to think of where I would be or what I would be if I had not graduated" from John Marshall, he wrote in the Winter 1998 issue of John Marshall Comment.
Gallo was accepted after two years at Wright Junior College and some course credits from the University of Illinois. He paid for his law studies by working as night assistant desk clerk and checkroom manager at the Midwest Athletic Club.
While Gallo was a student at John Marshall, World War II began. He volunteered for Army service and was assigned to the Counterintelligence Corps in Africa and Italy.
Returning to law school, he worked at Liberty National Bank and was elected assistant trust officer a year before graduation. He went on to become chief operations officer of the trust department.
Gallo was assistant vice president and trust officer of Chicago National Bank from 1954 until 1958, when he joined Cosmopolitan National Bank as a vice president. He was elected president in 1971.
In 1975, he became vice chair of O'Hare International Bank. After a merger with Northern Trust Co., he remained a board member of its holding company until 1997. During that period, he was president and board chair of United of America Bank.
Gallo's career in banking led to a role in formation of the Land Trust Council of Illinois and his election as president of the Trust Division of the Illinois Bankers Association.
Active in the Justinian Society of Lawyers since law school, Gallo was installed as its president in 1960. The society presented its highest honor, the Award of Excellence, to him during the annual dinner in September 2003.
Also active in the Sicilian American Cultural Association, he has received the Star of Solidarity from the Republic of Italy for fostering artistic and cultural relations with the United States. He is a lecturer on the life and art of Michelangelo.
Gallo helped create an Ecclesiastical Foundation for the perpetuation of Queen of All Saints Basilica, and he is a founder of the Oenophilists' Society of Chicago. He has served on the boards of the Illinois College of Podiatric Medicine and the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association.
Judge Gardner is proud to be known as civil to lawyers
By Jeff Cappel
All things considered, Cook County Judge Sheldon Gardner is more than happy with his life and the choices he's made. To that end, he's a firm believer in "doing the best that you can."
"Whenever you go down a path that goes right or left, you'll always regret that you didn't see what lay at the end of the path you didn't choose," he said. "But I don't have any terrible regrets about the choices I've made."
A 1953 graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law who was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1954, Gardner will be honored Sept. 9 as an ISBA Senior Counsellor.
He's been in private practice and has served in the state's attorney office as chief of its Civil Division. He has been attorney for the Village of Justice.
Gardner formed Project LEAP (Legal Elections in All Precincts), the first election-fraud unit in the country, and he reformed the Reciprocal Support Unit. He's also a past president of the Independent Voters of Illinois and has held just about every position at that organization.
In 1988, Gardner was appointed an associate judge, and he was reappointed in 1991. He was elected to the circuit court in 1992 and assigned to the Domestic Relations Division, but he left because he was "burned out."
"Most of the lawyers were very nice," Gardner explained, "but the pressure and the emotions are very rough." His views on marriage are based on personal and professional experiences.
"If you're going to get married, it's a two-way deal in that you've got to give and take," he continued. "People today are very individualistic, and they don't treat each other with the respect they both deserve. If you want to stay married, you work at it."
Upon leaving Domestic Relations, Gardner went to the Law Division, where he has since served in the Individual Commercial Calendar Section and in Tax and Miscellaneous Remedies.
The judge had planned to earn a master's degree in economics at the University of Chicago and pursue a teaching career. "But for some reason," he explained, "I decided that I didn't want to teach. The law seemed to be a much more vigorous profession."
Gardner began his legal career doing "space for services," which entailed performing errands and some legal work for an established lawyer in return for a desk in the office. "So I started on my own knowing nothing," he said.
Becoming a judge was always a goal for Gardner, although he acknowledges that as a common goal for most lawyers. "It's the height of our profession," he said. He's especially proud of a review that said he's courteous to lawyers and their clients.
"That may not sound like much," Gardner said, "but I think that getting along with lawyers and creating a pleasant atmosphere for settling or trying a case is very important and very overlooked. I've had big cases like most other judges, but it's what you do, day in and out, that's most important.
Gardner perceives a loss of civility in the practice that has made it more difficult to resolve matters, yet he's in the top group of judges who have settled cases. "If you have lawyers who know where they are, they can minimize their risk by settling," he believes.
Gardner is dismayed by the amount of "economic pressure" in both salaries and expectations on young lawyers. "Nobody comes into the practice of law today with the idea of 'Now I can learn,'" he said. "The law itself hasn't changed, just the business of it."
A year-long internship after law school might help solve some of these issues, he said. "There's a big difference between what you learned in law school and what you do as a lawyer." In an internship, "a new lawyer isn't worried about maximizing his income but has more time to listen and learn," he said. "We don't carry through that transition well enough."
Gardner has learned that the "great function of the law is to give people an alternate means of settling disputes without shooting each other." He also believes a well-rounded education is essential for legal success.
"When someone comes into my courtroom, we talk and I look for things to identify with them," he said. "I know about most ethnicities and the various parts of our country. If you see a big world out there, you can better identify and relate to people."
