November 2008

Champion of judicial values

By Stephen Anderson

“I value and guard my judicial independence.” That 2001 statement by Cook County Judge Edward R. Burr in a judicial evaluation questionnaire, sums up a distinguished career on the bench that ended with his retirement in 2006.

Although highly rated by bar associations in retention campaigns, Burr had little confidence in the elective system of seating the judiciary.

“Misrepresentation of the candidates’ qualifications and those of their opponents leads to public distrust of the individuals involved and of the judicial system,” he wrote in the same questionnaire.

He added, “Were judges to come to their offices other than by the elective process, perhaps some of these abuses would be eliminated.” That was consistent with his service on the national board of the American Judicature Society and related entities.

A 1958 graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law who will be honored Dec. 10 as an ISBA Senior Counselor, Burr has been an advocate of judicial participation in the legal education process.

An adjunct professor for several years at The John Marshall Law School and Chicago-Kent College of Law, he disagreed openly with a 1992 Illinois Supreme Court rule amendment that limited the time and compensation of judges who taught classes.

Showing his penchant for independence as a past chair of the Chicago Bar Association Development of the Law Committee, he engineered a subsequent amendment that provided for input from the bench, bar and public on future proposals.

As a judge, Burr was a judicial performance evaluation facilitator under Supreme Court Rule 58, and a mentor for new Cook County judges. Since retiring from the bench, he has been a neutral for ADR Systems of America.

Burr’s law career between 1958 and 1984 included work with three firms, a three-year stint as an assistant Chicago corporation counsel, and a solo practice. He was appointed an associate judge in 1984 and was elected to the circuit court in 1988.

Currently vice president of the Jewish Judges Association, of which he has been a member since its inception, Burr serves on the board of managers of the Decalogue Society. He received its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

In addition to membership on several CBA committees, he has performed in its annual Christmas Spirits show. He is a Fellow of the Illinois Bar Foundation.

Burr served for six years on the Judge Mary Heftel Hooton Memorial Building Fund committee, which enabled the establishment of a permanent Chicago home for the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois.