Around the water cooler: Q & A with Marta Stein

Each week we will pose these three questions to different lawyers in the legal community.

This week we talk with Marta A. Stein, a partner and co-chair of the banking litigation group at McGuireWoods. She’s in both the business & securities litigation group, and the financial services group; and has been practicing for 20 years.

What do you find the most interesting about your practice?
The fact that I have the ability to combine being both a litigator and outside general counsel to corporations. I find it fascinating to learn about a client’s business and to be able to partner with their executives and/or in-house counsel to find beneficial business solutions for them, whether that be in court or drafting contracts to keep them out of court.

What makes a good lawyer?
It’s a combination of elements. First, as a threshold matter, you must start with intelligence and excellent legal skills. Next, you must combine the same with an understanding of and a true caring for the client and their business. It’s not enough that a lawyer can analyze a legal issue in a vacuum. You must be able to bring either the case or the contract from point A to point B in a cost-effective manner while meeting the business goals of the client.

What is the biggest legal news right now, and what is its impact?

The biggest legal news is what’s happening in the banking industry. While defaults on subprime loans get the majority of attention, the situation goes well beyond subprime.  The banks themselves are faced with losses from both consumer and commercial loan defaults, leading banks to tighten their credit lines to many of their consumer and commercial customers. The banks themselves are affected, but so too are the businesses that rely on those banks for financing and the employees who work for them. These realities then have legal implications along multiple practice lines as well as for the economy as a whole.

Around the water cooler: The dating world for lawyers

You’ve got your law degree, a snappy new condo, and a relatively new position at the law firm of your dreams doing the type of law that keeps you busy and happy.

What’s left?

It seems that with all the time and effort you put into building your legal career, you’ve neglected to put any time into finding a significant other. There’s just no time for dating, especially with the hours you keep during the week and sometimes on weekends.

PJ Osgood, director of It’s Just Lunch, a specialized dating service for professionals, said attorneys make up one of the largest groups the service sees.

Unlike other professionals who may be busy during certain points in their career, such as during a big project, attorneys tend to be busy all the time because of the billable hour, Osgood said.

About half the lawyers she works with do not mind dating another lawyer, and the other half absolutely do not want to date someone who also practices law, she said. But lawyers face an interesting situation because they are around lawyers all the time, and they definitely cannot date their clients, she said. Meeting people can be tough.

“People don’t get married out of college anymore,” Osgood said. “They leave law school and start at bigger firms, work a ton of hours, and dating is the very last thing they even look at.”

About 12 years ago, her lawyer clients used to be older, and came to the dating service after making partner, she said.

“What I’m seeing is a lot more attorneys are coming to me in their 20s and 30s because they realize that [life] is not so much about work, work, work. They do want to have a balance,” Osgood said.

Osgood advises her clients to look at dating like working out, the time must be built into a professional’s schedules. Even one hour a week can make a difference.

She encourages them to expand their social circle, and make sure they go into a date or social event with the right frame of mind. Look at it as an enjoyable situation, and not a task that must be completed. It helps to join groups that combine interests you already have, such as a running club.

“Don’t put so much pressure on yourself,” Osgood said.

Lawyers tend to make the mistake of quickly assessing and making a decision about a date right away as opposed to giving the person a little time, she said.

When one attorney goes on a date with another attorney, the conversation should not be entirely about the practice of law. Some clients have said that situation makes them feel like they were still at work, she said.

Also be open-minded and don’t treat a date as a deposition, she said.

“I really do find that when people take this proactive approach to dating life, just like their professional life, you are going to be happier all around,” she said. “There is enough time to date.”

It’s Just Lunch, which started in Chicago 17 years ago, arranges casual dates over lunch, brunch or drinks after work for busy professionals.

According to the dating service’s statistics, the number of single friends the average 27 year old has is 11; it typically takes 15 minutes for a man to determine whether or not he wants to see a woman again; 43 percent of singles have Googled someone on the Internet before their date; and Wednesday is typically the best day for a first date according to 41 percent of singles.

For more information about It’s Just Lunch visit //itsjustlunch.com/.

Climbing the Ladder: Why do we do it?

By Bill Oberts
Tribler Orpett & Meyer

The practice of law can be a rewarding, yet demanding, profession. I occasionally wake up in the middle of the night thinking of a task I need to complete, an angle on a case I want to investigate, or a deadline I need to meet. By the time I wake up in the morning, I have already forgotten the reason I woke up in the first place. I have now learned to keep a pad of paper and a pen at my bedside.

