CONTACT:CHRIS RUYS COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
Chris Ruys (312) 337-7746
E-mail: chris@chrisruys.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 2005
Springfield, IL - Robert K. Downs, a partner in the Chicago law firm of Downs Law Offices, P.C., was installed as the 128th president of the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) at the organization's Annual Meeting June 16-18 at The Abbey Resort, in Fontana, Wis.
The state's largest bar association with 30,000 members, the ISBA provides professional services to Illinois lawyers, and education and services to the public from offices in Springfield and Chicago.
During his term as president, Downs will appoint task forces to address critical areas in family law as well as core issues confronting society with respect to the juvenile justice system, access to justice, and public service by lawyers. Among Downs' major programs will be a solo and small firm conference to address the needs of the core membership of the ISBA ― the small firm practicing lawyer. He also plans to continue the ISBA's work to increase the diversity of the ISBA membership.
Elected ISBA third vice president in 2002, Downs moved up the organizational ladder to second and first vice president. He was elected to the ISBA Board of Governors in 1996 and re-elected in 1999. The 25-member board directs the operations and activities of the organization.
Downs was a member of the ISBA Task Force on Attorneys for Minor Children, which drafted a new child representative law, and he chaired the Special Committee for Child Representative Training. He instituted the volunteer attorney Alternative Dispute Resolution program in the Domestic Relations Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
In 1995, Downs was one of only four recipients to receive the American Bar Association's Family Law Pro Bono Services Award. He has also received awards from the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Downs and his wife Barbara, a partner in the firm, concentrate their practice in family law. Early in his career, Downs helped establish legal clinics in a program that became the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation, and he still devotes much of his time to volunteer work helping families and children. Downs was elected early in his career to the Illinois House of Representatives and served in the 79th General Assembly. He was chief sponsor of the historic Anti-Redlining legislation which led to national anti-discrimination legislation and the chief sponsor of the Illinois Alcoholism and Detoxification Treatment Act.
He received his bachelor's degree from Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Ia., in 1956, and has a J.D. from Stetson University College of Law, in St. Petersburg, Fla., which he received in 1965. He is also a member of the Florida Bar.