Lawyer loses House election

Chicago attorney Aurora N. Abella-Austriaco, a member of the ISBA Real Estate Law Section Council, lost her bid last month to become the first Asian American member of the Illinois House of Representatives.

A Park Ridge Democrat, Abella-Austriaco came up short in a tough election campaign against an entrenched Republican incumbent in the northwest suburban 65th District.

A 1990 graduate of the DePaul University College of Law, Abella-Austriaco is of counsel to the Chicago firm of Peck, Bloom, Austriaco & Koenig and secretary of the Chicago Bar Association.

A past president of the Illinois Real Estate Lawyers Association, Abella-Austriaco was corporate counsel and managing attorney of Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund’s Indiana operations before joining her firm.

She is vice president of the Center for Conflict Resolution, chair of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Asian Advisory Council, and a commissioner of the county Human Rights Commission.

A founding member of the Filipino American Bar Association and a past president of the Asian American Institute, she is a member of the American Bar Association Committee on Lawyers’ Title Guaranty Funds and chair of the House of Delegates tellers committee.