It is impossible to leave work at the office. You carry it around in your mental briefcase and it becomes a part of who you are. How many times have you pondered the details of a case on your commute home, during dinner, or in the shower? The practice of law becomes an integral part of your daily life.

So, why do we do it?

As attorneys with different backgrounds and varied practice areas, the answers are as diverse as we are as individuals. Some of us do it for the personal satisfaction of helping others, some of us do it out of pride, and some of us do it because we enjoy the camaraderie of the profession.

Each of us must answer that question daily to ensure that we perform at the top of our game, and continue to have a passion for the legal profession. Otherwise, you are just going through the motions, and your work product will reflect such.

I do it because I enjoy the art of debate and helping others solve their problems; hence, in my mind, either an attorney or a talk-show host was the natural career path. Until I receive a call from the networks, I will continue to practice law.

Practicing law requires not only knowledge of the law, but also knowledge of people. I learn something new almost each day, and my education does not come only from case law; but also from other attorneys.

I learn from attorneys I work with and also from attorneys I practice against. You will encounter many different personalities throughout your career. The trick is learning how to work with, and be civil to your opposing counsel, even when he or she is not civil to you. Remember, this will probably not be the only case you have with that attorney, especially if your practice is concentrated in a specific area.

I also enjoy the camaraderie among lawyers in general. Although we all may be adversarial before the bench, we can still get along outside of the courtroom. Throughout my years of practice, I have been fortunate enough to practice in both the public and private sector and have developed strong friendships from both areas of practice.

Bar association activities have provided me a great opportunity to network with attorneys throughout Chicago, the United States and even other countries. I recently went to a White Sox game with attorneys from Tokyo on their first visit Chicago. We enjoyed a beverage, cheered for the Sox (despite my being a Cubs fan), and discussed different aspects of our profession. I would not have met them if I were not an attorney.

It’s a great rush to present a case before a jury, argue a motion before a judge, or secure important admissions during a deposition. However, practicing law is not always as exciting as it may appear on ”Boston Legal” or ”Law & Order.” You never see anyone on those shows spending hours answering written discovery or abstracting depositions.

But that’s the beauty of the practice - one day you may be answering written discovery, another day you may be in trial or arguing before the appellate court. Each day we all perform different tasks that comprise the practice of law. The key is to take pride in your work and be satisfied with the product you produce.

There have been several articles published about attorneys’ dissatisfaction with the practice of law. I have spoken with attorneys who question whether they want to practice law for the rest of their lives. Some attorneys get burned out or are bored with the profession and want to change career paths.

When starting out, try to find a job in which you will receive personal satisfaction and you enjoy going to every day. I realize that’s easier said than done. However, I believe that many attorneys who are dissatisfied with the practice may actually be dissatisfied with the firm in which they practice as opposed to the practice in general.

As a young lawyer, make sure you find the right fit.

Many of us spend more time at work than we do with our families. Our employer becomes our second family. Therefore, make sure you are satisfied with where you practice, and do not let your employer affect your perception of the practice.

The rewards of practicing law are countless — it enriches your life, you form solid relationships, you gain personal satisfaction from helping others, you savor the victory from winning a trial, and you overcome challenges on a daily basis. This is why we all do it.

We love the thrill of it. Don’t lose your motivation to succeed in this profession by the day-to-day obstacles that we inevitably encounter. Plow through them one by one, and always remember why you are doing it.

Around the water cooler: Photographer Paul M. Lurie

Each week Chicago Lawyer will highlight a different case or legal happening, and solicit your thoughts on the impact of it in the legal community.

Schiff Hardin partner Paul M. Lurie will host a photography exhibition titled, “The Glories of the Door County Landscape,” from Sept. 6 to Oct. 13 at The Francis Hardy Center for the Arts in Ephraim, Wis.

Lurie has been business and legal counsel for major owners, developers, design, and construction firms for more than 40 years.

He said he’s been involved with cameras since high school, when he spent time on the yearbook and newspaper. In the last 10 years he’s become more serious about fine art photography, he said.

As a frequent Door County visitor for the last 25 years, he has become concerned about the preservation of the area’s buildings. That concern led to the creation of this exhibit, which he hopes will increase awareness of the importance of preserving the landscape.

