estate); Steven Christenholz and Jennifer Homer (finance); Gregory W. Hayes (corporate and securities), Richard Morey (franchise and distribution), and Marilyn Pearson (labor and employment).
Heidi E. Ramos, 14-year assistant Jackson County public defender, has joined the Southern Illinois University School of Law faculty as project director of its Self Help Legal Center.
Daniel H. Olswang has joined the Chicago office of Weltman, Weinberg & Reis as manager of real estate services. He was with Hauselman & Rappin for seven years.
Lawyers form new law firms
The commercial litigation firm of Byron, Gerber, Petri & Kalb has been established by Christopher W. Byron, David J. Gerber, Christopher J. Petri and Brian R. Kalb. Offices are at 241 N. Main St., Edwardsville 62025, and Suite 1700, 101 S. Hanley, St. Louis 63105.
The former Crystal Lake firm of Garry & Marek is now known as The Garry Law Firm, with no change in address or telephone number. Rita W. Garry is the principal, and Carey E. Schulze has joined the new firm as an associate.
Several former partners in Childress & Zdeb, Chicago, have formed the firm of Childress Duffy Goldblatt Ltd. at the same location. Name partners are Michael L. Childress, Michael W. Duffy and Joel N. Goldblatt.
Chicago attorney Andrew S. May, a former associate with Henderson & Lyman, has formed a new firm, Lewitas & May, with Bruce M. Lewitas in suite 3910 at 55 E. Monroe, Chicago 60603. The firm represents securities and commodities clients in litigation, regulatory and transactional matters.
LaBeau, Dietchweiler, Capriotti & Dunn, on Jan. 21, became the name of the former Kankakee firm of LaBeau, Dietchweiler & Associates. The new location is Suite 700, 200 E. Court St., Kankakee 60901. Name partners are Emile A. Capriotti, Michael L. Dietchweiller, Patrick T. Dunn and Robert B. LaBeau.
Noonan, Perillo & Polenzani is the new name of the former 36-year-old Waukegan firm of Sullivan, Smith, Hauser & Noonan. Name partners are Michael K. Noonan, Michael J. Perillo Jr. and Joseph E. Polenzani. Senior members Leo J. Sullivan III and Richard J. Smith are of counsel.
Howard T. Goffen, former managing attorney of Jesmer & Harris, Chicago, has opened Howard T. Goffen & Associates at suite 100, 3240 University Ave., Highland Park 60035; telephone (847) 433-5039 or (312) 550-4500. He concentrates in arbitration and mediation.
Martin Jansky, formerly of the East Alton firm of Simmons Cooper, and Matthew J. Rossiter have formed Rossiter & Jansky in Clayton, Mo. Rossiter was named Outstanding Young Lawyer recently by the St. Louis County Bar Association.
The Rockford office of Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, which opened in 1985, has been relocated to the second floor of the National City Bank Building, 120 W. State St. The telephone number remains the same. Mail may be sent to P.O. Box 1288, Rockford 61105-1288.
Lord, Bissell & Brook has opened a Washington, D.C., office for financial services clients, occupying the entire fifth floor at 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue. Banking industry attorney Douglas P. Faucette is partner in charge.
The year-old Milwaukee office of Gardner, Carton & Douglas has moved to a permanent location in the U.S. Bank Building, 777 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Peoria's Gene Petersen: generous gentleman of bar
Peoria attorney Gene A. Petersen, past chair of two Illinois State Bar Association section councils, died Feb. 9 at age 62 of brain cancer in St. Francis Medical Center. He was chair of the Peoria Corporate Group of Husch & Eppenberger.
A 1967 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was first in his class, Mr. Petersen received a master of laws degree in taxation in 1968. He practiced with Davis & Morgan in Peoria for 20 years before joining Husch & Eppenberger in 1989.
Also a certified public accountant, Mr. Petersen was general counsel to more than 75 privately owned businesses in central Illinois during his career in taxation and estate planning. A resident of Morton, he was past president of the Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Community Foundation board.
Active in the ISBA since 1970, when he was appointed to the Committee on Association Publications, Mr. Petersen chaired the committee in 1978-79. He served on the General Practice Section Council in 1976-77.
Mr. Petersen was secretary of the Corporation, Securities and Business Law Section Council, which he joined in 1986 and chaired in 1992-93. He was a member of the Business Advice and Financial Planning Section Council, which he joined in 1994 and chaired in 2000-01.
"I was always impressed with the gentleness of that gentleman," said James M. Lestikow of Springfield, a member of the Trusts and Estates Section Council who served with Mr. Petersen on Business Advice and Financial Planning. "He was extremely competent, bright and generous with his time and skills."
Survivors include a son, Tyler D. Petersen of Husch & Eppenberger; a daughter, Marci M. Schoff of Hasselberg, Rock, Bell & Kuppler, and a daughter-in-law, Laura A. Petersen of Quinn, Johnston, Henderson & Pretorius, all of Peoria.
