By Stephen Anderson

In the game of tennis, it is not unusual for a pair of competitors to respect each other's talents enough to form an unbeatable doubles team.

It can happen in the law, too, and did just that some 25 years ago for Donald C. Schiller and Joseph N. DuCanto. Merging their innovative approaches to booming divorce practices, they formed Schiller & DuCanto on Feb. 1, 1981.

The union was facilitated by a mutual friend, David Linn, a family law practitioner who had become a jurist. During the next year, the founding partners were joined by Charles J. Fleck after he stepped down as presiding judge of the Cook County Domestic Relations Division.

A quarter-century later, having grown in size and acclaim as the premier matrimonial law firm in the country, Schiller, DuCanto & Fleck is celebrating the milestone this month with a festive family weekend in Oak Brook for its three dozen partners and associates.

The anniversary is doubly gratifying for Schiller, who has received rare professional recognition recently. Leading Lawyers Network ranked him number five on its list of Top Ten Lawyers in Illinois in All Areas of Law.

He also made the top-ten list of Illinois Super Lawyers, and saw partners DuCanto, Fleck and Arnold B. Stein join him in the state's Top 100.

Partner Karen Pinkert-Lieb made the list of Top 50 Leading Women Lawyers, and Benjamin S. Mackoff, who implemented the firm's mediation service when he retired from the bench, was named a Leading Lawyer in Alternative Dispute Resolution.

Partner Jennifer D. Kotz was named recently to the annual Law Bulletin Publish-ing Co. list of “40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty to Watch.”

That honor was earned in past years by firm members Pinkert-Lieb, Celia G. Gamrath, Anita M. Ventrelli and Meighan A. Harmon.

Unique team approach

By the time the firm was five years old, it had developed a unique team approach of handling a divorce case “vertically with input from departments within the firm,” Schiller said in 1986.

By applying dovetailed litigation and financial strategies, the firm could provide the best representation to people with the greatest risk. “Most of our cases are so sub---stantial that they warrant the team approach,” Schiller said.

The timing was perfect. The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (IMDMA) had revolutionized the practice in 1977, and no-fault divorce entered the picture in 1984.

Financial elements became more central to the marriage dissolution proceeding than accusations of grounds, and the status of this practice niche rose dramatically.

Schiller played important roles in the development of matrimonial practice. By 1981 he had chaired the ISBA Family Law Section, and comparable entities of the American Bar Association, Chicago Bar Association and Illinois Trial Lawyers Association.

He had served on the ISBA Board of Governors since 1977 and was on his way to election as third vice president in 1984 and installation as state bar president in 1987.

When Schiller termed off the board in 1983, he was succeeded by DuCanto, who had been president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Since then, DuCanto has been inducted as a Laureate of the ISBA Academy of Illinois Lawyers.

Many active in ISBA

The lineage of bar association participation carries on throughout Schiller, DuCanto & Fleck.

David H. Hopkins received a Board of Governors Award for his yeoman service as chair of the Family Law Section Council and the Task Force on Domestic Violence that rewrote the Illinois statute.

David A. King now serves on the Family Law Section Council, and Pinkert-Lieb is a past chair.

Gamrath is a member of the Board of Governors and the ISBA Mutual Insurance Co. board. She is a past chair of the Committee on Women and the Law and president of the Justinian Society.

Ventrelli has chaired the Committee on Minority and Women Participation and served on the Family Law Section Council. Harold G. Field, who is of counsel, served on the Board of Governors.

It all began 25 years ago after Don Schiller and Joe DuCanto, two successful divorce lawyers, complained separately to a judge that they needed help with their growing practices.

“Judge Linn observed that our strengths complemented each other's needs,” Schiller recalled, “and thought that together with a large base we could better afford to recruit the higher quality legal talent we both needed.”