“What I’m trying to do is tell people that the things you take for granted are significant parts of why you enjoy Door County,” he said. “Unless we do something to preserve those landscapes, then they are going to disappear over time.”

Lurie said he came across his photo subjects while driving, walking, and biking around the area. He wants those who view his photos to see how beautiful, yet fragile, the buildings and overall landscape can be.

“As a fine art photographer, I think I’m doing God’s work here,” he said. “I’m trying to make a point.”

Throughout his life he’s been involved in preservation. He is one of the founders of the Chicago Architectural Foundation, but his preservation efforts have most often involved urban buildings. Rural preservation is not always as obvious, he said.

His photography can be found throughout the Chicago area on display in such locations as hospitals and universities.

“I like the sharing aspect,” Lurie said about his photography. “I see something and I think it’s really beautiful and I can capture that beauty, more or less, and I can share it with others. And I enjoy that.”

The exhibit can be found at the Francis Hardy Center for the Arts, which is on the Anderson Dock at 9998 Pioneer Lane in downtown Ephraim, Wis. For more information on Lurie’s photography visit www.luriephoto.com. For more information about the gallery, visit www.thehardy.org or call (920) 854-2210.

– Olivia Clarke

Around the water cooler: George Overton Memorial Internship

Each week Chicago Lawyer will highlight a different case or legal happening, and solicit your thoughts on the impact of it in the legal community.

Wildman Harrold and the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) recently announced that Jennifer S. Marques is the 2008 recipient of the George Overton Memorial Internship. Marques is conducting her internship at Access Living, a non-residential Center for Independent Living for people with various types of disabilities. Based in Chicago, Access Living is a non-profit organization that offers services related to personal assistance, housing, civil rights and legal advocacy, and education and youth development.

The George Overton Memorial Internship, established by Wildman Harrold and the late Mrs. Jane Overton in 2004, is awarded to a member of PILI’s summer intern class who reflects the dedication and commitment to public interest law of George W. Overton, a founder and longtime board member of PILI and Wildman Harrold counsel who died in June 2004.

Tony Hopp, a partner at Wildman Harrold, said he’s happy that the memorial internship can help Marques, and considers it an excellent way to honor his deceased colleague.

“It’s a great feeling that we get to do this year after year,” he said. “It is a great way to keep George’s name alive.”

This fall, Marques will begin her third year at the University of Wisconsin School of Law. She earned her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Barry University in Miami.

PILI interns work on a wide range of legal issues in areas including civil rights, guardianship, immigration, asylum, domestic violence, environment, housing, family law, HIV/AIDS, public benefits, disability and employment law. Under the supervision of the host agencies’ staff attorneys, these interns bolster the services of nonprofits by providing thousands of hours of legal assistance to people of little means.

“The beauty of George is that he was involved in almost every conceivable type of public law,” said Susan J. Curry, executive director of PILI. “We believe at PILI that it’s critical to inspire a lifelong commitment to public interest law early on.”

Around the water cooler: Q & A with Sarah R. Wolff

Each week we will pose these three questions to different lawyers in the legal community.

This week we talk with Sarah R. Wolff, a partner and firm-wide practice group leader of securities litigation and enforcement at Reed Smith. She’s been practicing for almost 30 years.

– What do you find the most interesting about your practice?I am intrigued by the newly achieved global reach of my practice.  I was the head of Sachnoff & Weaver’s litigation department until we merged with Reed Smith in March 2007. I had always loved our litigation practice, which, of course, was part of a single-city law firm, but it was particularly exciting to experience the change of a greatly expanded geographic focus at this point in my career. Not all lawyers have that opportunity.

Today, as the chair of Reed Smith’s securities litigation and enforcement practice group, I never know when I will get a call from a partner in another Reed Smith office in the United States, London, or Hong Kong, affording me an opportunity to jump into an emergency, feet first. Our practice group runs the gamut from defending private securities fraud class actions and shareholder derivative suits to defending SEC informal and formal investigations. We have seen private securities litigation, SEC and DOJ regulation in securities matters, particularly the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, explode into cross-border litigation and regulation. As a result, both the type of matters and the venues I find myself in have expanded tremendously.

 – What makes a good lawyer?

