Blog — Around the water cooler

Each week I will highlight a different case or legal happening, and solicit your thoughts on the impact of it in the legal community. The Loyola University Chicago School of Law received four gifts and donations toward new chairs and educational advancements for the school. They are:

• Bernard J. Beazley, a 1950 graduate of Loyola’s School of Law and a Loyola Board of Trustee member, made a $2 million gift to fund a fully endowed chair in children’s law. In honor of his wife, the new chair will be named the A. Kathleen Beazley Chair in Child Law.
• Three partners at the Chicago law firm of Cooney & Conway and School of Law alumni, John D. Cooney (JD ‘79), Robert J. Cooney Jr. (JD ‘78), and Kevin J. Conway (JD ‘76), donated $1.5 million for the establishment of the new Cooney & Conway Chair in Advocacy at the School of Law, coming in 2009.
• The School of Law’s Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies received a $1.5 million Cy Pres Award in connection with the settlement of a Tennessee state court class action suit involving price fixing claims. Funds from the award will support conferences, academic symposia, and establish new research initiatives at Loyola University Chicago that deal with competition law, consumer protection, and complex litigation.
• The School of Law was honored with a $500,000 gift from law alumna Randy Lamm Berlin (JD ‘91), and her husband, Melvin, to establish the Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Clinical Professor of Business Law, which will be filled by Joseph L. Stone, director of Loyola’s Business Law Center Clinic.

Bernard Beazley said he and his wife endowed the chair in children’s law because they raised nine children, and children are an important part of their lives.

He said his wife has “been lingering on the edge of life and death for months” as she battles Alzheimer’s disease and complications from a couple strokes. He wanted to endow the chair in her name since she’s been so involved with children her whole life.

They donated $5 million in 2006, which resulted in the Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy.

“I’ve always felt a sense of obligation to Loyola, and the law school in particular, because of the educational foundation they provided me after I got out of World War II service,” Beazley said. “That educational base was what made it possible for me to engage in corporate law work.”

John D. Cooney, Robert J. Cooney Jr., and Kevin J. Conway of Cooney & Conway all graduated from Loyola’s law school and wanted to support the school that helped them become lawyers.

“We have always felt that Loyola University’s law school has one of the top trial programs in the United States,” said Kevin Conway. “We all have gone through that program and it’s our intention to assist the law school in an effort to become the premier advocacy center in the United States.

“We think it is our duty to help them because they helped us. I also think it is a good thing to help future students become great advocates.”