Born in a humble village in the north tip of the smallest Scandinavian country, Peer Pedersen (right) is one of the grandest members of Chicago's large legal community.

The founder 50 years ago of the law firm that became Pedersen & Houpt in 1963, Pedersen will receive the Illinois Bar Foundation's highest honor next month.

The Distinguished Award for Excellence will be bestowed on him during the annual Foundation Gala on Friday, Oct. 19, at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Emigrating from Vraa, Denmark, at the age of one, Pedersen has lived in Chicago for 82 years, and has devoted boundless energy and countless hours to many of the city's civic institutions.

A veteran of Navy service during World War II, he graduated in 1948 from the University of Illinois College of Law, was admitted to the bar in January 1949, and began practicing with Arrington & Healy.

Pedersen established his own firm in 1957 and was joined six years later by a law school classmate, Richard Houpt.

Loyalty to his law school has led Pedersen to serve as president of its Board of Visitors, join the President's Council and the John E. Cribbet Society, and agree to chair two fund campaigns.

His first was in 1986, when he volunteered to take over a capital campaign to expand and improve the law school facilities after national chair Albert Jenner, a past president of the ISBA, suffered a stroke.

He and his wife, Sarah, subsequently contributed $750,000 to the campaign, one of the largest gifts the school had received. The Peer and Sarah Pedersen Pavilion, an atrium entry hall, was dedicated in their honor in September 1994.

Peer Pedersen also chaired the Centennial Campaign and has contributed outright and deferred gifts that endowed a faculty chair and professorship. He is a co-chair of the current Agenda for Excellence Campaign.

President of the Robert R. McCormick Boys and Girls Club and vice chair of Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago, her serves on the boards of Children's Memorial Hospital and Foundation, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Lyric Opera.

An acknowledged leader in the business community, Pedersen has represented commercial clients in myriad domestic and international transactions and has been a member of several corporate boards.

In 2004, he received the William E. Winter Award for Outstanding Advocate Leadership from the University of Illinois. He also received an American Heritage Award from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.

A major adjunct to the ongoing Illinois Bar Foundation mission of funding law-related programs that sustain and enhance the ideals of the profession, the annual Gala helps enable the charitable distribution of about $350,000 annually in grants.

This year's black-tie Gala on Friday, Oct. 19, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago is chaired by ISBA past president Terrence J. Lavin and Robert E. Clifford. The foundation board's Gala chair is John G. Locallo.

Highlights include live and silent auctions, reception, dinner and dancing. Call (312) 726-6072 for complete details of the program, reservations and sponsorship opportunities.

Russell W. Hartigan, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors, and Assembly member Kevin E. O'Reilly are co-chairs of the program book project.