Justice Bowman's private practice from 1959 to 1973 included eight years as a deputy public defender. He was DuPage County state's attorney from 1973 until 1976, when he was elected to the circuit court.
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Robert E. Byrne of Glen Ellyn was assigned to the Appellate Court in February 2001. A 1967 graduate of the Loyola University School of Law, he was appointed as associate judge of the 18th Circuit in 1986, and appointed to the circuit court in 1991 and elected in 1992. He was presiding judge of the Domestic Relations Division (1992-96) and the Chancery Division (1996-2001).
Past chair of the Illinois Judicial Conference Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution (1997-2000), Justice Byrne was responsible for establishing the 18th Circuit court-mandated arbitration program. He was president of the corporate board of Catholic Charities in the Joliet Diocese from 1998 to 2000.
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Thomas E. Callum of Wheaton, former chief judge of the 18th Circuit, was appointed to the Appellate Court in February 2001 after Robert R. Thomas was elected to the Supreme Court. His term will expire Dec. 1. A 1973 graduate of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, he had served six years of service in the Marine Corps, including combat duty in Vietnam.
An assistant DuPage County state's attorney from 1973 to 1980, with two years as deputy chief of the Criminal Division, Justice Callum was in private practice until 1986, when he was named an associate judge. He was appointed to the circuit court in 1994 and elected in 1996, and became chief judge in February 1999.
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Fred A. Geiger of Libertyville was appointed in February 2001 to an Appellate Court vacancy (when Lawrence D. Inglis retired) after 12 years on the court by assignment. His term will end Dec. 1. A 1968 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, he was an assistant Lake County public defender for two years. His subsequent 12 years in private practice included five years as assistant Waukegan corporation counsel.
Appointed an associate judge of the 19th Circuit in 1982, Justice Geiger was elected to the circuit court in 1984 and was elected chief judge in 1986. First assigned to the Appellate Court in 1989, he was presiding judge of the 2nd District in 1997-98.
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R. Peter Grometer of North Aurora was assigned to the Appellate Court last year after 16 years as a judge in the 16th Circuit. A 1973 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law after three years in the Army, he was in private practice in Aurora for 12 years.
An associate judge from 1985 to 1992, Justice Grometer became a circuit judge in 1992 and was chief judge from 1996 to 1998. He chaired the Illinois Judicial Conference Automation and Technology from 1997 to 1999. A former school board member, he is past president of Mental Health and Rehabilitation Inc. and a director of the Aurora Juvenile Protective Associations.
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Frederick J. Kapala of Rockford (photograph not available) was assigned to the Appellate Court on Dec. 1, 2001, after 19 years on the 17th Circuit bench. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and a 1976 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, he was an assistant Winnebago County state's attorney for two years before five years in private practice.
Appointed an associate judge in 1982, Justice Kapala was elected to the circuit court in 1994. He was presiding judge of Juvenile Court from 1989 to 1991 and became presiding judge of the Criminal Division in 1995.
Robert D. McLaren of Wheaton was elected to the Appellate Court in 1988 after seven years as a judge in the 18th Circuit. A 1969 graduate of the Drake University Law School, he was an assistant DuPage County state's attorney from 1970 to 1977 and was in private practice for four years.
Named an associate judge in 1981, Justice McLaren was elected to the circuit court in 1984. Proud of his Scottish heritage, he is well-known for wearing kilts and a brimless balmoral cap at special occasions.
John M. "Jack" O'Malley of Richmond was elected to the Appellate Court in 2000. A 1981 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School who also studied at the Cornell University Law School, he was a Chicago police officer while attending college and law school.
A former assistant Chicago corporation counsel and partner in Winston & Strawn, Justice O'Malley was elected Cook County state's attorney in 1990 and 1992. He became vice president and general counsel of G. E. Marquette Medical Systems in 1996.
Leaps of faith landed John Mauck in niche of church zoning lawsuits
The call of church zoning litigation has created an unusual practice niche for Chicago attorney John W. Mauck. In this article, Mauck tells how he started representing religious organizations in zoning cases, and how the practice has intrigued him.