There are some overused phrases that actually still have meaning. One of them is being able to think “outside the box.”  The best lawyers I know have what one of my partners calls “peripheral” vision. They can develop claims, anticipate defenses and are usually ready to throw it all over for a new, improved strategy when an opportunity or circumstance presents itself. At the same time, the best lawyers, whether in or out of the courtroom, have to be able to plow into the details and own the facts. They also have a sixth sense for what is in the client’s best interest.

I also think the best lawyers truly enjoy what they do and would not want to be doing anything else. I have always enjoyed the collaborative aspect of high-stakes litigation, from developing strategy with other litigators, whether in pre-trial or in trial, to working with my corporate colleagues and in-house counsel.

One of my “fondest” memories is of a hotly contested takeover and proxy contest where we represented the acquirer and, in the space of six months, went up to the 7th Circuit twice and eventually to the United States Supreme Court.  It was utterly exhausting and exhilarating, and I could never have done it without the kind of interdisciplinary team of lawyers we put together to tackle the various complex issues that arose throughout the case.

 – What is the biggest legal news, and what is its impact?

Obviously, the credit crisis is throwing off waves of complex litigation and keeping not only the regulators, but lawyers very busy as well. That said, one of the trends that likely will extend well beyond the subprime mess is the increased level of cooperation between the SEC and the DOJ in the United States, as well as with their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere.

These agencies have all stepped up their game to enforce anti-corruption laws and to force heightened corporate compliance and ethics programs within U.S. exchange-listed companies and foreign companies doing business abroad and in the U.S.  Internal cross-border investigations within global businesses, as well as governmental investigations, are increasing.

Transactional anti-corruption due diligence, pre- and post-acquisition, is even more essential today, and transactional and securities and white-collar litigation lawyers are working together closely with in-house counsel in this burgeoning area.  All of this activity has resulted in an increased number of securities fraud class actions in private securities litigation as well as governmental investigations. We expect this to continue into the foreseeable future.

Around the water cooler: Asylum for Iraqi refugee

Jenner & Block’s client, Ala Farid Atya, was an Iraqi National who worked for the U.S. military at Al-Asad Air Base in al-Anbar Province, Iraq in 2003. Beginning in 2005, Atya and his family began receiving written and oral threats from Iraqi militias and insurgent groups as a result of his collaboration with the U.S. military, according to Jenner.

Persecution escalated to include death threats, the bombing of his home during a Ramadan dinner, shooting at Atya and three of his coworkers, and a kidnapping of his father in 2006. In October 2006 the family fled Iraq in fear of their lives. At that time, Atya was engaged to a U.S. soldier from Nebraska.

Atya received his K-1 fiancé visa in December 2007, and flew to the U.S. to be with his fianceé. Upon arriving at O’Hare International Airport, Atya was notified that his fianceé no longer wanted to marry him, and he was accused of visa fraud and taken into custody.

At that time, Abraham Saiger, an associate at Jenner & Block, began representing Atya.

When commenting on the importance of this pro bono case, Saiger said, “I believe it’s important that Iraqis who are risking their lives by working with us need to know we are behind them.”

Saiger prepared an asylum application for the client and submitted a 44-page brief, an expert witness report, and other supporting documentation to the immigration court.

Saiger provided support from Eric Davis, a professor at Rutgers University, for the expert testimony. As a professor of political science with a focus on the Middle East and Iraq, Davis was able to provide background about the Shiite and Sunni struggle, and illustrate that the Iraq government was not able to control the militia groups that were attacking Atya; and if he returned to Iraq there would be reasonable fear that he would be attacked further, Saiger said.

Saiger demonstrated that Atya was carrying with him at the airport a letter written by a family friend congratulating him on his marriage. This evidence illustrated that Atya told his friends and family he was getting married, and believed he would reunite with his fianceé, and consequently had not committed any fraud, he said.

Also, Atya was told it was impossible for him to fly from Damascus directly to Nebraska, where his fianceé was, so he planned to fly through O’Hare. Accordingly, Saiger said he showed that Atya had hundreds of dollars with him while traveling — illustrating that he planned to fly to Nebraska, but was never allowed to pass Chicago where he was put in jail for several months.

At the hearing the judge ruled that no visa fraud had been shown, and granted Atya asylum.

“As a result of helping us in Iraq all sorts of terrible things happened to Mr. Atya,” Saiger said. “After surviving multiple attacks and kidnappings, he traveled to us legally and we locked him up and started getting ready to deport him. It just seemed we should be embracing people who are clearly our friends and allies and not slamming the door in their face, forcing them back into terrible conditions where there lives are clearly at risk.”

