Epilogue

Retired Cook County associate judge Mitchell Leikin, a past president of the North Suburban Bar Association who began his legal career in 1948 with the Legal Aid Society, died July 12 at age 85 of prostate cancer in Glenbrook Hospital. He was a Northbrook resident.

A veteran of Navy service in the Pacific during World War II, Mr. Leikin continued to serve in the Naval Reserve. He presided at court martial trials and was a liaison officer to Congress. He retired in 1993 as a commander.

A 1949 graduate of the DePaul University College of Law, he practiced with Rudnick & Wolfe and Leikin & Wigoda, and was a special assistant Illinois attorney general and special counsel to the Cook County Board president.

Mr. Leikin also was legal counsel to the Illinois Optometric Association and the Screen Process Printers Association. He chaired the Skokie Zoning Commission and Refuse Commission, and was commander of an American Legion post. He served in 1971-72 as the sixth president of the North Suburban Bar.

Appointed an associate judge in 1980, Mr. Leikin served in several divisions. He retired twice, but was recalled, and finally left the bench in 2000.

Chicago attorney John Charles Armbrister, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Beitler Real Estate Corp., died July 6 at age 63 of cancer in his Streamwood home.

A 1968 graduate of the Washington University Law School after Navy service in the Vietnam War, Mr. Armbrister practiced in Missouri before relocating to Chicago and being admitted to the Illinois bar in 1978.

Named general counsel and secretary of Bell & Howell in 1981, he later was vice president and general counsel of AM International and corporate counsel of Florists' Transworld Delivery.

Retired Joliet attorney Terry Glen Beaudry, former president of the Trust Division of First Midwest Bank, died May 20 at age 58 after a heart attack.

An aspiring writer, Mr. Beaudry devoted his last year to finishing two books, a humorous anthology about his family and a murder mystery.

Additional information has been received about Morrison attorney William Allan Burch, whose death on July 1 at age 58 was reported in the July issue of the ISBA Bar News.

A 1975 graduate of the Washington University Law School, Mr. Burch began practicing with Bull, Ludens & Potter and also was an assistant public defender. He was a name partner in Luden, Potter, Burch & Melton when he died in a Davenport, Iowa, medical center.

A past president of the Whiteside County Bar Association and Morrison Rotary Club, he served on the boards of Smith Trust and Savings Bank, Self Help Enterprises, the Morrison Education Foundation and Mount St. Clair Foundation.

Chicago attorney Stephen Richard Chesler, of counsel to Arnstein & Lehr, died July 30 at age 67 in his Elizabeth home. He was a 1966 graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law.

Mr. Chesler was an assistant public defender before joining Pearlman & Hecht, later Hecht, Chesler & Weiss. He also practiced with Gottlieb & Schwartz, Schwartz & Freeman, and Michael Best & Friedrich.

Robert M. Didrick, former senior patent attorney for Morton Thiokol in Chicago, died July 14 at age 77 in his Elmhurst home. He was not admitted to the Illinois bar.

After Army service during the Korean War, Mr. Didrick received a master's degree in chemistry from John Carroll University in Cleveland and a law degree from the former John Marshall Law School there (now Cleveland Marshall).

Evanston attorney Ronald Alfred Drumke, former with Pyes & Cherin, Chicago, died July 29 at age 66. He was a 1966 graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law.

Mr. Drumke was a trial and real estate attorney for more than 40 years and a past chair of the Chicago Bar Association Tort Litigation Committee. He also played the saxophone and was a member of the Chicago Federation of Musicians.

Survivors include a son, Michael W. Drumke of Schiff Hardin, Chicago.

Carl H. Gorr, a 1955 graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law who was not registered to practice, died July 6 at age 74.

President of Carl Gorr Printing Co., later Carl H. Gorr Graphics, he moved to Phoenix, Ariz., in 1996 and established Gorr Real Estate.

Retired attorney Richard Bernard Harty of Palos Park died July 28 at age 83 of respiratory problems. A 1950 graduate of the DePaul University College of Law, he had a criminal defense practice in Chicago until two years ago.

A Navy sonar officer in the Pacific during World War II, Mr. Harty saw the Japanese surrender at Wake Island in 1945.

A founder and former partner of the Brentwood Healthcare Center in Burbank, he was a partner in Rolling Acres Stables in Oak Forest in the 1960s before the property became the George Dunne National Golf Course.