Allen Hartman: 27-year Appellate Court justice
Justice Allen Hartman of the Illinois Appellate Court, author of an opinion that denied double jeopardy protection to a murderer who bribed the judge in his first trial, died March 3, at age 77 in his home in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood.
A 1959 graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law, Mr. Hartman had served with the Army in occupied Vienna after World War II. He was a law clerk for two appellate justices before becoming an assistant Chicago corporation counsel in 1961 and first assistant in 1965.
During his tenure, he drafted a city ordinance that permitted development of property for hotels and condominiums on air rights over railroad tracks between Lake Michigan and Michigan Avenue. His name was placed on an honorary street sign for Beaubien Court in 2001.
Mr. Hartman was executive director of the Chicago Home Rule Commission in 1972, the year before he was appointed to the Cook County Circuit Court. He was elected to the circuit court in 1974 and to the Appellate Court, 1st District, in 1978.
In People v. Harry Aleman, Mr. Hartman accepted the argument by prosecutors that the defendant had not been in jeopardy when he was found not guilty by the judge he bribed. The opinion ruled that Aleman "clearly was not subject to the risk normally associated with a criminal prosecution."
A member of the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee, Mr. Hartman had chaired the 1st District executive committee and several committees of the Illinois Judicial Conference. He taught advanced civil litigation on Saturdays at the Loyola University School of Law.
For about 20 years, Mr. Hartman spoke on behalf of the International Visitors Center of Chicago and U.S. Information Agency to visiting lawyers and judges. The Visitors Center named him Volunteer of the Year in 1999.
Survivors include a daughter, Stacie R. Hartman of Schiff Hardin, Chicago.
Earl Neal helped city grow
Chicago attorney Earl Langdon Neal, who represented the city in countless land acquisition and development projects, died Feb. 13 at age 76 of cancer in Rush University Medical Center.
A 1952 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School who was admitted to the Michigan bar in 1953 and the Illinois bar in 1955, Mr. Neal joined his father, Earl James Neal, in practice at Neal & Neal after Army service.
Appointed assistant Chicago corporation counsel in 1960, the younger Neal worked with the Bureau of Engineering and served as trial lawyer for the Land Acquisition Division and the Land Clearance Committee.
When his father became a Cook County Circuit Court judge in 1962, Mr. Neal took over the law practice. In 1968, the firm of Earl L. Neal & Associates was formed, and he continued his trial work for the city and other public bodies.
The firm name changed to Neal, Murdock & Leroy in 2003. Tracing its roots to 1938, it is one of the oldest minority-owned law firms in the United States. Mr. Neal's son, Langdon D. Neal, joined in 1981 and is chair of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
Earl Neal served on the University of Illinois Board of Trustees from 1971 to 1983 and became its president in 1975. He championed minority medical school recruitment and helped acquire land for the Chicago campus.
In 1975, Mayor Richard J. Daley picked Mr. Neal to chair the Chicago-Gary Regional Airport Authority. In 1982, Mayor Jane Byrne named him president of the Chicago Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. and a member of the city housing authority board.
Mr. Neal was honored in 2003 as an ISBA Senior Counsellor. He received the Chicago Bar Association's Earl Burrus Dickerson Award in 2000, also a Defender of Justice Award and a Robert S. Abbott Memorial Award. He was elected to the Cook County Bar Association Hall of Fame in 1997.
Survivors include his son and a daughter-in-law, Jeanette Sublett, of the law firm.
Immigrant persevered in law
The professional career of Rose Matelson Adelman of Skokie, whose Feb. 17 death came three weeks before her 96th birthday, "is a story of immigrant determination," said her daughter, retired Wilmette attorney Charlotte Adelman.
Born in Lithuania, Rose Adelman came to the United States at age 3 and lived for many years in Lincolnwood. She graduated in 1932 from the DePaul University College of Law and was discouraged by prospective employers who told her she should study shorthand and typing.
To gain practical legal experience, Mrs. Adelman volunteered with the Legal Aid Bureau for a year before opening her own office during the Depression. Her mother helped translate the problems of Polish clients.
Women she counseled often paid her with a knitted sweater or an embroidered dress, and once with a table lamp in the form of a nude female figure. Few men wanted the services of a woman lawyer.
During World War II, Mrs. Adelman was an attorney for the Social Security Administration until she lost her position to the two returning servicemen whose work she had handled.
Mrs. Adelman went back to school and earned a degree in education. She taught in Chicago public schools and was a union representative for her fellow teachers. She also became an accomplished artist.
In addition to Charlotte Adelman, a past president of the Women's Bar Association of Illinois, survivors include another daughter, retired attorney Lois A. Solomon, and Charlotte's husband, Bernard L. Schwartz, both of Wilmette.