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"How did you get into that?" I am often asked. I suppose when a lawyer has committed his life and practice to serving Jesus, and then spent a dozen years doing real estate transactions, it should not be a huge leap to end up handling zoning disputes for people of faith.
But still I was startled when Joe Zavagnin called me. "John, I am an elder at a growing church in Rockford," he began. "You do not know me or Family Christian Fellowship, but we need to sue Winnebago County over a zoning decision. God has shown us that you are to be our attorney."
How does the skeptical attorney-believer respond? A Jewish tradition directs the rabbi to rebuff a potential convert until the third request.
My response to Joe was, "I do not litigate, and I do not go to Rockford!" His reply: "That's OK. I will bring the pastor in tomorrow to explain the details."
Jack Morgan, a successful car dealer turned Pentecostal minister, was no less dissuaded by my limiting conditions. He even agreed to pay cash for my services!
"John, I agree God has called you to take this case," he said, "so even if you cannot try it yourself, you can find someone who will but you run the show!" Thus is a career directed.
The church had bought a 12-acre parcel of land previously used as a junior high, and planned to put a K-8 school there and worship in the gymnasium.
During a contentious five-day trial, in which upscale neighbors vituperated against this intrusion to their neighborhood, four of the five experts, including the county's land planner, agreed that the proposed use was appropriate.
I was surprised to hear an angry judge declare: "We're not going to allow 10-story prayer towers in Rockford!" (The congregation was loosely affiliated with Oral Roberts University, which has a 10-story prayer tower, but the congregation did not plan to build one.)
There had not been a whit of testimony about Oral Roberts or any tower during the trial. Thus was a litigator baptized into the reality that judges have fallen natures like us.
After winning the case on appeal in the 2nd District, I concluded that this was easy work. Like many lawyers, I became so enamored of my arguments and legal theories, simply because a court had agreed with some of them, that I concluded all my ideas must be right.
Consequently, when Pastor Marzell Gill of Love Church, a small African-American congregation, told me of the difficulty in leasing a meeting place in Evanston, I figured we could win in a snap.
The reasons cited by the pastor were that "landlords say we need to first get a zoning permit, and that takes too long. They will not hold the properties for us while we get the city to approve it."
The Evanston ordinance had not even one zone where churches were a permitted use a dead-bang free exercise violation! Furthermore, Evanston allowed meeting halls without a permit a clear equal protection violation!
We went to federal court to get an injunction against the city and found that Judge John Grady of the Northern District bench agreed with our equal protection argument. I was to find the 7th Circuit less amenable; the appeals court said the church lacked standing.
Out went the case, out went the fee under the U.S. Civil Rights Act for constitutional violation, and in came depression. "God, I am not taking anymore of these cases," I said. "Nobody appreciates me, and the pay is lousy!"
God waited a discreet year for my self pity to abate before sending me a client in Connecticut. Grace Community Church was not being allowed to construct a building for worship on a 13-acre site in the town of Bethel.
The name intrigued me, so I did some research. Beth El, "the house of God" in Hebrew. had been founded in 1759 when Ebenezer Hickok and others petitioned the General Assembly for a new Congregational Church parish.
They wanted to erect a building in Bethel so they wouldn't have to travel to Danbury and find that church overcrowded by the time they arrived. Two hundred years later, the "House of God" had different zoning an ordinance that would not allow churches anywhere except by special permit.
I was drawn back into the fray by the challenge of weighing in on the tectonic shifts of culture from one society, where faith was cherished, nurtured and protected, to one where the forces of secularism and unenlightened rationalism seemed to give adult uses more zoning freedom than religious assemblies.
The fact that Grace Community was solvent helped a lot. Working with local attorneys who did not share the world view that I had with my clients was sometimes a problem. Should I pray with them over aspects of the case? If so, when and how explicitly and fervently?
After we won the Grace case, clients seemed to tumble in. Towns and cities everywhere were tightening zoning restrictions. Churches were the "odd man out."
Residential areas were built up and would not accommodate, much less welcome, the waves of new congregations propelled by upwardly mobile groups from the inner city or immigrants from Korea, Mexico, India and other distant lands.
