As chair of the Cook County Board's Judicial Advisory Council, beginning in 1991, Quinlan helped resolve a lawsuit against the Appellate Court by incarcerated indigent criminal defendants. Some of them served most of their sentences before appeals could be drafted and filed by court-appointed lawyers.
"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 made sure the recruits were trained to provide the best representation possible.
His tireless efforts helped not only the prisoners, but the legal system, the court and the state budget. The backlog was reduced significantly.
Quinlan was appointed in 1995 as ISBA's judicial liaison and given the task of explaining controversial court decisions and misperceptions about the judicial process to news reporters and editors.
"Judges are not, and should not be, above criticism," he said. "But in so many cases of judges being taken to task, the critics are looking only at an outcome and not at the process that may have dictated the decision."
Quinlan served on both the ISBA Board of Governors and the CBA Board of Managers. He chaired the ISBA Committee on Judicial Evaluations when it began to screen candidates for election and retention in Cook County for the first time.
He formed a Task Force on Judicial Elections that asked candidates to sign pledges that they would abide by certain rules of conduct, and he chaired the Access to Justice Advisory Board.
The Supreme Court has appointed Quinlan to its Committee on Character and Fitness, its Committee on Professional Responsibility and its Rules Committee. He was vice chair of the Special Committee on Protracted and Complex Litigation.
A 1964 cum laude graduate of the Loyola University School of Law, Quinlan received a master of laws degree in 1988 from the University of Virginia. His early law practice included being general counsel of the Chicago Urban Transportation District and the Chicago Building Commission.
A Stalwart Fellow of the Bar Foundation, he has served on the boards of Mundelein Seminary and the University of St. Mary on the Lake, the John H. Stroger Jr. Charitable Foundation and the law school. He is a past president of the Celtic Legal Society and the Irish Fellowship Club.
Statements in support of Quinlan's Laureate nomination included his attributes of "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 sums up a respected life in the law, at least so far. The story of Bill Quinlan's accomplishments and contributions is far from over.
Gala tickets available
For information about purchasing tickets to the Illinois Bar Foundation Gala, making financial contributions or placing advertisements in the program book, call (312) 726-6072.
Levels of support are Partner at $10,000, Benefactor at $5,000, and Patron at $3,000. Each includes tables of 10. Individual tickets start at $300.
Payments for support levels and copy for program ads should be made by Friday, Sept. 30. Contributions in excess of the fair market value of $150 per ticket for dinner and entertainment are tax deductible.
Nominations are being accepted for distinguished Illinois attorneys who are eligible for induction as Laureates of the ISBA Academy of Illinois Lawyers next spring. The deadline is Thursday, Dec. 1.
A class of six Laureates will be selected from ISBA members who exemplify values, standards and ideals of the best of the legal profession. Candidates must have practiced law primarily in Illinois for at least 25 years. A Laureate may be selected posthumously within three years of his or her death.
Nominations must be by in writing and should contain full name and address of nominee, name of firm, location of practice, complete biographical information, a statement of reasons for nomination, name and address of nominator, and a limited number of written references (no more than 10 personal and 10 professional).
Nomination materials must be sent to Stephen Anderson, ISBA Academy of Illinois Lawyers, Suite 900, 20 S. Clark Street, Chicago, Ill. 60603.
The Academy was established in 1999 to celebrate excellence in the legal profession and to recognize lawyers throughout the state who maintain the highest professional standards and commitment to community service.
ISBA past presidents are not eligible, nor are sitting members of the judiciary, the ISBA Board of Governors or the Academy Board of Regents.
Oct. 19 lunch to honor137 Senior Counsellors
A class of 137 Senior Counsellors will be honored during a Chicago luncheon by the Illinois State Bar Association for 50 years of membership in good standing and service to the profession.
The presentations will take place Wednesday, Oct. 19, in Grand Ballrooms A and B on River Level II of the Westin River North Hotel. An 11:30 a.m. reception will precede the 12:15 luncheon and program. For reservations at $50 each, call JoAnn Hibbs, (800) 252-8908.
Strodel's career marked by legal, civic achievement
By Stephen Anderson
If Peoria trial lawyer Robert C. Strodel were to don a barrister's robe, such as that of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, it would bear gold stripes from his shoulder to his wrist.
