The career path of Richard Steven Thomas came full circle, and began anew, when he was admitted to the Illinois bar on May 4.

What makes this particular swearing-in ceremony one for the Thomas family to remember – and may be a future trivia question in the annals of Illinois law – is that Rick Thomas took the oath from his brother, Chief Justice Robert R. Thomas of the Illinois Supreme Court.

Both brothers received juris doctorates 25 years earlier from the Loyola University School of Law. Neither brother's legal career followed traditional beginnings.

Bob Thomas attended law school during his professional football career as a place kicker for the Chicago Bears. Rick Thomas was diverted from the practice of law by the entertainment industry for a quarter-century.

In fact, Rick Thomas missed his law school graduation ceremony because he was performing on the road with Second City, the long-running improvisational comedy troupe.

Thomas credits his parents' personalities for shaping his theatrical presence while he was growing up in Rochester, N.Y.

“My mother is a very analytical and reasoned person who has always added a special creative flare to everything she does, from cooking to maintaining the home,” he explained.

“Although my father's focus was more with athletics and coaching soccer players and place kickers, he has always been a very funny, energetic and charismatic man whom I remember as the person telling jokes and role playing characters at family gatherings.”

Rick's first exposure to theater came when he performed in school plays at the all-male Jesuit high school he attended. In lieu of cheerleaders, he developed a comedic character who told jokes and spoke at pep rallies in support of the school's athletic programs.

In the fall of 1973 Thomas joined his older brother at Notre Dame, which he remembers as a magical place, and lived in Keenan Hall for four years.

As a resident assistant his senior year, Rick Thomas and his friend, Tom Lenz, established The Keenan Review Variety Show as a way to build unity among residents of the dormitory.

“The idea took on a life of its own,” Thomas said. “We were amazed by the amount of actual talent of those living in the dorm and the willingness of everyone else to be involved just for the fun of it.”

He organized a full orchestra, told jokes, did comedy sketches, and emceed the event, which continues to be an annual tradition at Notre Dame.

Thomas graduated with a degree in American studies and relocated to Chicago in the fall of 1977 to enroll at Loyola's law school. He remembers having no strong sense of commitment to law like the passion he has for it now.

While at Loyola, the Thomas brothers participated in some of the same study groups and, as they always have, served as sources of support and friendship for each other.

At the conclusion of his second year at Loyola, Rick Thomas took a semester off to study improvisation, and he performed with improv groups at area night clubs before joining Second City's touring company during his third year of legal studies.

In January 1981, Thomas received his juris doctorate. Instead of studying for the bar, he opted to follow his passion for performing.

“My choice to pursue the entertainment world might have appeared to be a very nontraditional professional route,” he said, “but the practices of law and improvisation really do feed into one another. Each professions demands spontaneity, intuition and a strong writing ability.”

Thomas relied heavily on the structure of his legal training at Loyola to better organize his ideas, develop his characters, and create logic in his comedic sketches.

For five years, he worked in a variety of capacities for Second City, and he also taught improvisational acting classes.

During that time, he taught many attorneys the art of improvisation and concluded that as a group, attorneys were funnier than many comedians he has known.

“Attorneys and improvisational actors have a commonality,” Thomas believes. “They both make connections with people, and they look at what is going on in the world in an effort to try to persuade people to think in a particular way.”

In 1985, Thomas left Second City and sought the limelight of New York City. For two years, he taught and directed, did standup comedy at the West Bank Café, and acted in film productions for pros like Woody Allen.

As he grew in the theatrical profession, he realized he was less interested in performing as entertainment and more interested in it as an art form. He began to regard his work as that of an artist, which he believes propelled him into his next phase of life.

Thomas went from being an entertainer to what he calls his Bohemian interlude – a time of self-exploration, writing and reading, and working, simply to survive.

By the age of 40, he decided to re-examine his Bohemian existence and delve into more lucrative opportunities. For the next 10 years, he was involved in marketing and sales of products and services to lawyers.

Thomas worked for Thompson Publishing and the New York Law Journal before moving back to Chicago to join Vocational Economics, a company that provided experts in the area of lost earning capacity.

He eventually worked for the Illinois attorney general's office, marketing gang-crime prevention centers and lobbying in Springfield.

The longer Thomas held this marketing capacity, the more he found the challenging facets and substance of the legal profession to be of interest. He mentioned to his brother his new desire to pursue a legal career.

Bob Thomas was utterly surprised, but supportive as always. He introduced his younger brother to Steven D. Pearson, a member of the executive committee at the Chicago firm of Meckler, Bulger & Tilson.

Rick Thomas joined the firm in July 2005 as a clerk, and he sat for the February 2006 bar exam, 25 years after graduating from law school. On March 1, he became an associate with the firm in the area of insurance coverage litigation.

“Throughout my life I have had the most fortunate opportunity to pursue my passions and parlay them into professions,” he said, “but I haven't been this excited about my work since becoming an actor.

“Becoming a lawyer is a new adventure that challenges every part of me to be successful. I am grateful to be able to forge a new path at this point in my professional life.”

In his pursuit of becoming an attorney, Thomas was impressed by the number of people willing to assist in a variety of ways. He realized that attorneys have unique opportunities to better the communities in which they live.

Rick Thomas plans to continue enjoying his favorite passions of reading, listening to music, movies, theater and museums, while immersing himself in every intricacy of the art of practicing law.

He also looks to the stability of his new profession to give him the ability to return the gracious support he has received by lending a helping hand to others.