– Danielle Feinstein

Around the water cooler: Lifting weights for charity

Each week Chicago Lawyer will highlight a different case or legal happening, and solicit your thoughts on the impact of it in the legal community.

Daniel Cotter, vice president deputy general counsel at Argo Group U.S., Inc., is not your typical lawyer.

The typical lawyer cannot lift a weight comparable to a small car. But Cotter can.

For the past eight years, Cotter has participated in competitive power weightlifting.

Cotter started lifting weights as a hobby at age 13, when he would go to the gym with his dad. But he put the hobby on hold while studying at Monmouth College. After taking the suggestion of a colleague from college, Cotter started weightlifting again — this time competitively.

Cotter now competes, on average, twice a year, and can lift 1,500 pounds in a combined three lifts. When preparing for a competition, Cotter trains five days a week for an hour a day, and uses the weekends to rest.

Cotter became vice chair of the young lawyers division of the Chicago Bar Association in 2003. During that time, the young lawyers section was involved in WITS [Working In The Schools], a volunteer mentoring program.

Cotter said WITS “was always a difficult thing because a lot of lawyers don’t have the capacity to go off-site and tutor. And back then I had two young sons and wasn’t able to do it. I thought about it, and I was weightlifting anyways and could make a contribution to mentoring in that way.”

It was at this time that Cotter began using his competitive weightlifting to raise money for the Sun-Times Judge Marovitz Lawyers Lend-A-Hand to Youth Program, which was created by the CBA and the Chicago Bar Foundation.

It promotes one-on-one mentoring relationships, provides grants to one-on-one mentoring programs across the state, and recruits attorneys and judges to serve as mentors.

Cotter raises money each year through his competitive weightlifting to give to the Lend- A-Hand program. He sends e-mails to his friends and colleagues to remind them of the event, and they either pledge him a certain amount per pound that he lifts or give him a flat donation, Cotter said.

This year marks the sixth year that Cotter has raised money for Lend-A-Hand through competitive weightlifting, with an expected amount of around $26,000 to have been raised.

– Danielle Feinstein

Variety is the spice of life for higher education lawyers

By Olivia Clarke

After Priya Harjani graduated from law school she worked for a few years as a litigation associate at a mid-size firm.

During that time she represented Northwestern University, which was suing the city of Evanston over the constitutionality of a historic district. She worked the case up for four years, and on the verge of trial, it settled.

Northwestern liked working with Harjani, so when a position in its legal office opened up they asked her to apply. She became an assistant general counsel to the university in 2004, and then became an associate general counsel in 2007.

”One of the things I like about being in-house is, you get to know and understand your clients and the business,” Harjani said. ”As a general litigator in a law firm you get to know each client as you need to know the case, and then you move on to another case.

”What I love here is I know the people, I know the issues, I know these issues as they evolve, and I think I provide better advice and counseling by having that background.”

Harjani is one of many in-house lawyers throughout the country who represent universities and colleges. About 3,600 attorneys from about 1,400 campuses, or about 700 colleges and universities, comprise the membership of the National Association of College and University Attorneys.

Colleges and universities are often compared to small cities because of the variety of legal issues they face. Being an in-house higher education lawyer means handling a plethora of legal matters involving everything from employment to research to real estate.

During a time when most lawyers are encouraged to become more specialized, these in-house lawyers must be generalists who feel comfortable handling a variety of issues every single day.

”In a for-profit corporation, from my perspective, it comes down to the bottom line, so everything comes down to that,” Harjani said. ”In a university, we are not-for-profit. Our mission is to educate the students. As a result, the decisions the business people make are not always focused on the bottom line or the dollar figure, which is good, but it complicates things.

”While [the business people] need to be financially sound, absolutely, there are a lot of different drivers as to why we should do certain things or how we should do certain things.”

Daily life

While Harjani’s hours may be shorter than those she kept at a law firm, the days are often more draining because she handles more legal issues in one day, and those issues can often be more pressing.

It is not unusual for her to handle 15 different matters on a given day. Certain legal issues often require her immediate attention, so she regularly re-works her day.

When Harjani went in-house she took a pay cut, and she sometimes misses not spending as much time in a courtroom. But she likes the variety of her job, and likes no longer needing to complete timesheets and account for every minute of her day.