Retired Chicago attorney Ronald A. Jacks died July 6 at age 71 of pancreatic cancer in Auckland, New Zealand. A yachtsman, he had returned four days earlier from a trip to the Fiji Islands that he had promised his wife.

An honors graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, Mr. Jacks was a special assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy before becoming the founding president of the Reinsurance Association of American in 1968.

He relocated to Chicago as general counsel of CNA Insurance and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1976. He joined Mayer, Brown & Platt in 1979 as head of its international insurance team and retired in 1997.

Mr. Jacks was a past president of the United States chapter of the International Association of Insurance Law and former chair of the American Bar Association Committee on International Insurance and Reinsurance Law.

He had a home in Annapolis, Md., and a 70-acre farm in Matapouri, New Zealand, was a member of yacht clubs around the globe and competed in sailing contests in the Atlantic and on Lake Michigan.

John Jarrett, a 1978 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, died June 9 at age 56 in Houston, where he was an administrative law judge for the Office of Hearings and Appeals for the Social Security Administration.

After law school, Mr. Jarrett practiced in Kankakee and in Will County before moving to Atlanta, Ga., as a litigator with the U.S. Department of Human Services and a special assistant U.S. attorney in Georgia and Kentucky.

Jerome Johnson, a 1935 graduate of the DePaul University College of Law, died July 18 at age 95 in a Rockland County, N.Y., hospital after a fall in his Monsey apartment.

He practiced law with a son, Ron Johnson, from his room in an assisted-living facility and prepared several documents on the day before he died.

Mr. Johnson's Chicago practice was interrupted by Navy service as a lieutenant junior grade in the Philippines and Australia during World War II. He opened a real estate practice in New York in the 1950s and named it Johnson, Johnson & Tanz after his son and married daughter graduated from law school.

On their 50th wedding anniversary in 1985, Mr. Johnson and his wife established a law scholarship at DePaul that has awarded $1.5 million in the past 20 years to students with financial needs.

Thomas Edward Mullally of Wheaton, a 2001 graduate of the DePaul University College of Law who also had a master's degree from the university, died June 4 at age 52.

A human resources manager for Illinois Tool Works in Lake Zurich for the past 20 years, Mr. Mullally taught at the Heller School of Business at Roosevelt University.

California attorney Herbert Jacob Patt, a 1958 graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law, died June 2 at age 72 in Orange County, where he practiced in Laguna Niguel.

Mr. Patt lived in South Africa from 1960 to 1982, but was an automotive industry executive because he refused to prac---tice law where apartheid existed. He moved to California and was admitted to the bar in 1982.

Craig Phelps, a Chapter 13 trustee for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago from the 1960s until 1999, died July 5 at age 86 of pneumonia in Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He was a past president of the National Association of Chapter 13 Trustees.

Mr. Phelps was not a lawyer. He served in the Navy during World War II and had an insurance business before becoming a full-time bankruptcy trustee.

Ansil Denison “Cotton” Weaver, a Chicago personal injury attorney, died June 21 at age 78 of renal cell carcinoma in his Darien home. He was a 1955 graduate of the Chicago-Kent College of Law.

A yachtsman, Mr. Weaver did legal work for the Chicago Yacht Club and competed in several Mackinac races aboard his boat, “Rubaiyat.”

Corporate attorney Jack William Whitley, a past chair of the Chicago chapter of the Federal Communications Bar Association, died June 26 at age 54 of colon cancer. He was a resident of Kildeer.

A 1979 graduate of the Drake University Law School, Mr. Whitley had master's degrees in taxation from the Georgetown University Law Center and in mass communications from Illinois State University.

He worked for the Federal Communications Commission and the Cellular Communications Industry Association in Washington, D.C., in addition to three law firms.

In Chicago, he worked for U.S. Cellular, Aerial Communications, Northpoint Communications, AT&T, and Motorola. He was a founder and president since 1986 of Staradio, which has stations in Kankakee, Quincy and Hannibal, Mo.

Former Chicago attorney John Joseph Witous died July 7 at age 85 in his Springfield home. He graduated in 1950 from the University of Notre Dame Law School after Army service in the Philippines during World War II and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1951.

Mr. Witous joined and later was a partner in the Chicago firm that became Clausen, Miller, Gorman, Caffrey & Witous. He was a member of the Society of Trial Lawyers and the Federation of Insurance and Corporate Counsel.

After he retired from the firm he practiced with George J. Witous and Daniel W. Witous in Oak Lawn.