A 2005 ISBA Senior Counsellor who graduated in 1955 from the University of Michigan Law School, Strodel may have as great an aggregate of professional and civic achievements as any member of the bar, past or present.
For starters, only four years out of law school, he was co-chair of Peoria's involvement in the Illinois Committee for Modern Courts, a civic effort to adopt a new judicial article for the Illinois Constitution. It failed, but was revived in 1962.
Strodel became Peoria area leader, making countless presentations and contributing about 1,000 hours of time. Peoria subsequently was one of only four counties that turned out a majority of more than two-thirds, and the judicial reform referendum passed statewide by 51 percent.
In 1970, he chaired both the Peoria County delegation to the 3rd District Illinois Supreme Court Nominating Convention and the County Associate Judge Nominating Convention.
As a result, Strodel began his activity with the ISBA as a member of the Committee to Implement New Judicial Article for Magistrate Courts. From 1961 to 1965, as a young lawyer, he had won three state bar Lincoln Awards for Legal Writing.
A Charter Fellow of the Illinois Bar Foundation, he has served on the Civil Practice and Procedure Section Council, the Committee on Professionalism and the Illinois Bar Journal Editorial Board, and participated in the first Allerton House Conference.
A six-term member of the Peoria County Bar Association board, Strodel chaired its annual Lincoln Memorial Banquets in 1995 and 1998, recruiting the first woman and first black to deliver the keynote address.
He created and chaired for six years the Peoria Bar's Explorer Scout Post, in which about 25 high school-age youths participated annually in legal education programs and field trips to courthouses. Several former participants now practice law in Peoria.
Voted the Outstanding Young Man in Peoria back in 1963, Strodel has never turned down an opportunity to better the community in which he has practiced for a half-century.
In 1975, he chaired the first city Campaign Ethics Board and later was appointed to the Commission on Human Relations. In 1998, he chaired and raised funds for a RiverFront Business Development Commission project to construct the Military Services Memorial Plaza that was dedicated May 30 that year.
Strodel has chaired Peoria's Cancer Crusade and Easter Seal Campaign and has served on the boards of the Crippled Children's Center and Symphony Orchestra. He was president of the Peoria Civic Ballet, an elementary school PTA and a homeowner's association.
Appointed in 1983 by Ronald Reagan to the Presidential Commission for the German-American Tricentennial, Strodel received the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit from the government of West Germany. From 1983 to 1993, he helped foster Japanese-American ties to commerce and industry in Peoria.
Professionally, Strodel has served on boards of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. He is a Life Fellow of the Roscoe Pound Institute, a trustee of the Melvin M. Belli Society and a Diplomate by invitation of three litigation-related boards.
In 1984, Strodel was a founding sponsor of the National Civil Justice Foundation, an affiliate of ATLA. He became a trustee in 1996 and served terms as president in 1998 and 1999.
During the foundation's annual Breakfast of Champions in Chicago in July 2000, chaired by Strodel, he presented awards to House Speaker Michael J. Madigan and Chicago attorney Joseph A. Power Jr. and arranged for Erin Brockovich to speak.
Dedication of Richard Thies continues to be recognized
By Stephen Anderson
Urbana attorney Richard L. Thies this year is enduring a humbling embarrassment of riches in terms of recognition by his colleagues of the Illinois bar.
A past president of the ISBA, Thies became a rare recipient of the ISBA Medal of Merit during the Annual Meeting in June. Last month, he was honored by the Illinois delegation to the American Bar Association House of Delegates for 11 years of service (see photo on page 6).
And next month, he will be one of 137 ISBA members honored as a Senior Counsellor for 50 years of service to the profession.
A statesman of the Illinois bar, Thies has always emphasized "the need for each of us to commit ourselves to the noble causes of our profession with the highest standards of integrity and ethics."
Eleven other past presidents signed his nomination for the Medal of Merit, noting that "His efforts have honored both himself and our profession and have set a remarkable standard for emulation."
Thies ran for state delegate to the ABA House in 1994 and won by an astounding margin of 2,179 to 977. He concluded his tenure as state delegate and chair of the ABA Senior Lawyers Division during the recent annual meeting in Chicago. He also has served on the ABA board, and chaired the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation.