Gardner feels that various areas of education are sorely lacking, such as American history, a subject dear to him. "How can you understand the law if you don't know history?" he asked.
His thoughts about the role of the judge are deeply felt. "If you're going to be a judge," he said, "you have to stop being an advocate and become impartial. You also can't lose your sense of humor and humility. I always say a judge is a lawyer in a black dress."
Gardner's tenure on the bench will end in December, and he'll ask to be recalled. Otherwise, he will practice in mediation, an area in which he believes passionately. He has written "The Converso Legacy," a work of historical Jewish fiction that is slated for release in September.
"I love history," Gardner said, "and I'm currently reading about the period from 1830 to 1850." Writing his book, which has been 10 years in the making, began while he was in domestic relations.
"When you're in Domestic Relations long enough, you look for something to do so you won't go insane," he laughed.
Civil rights advocacy led Crane to bankruptcy niche
Before Chicago attorney Eugene Crane of Dannen, Crane, Heyman & Simon became an authority on bankruptcy law and debtor's rights in Northern Illinois, he was a foot soldier in battles for civil rights in the southern states.
A 1954 graduate of the Chicago-Kent College of Law who will be honored Sept. 9 as an ISBA Senior Counsellor, Crane spent two years in the Army before beginning to practice law.
Heeding a call from the National Lawyers Guild, he volunteered for the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project of the Committee for Legal Assistance and represented improperly arrested civil rights workers. He also participated in the challenge of seating of Mississippi delegates to the 1964 Democratic Convention.
"While most lawyers start out with lofty ideals and clever ideas of using the law to make the world a better place for everybody ... few ever get around to actually doing anything about it. Gene did," his law partner, Arthur G. Simon, wrote in nominating Crane as a 2000 Laureate of the ISBA Academy of Illinois Lawyers.
Crane also represented civil rights groups in the Midwest prior to enactment of the Civil Rights Act and was a delegate to the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations. As a consultant to the Office of Economic Opportunity, he helped set up legal aid offices and procure funding for them.
He ultimately became a partner in Savage, Frazin, Crane & Spencer and developed a bankruptcy law practice in which he could help individuals and small business debtors improve their lives and livelihoods.
"Gene truly believes on the fresh-start theory upon which the law is based," Simon wrote. "He has spent his career trying to even the odds, if only a little, by helping the have-nots take on the haves of this world."
Among Crane's professional accomplishments are service as a bankruptcy trustee, chair of the Trustee Advisory Council, mediator for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and chair of a Chicago Bar Association bankruptcy mediation panel subcommittee.
Crane has chaired both the ISBA Committee on Delivery of Legal Services and the Committee on Availability of Legal Services that preceded it. He also has served on the Committee on Professional Conduct and the Committee on Long-Range Planning.
He has handled many bankruptcy cases pro bono for the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation and the Midwest Workers Association. He has developed bankruptcy skills courses for IICLE and lectured at countless seminars for the ISBA and other organizations.
CVLS director Margaret C. Benson observed that "In a profession with a tarnished image, Gene shines. He makes us all look good. I can't imagine any person who, after dealing with him professionally or personally, would walk away disliking lawyers."
Probation training topic is collaborative justice
The Illinois Probation and Court Services Association will conduct a training conference, "The Evidence Is In: Collaborative Justice Works," Wednesday to Friday, Sept. 1-3, at the Westin River North Hotel, Chicago.
The multidisciplinary conference is designed to bring the probation and court services community together with judges, prosecutors, public defenders, service providers and parole personnel.
The program will begin at 12 noon Wednesday, Sept. 1, with a luncheon and welcoming remarks by Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans of the Cook County Circuit Court.
George Keiser, chief of the Community Corrections Division of the National Institute of Corrections at the Department of Justice, is the keynote luncheon speaker. An afternoon of vendor exhibits and workshops will conclude with a 5 p.m. reception.
A plenary session at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 2, will be addressed by Mark Carey, warden at MCF-Shakopee, the only women's prison of the Minnesota Department of Corrections. He is president-elect of the American Probation and Parole Association.
Morning workshops will be followed by luncheon and speech by Father Robert Oldershaw of St. Nicholas Church in Evanston. Afternoon workshops will precede the annual IPCSA banquet and award presentations to dedicated probation and court service professionals.
Congressman Danny K. Davis of Chicago will address the closing plenary session at 10:15 a.m. Friday, Sept. 3.
For conference registration details, call Carol Gierut at (630) 969-6956.
Advance reservations are being taken for the 50 admittees that the U.S. Supreme Court has allotted to the Illinois State Bar Association in June 2005. Lawyers must have been admitted to practice for at least three years to gain admission to the high court.
The ISBA Committee on Bar Services and Activities has planned a schedule of activities that will begin at 6 p.m. Sunday, June 5, with a reception in the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel. A block of rooms has been reserved.