Michel Coccia led ISBA, served on appeals bench
The first challenge that faced Michel Coccia in 1981 as president of the Illinois State Bar Association was a Chicago Service Tax that would have placed an unwarranted burden on the legal profession.
Calling it “a hastily drawn city ordinance” and a “crude attempt to evade” home rule restrictions that could have had statewide implications, Mr. Coccia led the opposition that resulted successfully in an Illinois Supreme Court opinion.
Michel Andre Coccia, who was ISBA president in 1981-82 and a retired justice of the Illinois Appellate Court, died Nov. 20 at age 86 in a nursing home in Phelps, Wis.
A 1951 graduate of The John Marshall Law School who was honored in 2001 as a Senior Counsellor, Mr. Coccia was one of the first members of Baker & McKenzie. He retired in 1988, at age 65, after chairing the executive committee and heading the litigation department.
Active in the ISBA since 1974, when he was elected to the Assembly, he was elected to the Board of Governors the following year and became third vice president in 1978.
Mr. Coccia served on the Special Committee on Chicago Site Selection that in 1980 established the state bar association’s first satellite office on Michigan Avenue.
As president he was co-chair of the Joint ISBA-CBA Committee on Judicial Compensation. After his term he chaired the Committee on Legislation and was a member of the Special Committee on Mediation and Arbitration.
In 1988, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed Mr. Coccia to the Appellate Court vacancy that resulted from the election of Michael A. Bilandic to the Supreme Court. He ran for the vacancy in 1990 but lost in the primary election.
He was reappointed to the Appellate Court in January 1991 but retired in August and moved permanently to his home on Smokey Lake in Michigan’s upper peninsula.
Mr. Coccia was a past president of the Society of Trial Lawyers and secretary-treasurer of the International Association of Insurance Counsel.
He was a Fellow of both the American College and International Academy of Trial Lawyers and a member of the International Society of Barristers.
He served on the board of Defense Research Institute and chaired its Products Liability Committee for six years. He chaired the Trial Practice Committee of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation and was a member of the Section of Insurance, Negligence and Compensation Law.
Mr. Coccia served on The John Marshall Law School Board of Trustees from 1978 to 1993 and was past president of its alumni association. He received a Distinguished Alumni Award in 1971.
Also a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology, he served on its board of trustees and was president of the alumni association. IIT honored him with an Award of Merit in 1974 and a Professional Achievement Award in 1977.
In addition to his law degree from John Marshall, Mr. Coccia held a docteur de l’Universite de Paris, France, an advanced law degree with honors. He served in the Navy during World War II.