Alexander Walter's gavels were bar dinner highlights
By Stephen Anderson
It became a tradition through many years for incoming presidents of large and small bar associations to receive oversize ceremonial gavels of office from suburban Chicago attorney Alexander O. Walter.
Although substantially retired from the practice of law since 1985 and legally blind, his presence at a local bar installation banquet, toting a huge gavel, seemed to make the occasion official.
Formerly of Indian Head Park, Mr. Walter died Feb. 8 at age 91 in his residence at the Beacon Hill Retirement Community in Lombard, where his wife died last year. He had suffered a broken hip in a fall.
A 1940 graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law, Mr. Walter was a Navy lieutenant and communications officer in the South Pacific during World War II. After a second torpedoing, he was transferred to shore duty in New Hebrides. He was both a prosecutor and defense counsel in courts martial.
After eight years of private practice, Mr. Walter became an assistant U.S. attorney in 1954 and was chief of the Civil Division. He resigned in 1956 to accept a nomination for circuit court judge but lost the election. He was an assistant state's attorney for a year before resuming private practice.
From 1961 to 1968, Mr. Walter was an assistant town attorney in Cicero, a master in chancery of Cicero Town Court, and clerk of the Town Court. He was an assistant Illinois attorney general from 1979 until his position in the Inheritance Tax Division was abolished in 1985.
Mr. Walter was a past president of the West Suburban Bar Association, the Czechoslovak League for Savings Institutions, the Berwyn-Cicero YMCA, the Brookfield Community Chest, the Lawndale-Crawford Community Council, Cicero Family Service, and Dialogue With the Blind, a publisher of recorded works.
He was a trustee of School District 95 in Brookfield and LaGrange Park, and trustee and counsel to Disabled Adult Residential Enterprises, promoting barrier-free housing for the handicapped.
Mr. Walter organized the G.I. Joe Post of Amvets and was its first commander and subsequently commander of the 1st District in Cook County. He was past state deputy inspector general of the VFW.
Former vice president of the Illinois Region of the Blinded Veterans Association, Mr. Walter performed more than 2,500 hours of pro bono work for hospitalized veterans at Hines Hospital and the Illinois Veterans Home in Manteno.
He was inducted in 1999 into the Hall of Fame of the Adventist Hospital Association, Midwest Region, for service to the community and veterans affairs.
William Banich
Associate Judge William R. Banich of LaSalle County in the 13th Circuit died Jan. 30 at age 53 of cancer. A 1976 graduate of the University of Oklahoma School of Law, he was admitted to the Illinois bar that year.
Mr. Banich practiced with Hollerich & Hurley, later Hollerich, Hurley & Banich, for 16 years before his appointment to the bench in 1993. He was LaSalle city attorney from 1977 to 1985 and LaSalle County attorney for many years.
Mr. Banich was a past president of the Illinois Valley Area Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Valley YMCA.
Samuel Barliant
Retired Chicago attorney Samuel Barliant died Feb. 22 at age 89 in Boca Raton, Fla. A 1936 graduate of The John Marshall Law School who had military service during World War II, he was the founder and president of Barliant and Co. He was past president of the Temple Beth Emet Men's Club.
Robert Best
Robert L. Best, an assistant McLean County state's attorney and past president of the Northwest Suburban Bar Association, died Feb. 21 at age 60 of pneumonia in his Bloomington home.
A 1969 graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law, Mr. Best served for seven years in the Army Reserve as a captain and staff judge advocate in the 85th Training Division.
A Cook County prosecutor for nine years, he formed the Arlington Heights firm of Robert L. Best Associates in 1978. He headed the bar association in 1990 and taught criminal law at Harper College in Palatine. He relocated to the Major Crimes Unit in McLean County four years ago.
Davis Carr
Chicago attorney Davis Duane Carr, senior vice president of claims legal for CNA Insurance Companies since 2002, died Feb. 5 of cancer. Formerly of Mobile, Ala., he graduated in 1979 from the University of Alabama Law School.
A past president of the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association, Mr. Carr practiced in Alabama for 20 years before becoming national litigation counsel for Combined Insurance Co. and senior litigation counsel for the Aon Corp.
A Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, he served on the faculty of the International Association of Defense Counsel Trial Academy in Boulder, Colo. He was a founding member of The Gathering Place Church in Highland Park.
Edward Collins
Retired attorney and legal publisher Edward Everett Collins Jr. of St. Charles died Jan. 25 at age 88. A 1941 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, he and his brother, James Collins, owned and operated their father's firm, Hine's Legal Directory, for 50 years.
C. Lyman Emerich
Retired international trademark and copyright lawyer C. Lyman Emerich of Evanston died Feb. 11 at age 93 of pneumonia in Evanston Hospital.
A member of Phi Beta Kappa who graduated in 1934 from the University of Illinois College of Law, he received a doctorate of philosophy from Exeter College of Oxford University in 1938 as a Rhodes Scholar.