The Southern Illinois University School of Medicine has established a Theodore R. LeBlang Distinguished Lectureship in Law and Medicine in honor of the retired professor and chair of its Department of Medical Humanities.
LeBlang retired April 30 after 31 years at SIU. In May he was named Emeritus Professor of Law and Medicine at both the law school and medical school, and will continue lecturing and writing in addition to other professional endeavors.
Professor LeBlang's career has been a remarkable one, touching students and influencing the content of law and medicine curricula nationwide for more than three decades, said Dr. J. Kevin Dorsey, dean and provost of the medical school.
The LeBlang Lectureship will showcase nationally recognized commentators annually, on the Springfield campus, to address timely and important issues at the interface of law and medicine.
Former director of the SIU's Program of Law and Medicine and founder of the six-year M.D./J.D. dual degree curriculum, LeBlang received a Golden Apple Award for teaching excellence in 2000. He was legal counsel to the School of Medicine from 1975 to 1992.
A 1974 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, he is a past president of the American College of Legal Medicine and editor emeritus of the Journal of Legal Medicine.
Editor-in-chief of the Illinois Bar Journal in 2000-02 and a current editorial board member, LeBlang was founding chair of the Bar Publications Board.
He has chaired the ISBA Health Care Law Section Council, the Committee on Con-tinuing Legal Education and the Committee on Interprofessional Cooperation, and he received an ISBA Board of Governors Award in 1995.
LeBlang is a member of the editorial boards of Illinois Child Welfare, the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, and Medicine and Law.
He is a co-author of Thomson/West's The Law of Medical Practice in Illinois (second edition) and a co-annotator of the Code of Medical Ethics: Current Opinions with Annotations, published by the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs.
LeBlang has chaired the Medicine and Law Committee of the ABA Section of Tort and Insurance Practice, and served on the Ethics Task Force of the National Board of Medical Examiners.
ISBA past president Herb Franks of Ma-rengo has received the inaugural Thomas Jefferson Award for Lifetime Achievement from the McHenry County Democratic Party. The award was presented by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the featured speaker, on June 17 during a dinner in Woodstock.
Franks, the senior partner in Franks, Gerkin & McKenna, is a past president of the Illinois Young Democrats and the founding president of the McHenry County Young Democrats.
Anita Ponder of Gardner, Carton & Douglas, Chicago, received a Woman of the Year Award from the Coalition for United Community Action on June 16 during its 34th annual Unity Testimonial Awards banquet.
Ponder is a director of Windows of Opportunity, a not-for-profit affiliate of the Chicago Housing Authority and the Chicago Area Public Affairs Group. She recently received a Sage Award from the Chicago Commission on Human Relations Advisory Council on Women.
ISBA Assembly member Joseph M. Gagliardo and Anthony J. Fornelli, a Laureate of the ISBA Academy of Illinois Lawyers, received Humanitarian of the Year Awards on June 24 from the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans. Both are past presidents of the Justinian Society.
Retired Supreme Court justice Seymour Simon of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary received the Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Mentoring Award on July 12 during the third annual My Hero Awards luncheon of the Judge Marovitz Lend-a-Hand Program.
James Michael True of the Office of Cook County Public Defender was named Mentor of the Year, and Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal received the Law Firm Program of the Year Award.
Making a Difference Awards were presented to the founders of Much, Shelist, Ament, Freed & Denenberg, and to James Dunn, deputy corporation counsel for the City of Chicago. John and Jennifer Valentine received the My Hero Award.
Thomas H. Morsch, a clinical associate professor at the Northwestern University School of Law and director of the Small Business Opportunity Center, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Legal Assistance Foundation of Greater Chicago on June 26 during its 40th anniversary Campaign for Justice luncheon.
A partner in Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood from 1972 to 2000, Morsch has been honored for pro bono work with a Cardinal Bernardin Award from the Chicago Legal Clinic and an Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Civil Rights Award.
He is a past president of the Public Interest Law Initiative, the Chicago Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Chicago Bar Foundation.
Richard M. Wheelock, the LAF Housing Law Project's supervisory attorney, received the inaugural Jerold S. Solovy Equal Justice Award at the luncheon.
Susan R. Kaplan, executive director of the Community Economic Development Law Project since 1985, received the Esther Rothstein Award from the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois during its annual reception June 2 in the ISBA Chicago Regional Office.
Amy Manning of McGuireWoods, Chicago, has been named a Woman of Achievement by the Chicago chapter of the National Organization of Women Business Owners.
Assistant U.S. Attorney T. Markus Funk of Chicago has received a Special Achievement Award from the Department of Justice in recognition of his work as a resident legal advisor during an 18-month tour of duty in Kosovo.
He also is the first employee of the Justice Department to receive a Superior Honor Award from the Department of State.
John W. Bell of Johnson & Bell, Chicago, was invited recently to become a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He joins his law partner, William V. Johnson, who has been an IATL Fellow since 1987.
Chicago attorney Paul M. Lisnek, who anchors a CNN Newsmakers program on Comcast, delivered the commencement address in May for the University of Illinois Department of Speech and Communication in Urbana.
He also gave keynote addresses recently in San Diego for the National Association for Law Placement, and in Chicago for the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education.
Members of a commission to plan commemoration in 2009 of the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth include attorneys Gary Johnson, president of the Chicago History Museum, and Jerry Blakemore, general counsel of Southern Illinois University.
Joseph S. Messer of Messer & Stilp, Chicago, has been appointed state compliance chair by the Members' Attorney Program Committee of ACA International, the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals.
Lawrence A. Wojcik, a litigation practice partner in DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, Chicago, has been elected chair of the 22-member Illinois CPA Society board.
George R. Ripplinger of Ripplinger & Zimmer, Belleville, has been elected board president of the Chicago-based Illinois Legal Aid Online, a grantee of the Illinois Bar Foundation.
ISBA Assembly member Lori G. Levin, executive director of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, has been appointed to the Chicago mayor's Domestic Violence Advocacy Coordinating Council.