To make the transition from her law firm job to her in-house position easier, she took advantage of NACUA, an organization that serves attorneys who practice higher education law.

She attends regular workshops through NACUA, and a group of local members meet quarterly for lunch to socialize and discuss any common legal issues they face.

People often assume that higher education lawyers only handle cases involving students, but that doesn’t even touch on the legal issues they face, she said.

Each of the seven lawyers in Northwestern’s legal department handle a specific group of legal issues, but they also deal with other areas too.

Harjani’s portfolio includes litigation, employment matters, and issues involving relations with the city of Evanston. She’s also working on Northwestern’s project to open a new campus for journalism and communication this fall in Qatar.

”We have every issue that a Fortune 500 company has, plus more,” Harjani said. ”The other thing about higher education is it’s constantly evolving, and changing. There are always new issues coming up. You can never say, ‘now I know everything.’ It’s about keeping up with new developments.”

Bruce Melton, associate general counsel at the University of Chicago, said he enjoys getting involved in the early stages of a matter, as opposed to being brought in later in the process — which was often the case when he worked in a law firm.

”I have found, to my surprise, that the relationships you develop with administrators and faculty at the institution are deeper and more rewarding than I expected,” Melton said. ”Outside counsel are always outside, but now I am on the team. I find it to be personally and deeply rewarding.”

Lawyers handling higher education law need to be generalists, he said.

”[In-house higher education lawyers] seem to be the most content lawyers I know,” Melton said. ”They are happy with their jobs. They have traded away a little bit of the financial benefits for a much more intellectually stimulating environment. I think it is just the coolest job a lawyer can have. I can’t think of a better one.”

Some people wrongly assume that in-house higher education lawyers kick back in the summer because school isn’t in session, said Tom Cline, vice president and general counsel at Northwestern. Others believe they rely on outside lawyers to handle the more complex legal issues, which also isn’t true.

”We all handle a huge volume of work,” Cline said. ”This is not a place for people who think, ‘I would like to have a nice 9-to-5 job.’ I do think that is a misconception for some, but not from the outside lawyers who work with us. They constantly remark about how they are astonished by how much we have to cover.”

A good in-house higher education lawyer must know a little bit about every type of legal issue, said Ellen Kane Munro, vice president and general counsel of Loyola University of Chicago.

Munro often bounces from one topic to another. For example, in one day she worked on a major real estate transaction, the faculty handbook, a FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) issue and an international legal question.

A good higher education lawyer, she said, is ‘’somebody who is open to new ideas and to questioning platitudes and the status quo, because universities can get pretty comfortable doing things the way they’ve always been doing them.

”There may be legal issues that get overlooked if you don’t question what has been done and think about ways to do it better.”

Jose Padilla, vice president and general counsel for DePaul University, said he likes how he’s never bored with his job.

Higher education lawyers deal with very complex matters, he said. For example, DePaul is one of the largest landowners in Chicago, and that means handling sophisticated issues in areas like real estate and finance, he said.

Many of the lawyers on his staff wanted to work in this type of environment because they liked the level of responsibility, he said.

”Most wanted to work at a university because you feel good about what you do at the end of the day,” Padilla said. ”You are enabling, and empowering [the university] to help students as opposed to helping clients make cars or make batteries … The portfolios are pretty broad and they can exercise a lot of initiative — more so than they get to at a law firm, or even a corporation.”

The mission

Cline likes that in the 19 years he’s worked for Northwestern, he’s never been embarrassed to represent the school.

”When you are working in a college or university setting you are working with a lot of really bright and very committed people,” Cline said. ”I deal with a great deal of senior members of the administration who listen very carefully to what their lawyers advise them, and are also intellectually curious themselves.

”They don’t accept a lot of things at face value. They are constantly pushing you to define your position. The level of engagement is really stimulating.”

Munro appreciates Loyola’s goal of developing the whole student.

”Working for a non-profit and a university is very gratifying,” she said. ”The feeling of contributing to the education of young adults, of supporting the faculty and staff and being a resource to them is really satisfying. It is renewed every year when you attend graduation.”

Padilla said he likes that DePaul is a Catholic urban institution with a mission of expanding first-generation students’ access to education. The university tries to provide education to those who never received that exposure, he said.