As ISBA president, Thies appointed Special Committees on Professionalism, on Mandatory Continuing Legal Education, on Minority Participation, and on Selection of Judges by Appointment, and a Task Force on Lawyers Liability Insurance that led to formation of the ISBA Mutual Insurance Co.
He conducted the first joint meeting of the ISBA and Illinois Judges Association, and began requiring every section council and committee to hold organizational sessions during the Annual Meeting.
The Thies legend is being carried on by two sons who are partners in Webber & Thies. They are David C. Thies and ISBA Secretary John E. Thies, who has served on the Board of Governors and Assembly for several years.
Rockford's first full-time U.S judge was bar leader
By Stephen Anderson
As fate may have it, the chronologies of the 50-year legal career of Stanley J. Roszkowski and the five-year quest for funds to build a new federal courthouse in Rockford may intersect this fall.
Roszkowski, a retired federal judge who presided in the present courthouse for almost two decades, will become an ISBA Senior Counsellor this year. The class of 50-year members will be honored Oct. 19 during a luncheon in Chicago.
U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin announced in late July that he was able to earmark $50 million for the Rockford project in a bill that, if approved by the Appropriations Committee, may come before the full Senate in September.
First proposed in 2000, the project received $4.9 million in 2001 for site acquisition and design development. An additional $2 million was allocated in 2003 for demolition at the site that is bordered by Court, Church, Chestnut and Cedar Streets.
Because the courthouse on Court Street, built in 1977, has space and security limitations, the replacement project has moved steadily up the list that is reviewed each year by the U.S. Judicial Conference.
Roszkowski, a 1954 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law who was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1955, practiced with the Rockford firm of Knight, Ingrassia & Roszkowski for eight years.
He was senior partner in Roszkowski, Paddock, McGreevy & Johnson from 1964 until 1977 and president of the Winnebago County Bar Association when he succeeded Richard McLaren as a judge of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The Western Division courthouse opened in 1978, but Roszkowski continued to commute to Chicago. In the early 1980s, he became the first federal judge to work full-time in Rockford, and in 1985 was permanently assigned there.
When Roszkowski took senior status in 1991, his vacancy was filled by Wayne Andersen, who has served since then in Chicago. In 1992, a 22nd federal judgeship was established, and that seat was filled by Philip G. Reinhard of Rockford.
When Roszkowski left the federal bench in 1998 after 21 years, he had served on the board of the Federal Judges Association since 1989.
In his earlier years, he was a member of the Illinois Capital Development Board and chair of the Rockford Board of Fire and Police Commissioners. He also chaired the Professional Men's Division of the United Fund and served on the School of Hope board.
James Ahern hailed as dean of traffic law, DUI defense
By Stephen Anderson
James J. Ahern Sr. (right) was co-editor of the ISBA Traffic Laws and Courts Section newsletter until June 2003. You couldn't have found a better qualified practitioner for the task, although he may give some deference to his law partner, Edward M. Maloney, who has succeeded him.
Ahern chaired the Traffic Laws and Courts Section Council twice in 1979-80 and in 1987-88 and he received a Board of Governors Award in 1992 for an impressive record of writing, lecturing, monitoring legislation and organizing educational programs about traffic law for ISBA members.
When he was inducted as a Laureate of the ISBA Academy of Lawyers in 2001, Ahern was described as "the dean of traffic law who literally wrote the book on DUI defense."
A partner in the Skokie firm of Ahern, Maloney & Moran, he will be honored next month as an ISBA Senior Counsellor. He graduated in 1954 from the Loyola University School of Law, while he was a Chicago police officer, and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1955.
Ahern's other areas of service include membership on the ISBA Assembly and Chicago Bar Association Board of Managers, and chairmanship of the CBA Traffic Court Committee and Judicial Evaluation Committee.
He has served on the National Safety Council Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs, and the DUI Advisory Council for the Division of Traffic Safety of the Illinois Department of Transportation. He was a member of the Illinois Traffic Court Conference executive committee for more than 20 years.
Ahern has served on the Illinois Supreme Court Committee for Judicial Performance. He has been a Lawyers' Assistance Program intervenor, an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association and a participant in the New Trier High School DUI Program.