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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 2004
OAK PARK LAWYER BEGINS TERM AS
PRESIDENT-ELECT OF ILLINOIS STATE BAR ASSOCIATION

 

Robert K. Downs, of Oak Park, was installed as president-elect of the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) at the organization's Annual Meeting held recently at The Abbey Resort, in Fontana, Wis.

Downs was elected third vice president in 2002 and held the office of second vice president the following year. He will become president in June 2005.

The 30,000-member organization, with offices in Springfield and Chicago, provides professional services to Illinois lawyers, and education and services to the public.

A partner with his wife Barbara in the Oak Park law firm of Downs Law Offices, P.C., where he concentrates in family law, mediation and collaborative law, Downs devotes much time to volunteer work helping families and children.

Long active in the ISBA, Downs was initially elected to the Board of Governors in 1996 and re-elected in 1999. The 25-member board directs the activities of the statewide organization. During his pre-presidency year, he will be chairing a special ISBA Task Force on bar minority participation.

He was a member of the ISBA Task Force on attorneys for minor children which drafted a new child representative law, and chaired the Special Committee for Child Representative Training. He chaired the ISBA Family Law Section Council in 1998 as well as a special committee which launched the "Partners Pre-Marriage Counseling Program" in Illinois high schools. He also instituted the volunteer attorney Alternative Dispute Resolution facilitation program in the Domestic Relations Division of Cook County.

Downs was one of only four recipients nationwide of the 1995 American Bar Association Family Law Pro Bono Services Award. Other awards and recognitions he has received are from the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Grinnell College's highest "Distinguished Alumni" award (1998). Last year, Downs was selected by the Leading Lawyers Network as one of the top 5 percent of Illinois attorneys in family law. He is a member of both the Board of Visitors of Northern Illinois University College of Law and the Leading Lawyers Network, a division of Law Bulletin Publishing Company.

Downs received his bachelor's degree from Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Ia., in 1956, and has a J.D. degree from Stetson University College of Law, in St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1965. He is also a member of the Florida Bar.