Neighborhood groups often accused our clients of being "commercial uses," which belonged in the business district. Of course the businesses labeled them insufficiently commercial, a drag on sales! Many a pastor was dismayed to hear me explain that the building they had scrimped to buy could not be used for worship.
But with the bad news has come much good. In 1996, I undertook to represent Living Word Outreach against Chicago Heights. Dr. Darlene Young, the pastor of this Pentecostal congregation, had led them to purchase a building that had been used as a Masonic Lodge for 40 years.
She assumed that getting a special-use permit would be like getting the municipal business license she had obtained a few years earlier fill out some forms and pay $25 never contemplating that Chicago Heights would deny the church permission to worship.
She really began to sense trouble when another Pentecostal pastor took her aside at a party and prophesied that her church would be going to the Supreme Court, and would win!
I just wish Dr. Young had told me about the prophecy. Although we won in the trial court, the Appellate Court ruled that zoning, per se, was a compelling interest that in essence trumped all our statutory and constitutional arguments.
It was only after that dark day when the 1st District ruled against us that Dr. Young told me about the "Word from God" which had been delivered to her several years earlier. Eventually the Illinois Supreme Court did take the case and order the issuance of a special-use permit for the church.
The lesson for me and perhaps other attorneys? Ultimately, I hope I have learned to be myself, not hiding my faith but not being so explicit that others would feel cornered when working with me.
God still speaks! Are you listening and wondering what he is saying? If he tells you to get into church zoning litigation, take a deep breath and ask, "Are you sure that was you speaking God?"
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John Mauck, a partner in Mauck & Baker, is the author of "Paul On Trial: The Book of Acts As a Defense of Christianity."
Justinian Society effort mentors future members
One of the most important functions of the ethnic bar, and its richest tradition, is the helping hand its members provide for new attorneys of similar heritage.
For example, the Justinian Society since 1921 has welcomed all new Italian-American members of the bar as family, not competitors. It even provides an organized mentoring structure that brings together veteran lawyers and law students who will benefit from the experience.
"The mentoring program is a great vehicle that will ensure the success of our organization by enabling these fine young lawyers to continue as Justinians when they enter the practice," said society President John G. Locallo of Amari & Locallo, Chicago, a member of the ISBA Assembly.
Locallo appointed fellow Assembly member Cristina Mungai of Morici, Figlioli & Associates to head the mentor program, and one of the results has been a sharp increase in the number of student members to more than 100 in law school chapters.
Mungai told Justinians during a meeting Jan. 17 that the goals of the program include helping law students to make informed academic decisions, offering them information about different practice areas, and inviting them to observe lawyers in practice situations.
"This formalizes the process and organizes our concern and commitment to act as a resource to these young lawyers as they begin their careers," Locallo said. "It gives the students a contact with the 'real law world.'"
For more information, or to volunteer as a mentor, call Mungai at (312) 372-9600.
Criminal law 'superstars' to discuss death penalty
Retired Cook County judge Sheila M. Murphy, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors and head of the Illinois Death Penalty Education Project, will be a panelist in the Chicago Bar Association program, "Superstars of Criminal Law."
A luncheon presentation on capital punishment issues, with pro and con discussions, will take place from 12 noon to 2 p.m. Monday, March 4, at the CBA building. Martin P. Moltz, deputy director of the Office of State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor, will be the moderator.
Other speakers include Cook County Criminal Division Judge Michael P. Toomin, chair of the Illinois Supreme Court Special Committee on Capital Cases; Cook County State's Attorney Richard A. Devine, and DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph E. Birkett.
Also Prof. Lawrence C. Marshall of the Northwestern University School of Law Center for Wrongful Convictions, Associate Prof. Andrea D. Lyon of the DePaul University College of Law Center for Justice in Criminal Cases, Prof. Timothy P. O'Neill of The John Marshall Law School and defense attorney William P. Murphy of Murphy, Peters & Davis, Chicago.
To register, call (312) 554-2056. The cost is $40 for CBA members and $50 for non-members in advance, and $10 additional at the door. A box lunch is included and will be available at 11:45 a.m.