”In a for-profit world, the legal mindset is what is minimally necessary for an institution to do,” he said. ”Here we are looking for what is the maximum thing to do for the mission. We are not going to be an office that says ‘no.’ If a client says, ‘I want to do X,’ and there are possibly legal impediments to doing X, the conversation doesn’t end there.

”It is incumbent on my lawyers to find other ways to get to X … Our job is to provide a legal mechanism to protect against that risk, as much as possible, without paralyzing or stopping the possibility of good outcomes.”

Beth Harris, vice president and general counsel at the University of Chicago, grew up around universities because her father was an academic. When she thought about leaving her law firm, she considered going in-house in a university or college because she appreciates their mission.

”It’s a very stimulating environment where you have all these incredibly smart people thinking about all kinds of issues, and then teaching and doing research,” Harris said. ”Those are the things, at least for me, that are important values for society … It is a lot more fun to be working on issues when you see they are contributing to something that you view as worthwhile.”

”[Faculty members] are not just sitting around an ivory tower thinking odd thoughts,” she said. ”They are involved in serious contributions to the world, both in research and in terms of communicating what they have learned to the next generation.”

Juliette Ferguson, associate general counsel for City Colleges of Chicago, said she believes in City Colleges of Chicago’s mission of providing an affordable college education. In many cases, Ferguson said, the colleges she represents are strong anchors in the community and also provide community-based programs.

Renee McCarthy, associate university counsel at the University of Illinois at Chicago, likes that her job allows her to contribute to higher education.

”I believe really strongly in higher education,” McCarthy said. ”I think that lawyers get a lot of bad press for creating more problems than anything else. In my job, I’m trying to prevent problems from happening so things can go forward … I see my job as facilitating things rather than standing in the way.

”It gives me a sense of contributing to something really bigger than myself.”

Covering each area

When Cline planned to give a presentation a few years ago about his legal staff to Northwestern’s board of trustees, he went through about six months of files and made a list of the subject areas his lawyers address.

During the presentation, he read off 16 different subject areas.

When he finished he asked the board what those topics had in common. Someone said, ”They all begin with A.”

And Cline responded that his lawyers also handle bankruptcy through zoning.

”A lot of them were really, really surprised by the major things we get into here,” he said. ”We are like a Fortune 100 company in that we have the full range of issues that those companies would have — anything from employment matters to real estate, basic tort questions, contract issues.

”We [also] have athletics. We have a medical school, which presents a whole set of unique issues. We have a group of employees called faculty, who have tenure, something that doesn’t exist in the outside world. And we have students. We have issues that are really unique.”

More regulations of higher education exist today than in the past, Cline said. And while the mission of the university may not have changed, an external perception exists that it has, he said.

”I think there’s been an increasing view on the part of the students who we educate, and the parents who send their students, that they are consumers of a product and they hold us to certain standards in the delivery of that product,” he said. ”We see greater challenges — challenges to grades, graduation requirements. We live in a more litigious society. We are not immune from the kinds of trends you see in other corporations.”

According to NACUA’s 2006 survey, on average, the higher education legal offices who participated in the survey reported having 33 active litigation files open at any one time. Of that number, outside counsel handled, on average, 18 of those matters, according to the survey.

Of the responding institutions, 56 percent reported that at least one full-time equivalent attorney devoted 50 percent or more of his or her time to labor relations. Other common areas of specialization included litigation (45 percent); intellectual property (40 percent); and real estate (36 percent).

Harjani, from Northwestern, said the legal department must handle so many more issues today, and those issues are often more complicated than they were in the past.

For example, the federal government is tightening restrictions regarding what research can be exported to another country, she said. If a Ph.D. candidate happens to be from a foreign country, they could be deemed an export if they leave the country after having seen particularly sensitive research in a faculty member’s laboratory.

Or if the information is on a laptop, and someone goes to another country with the laptop, they may have wrongly exported that research, depending on what’s on the laptop, she said.

Northwestern’s legal staff handles a host of intellectual property issues because some researchers at the university invent new products, and that brings into consideration certain legal questions, Harjani said.

”It is not all theory and education,” she said. ”There is a lot of development that comes out of research universities that leads to breakthroughs.”

Ferguson said because City Colleges of Chicago is a public entity it must follow federal and state statutes such as the Illinois Public Community College Act, which governs such things as tuition requirements, budget requirements, and board meetings.

Because the college system is funded by public dollars, it must follow different regulations than private institutions, she said. She must be aware of all these requirements when counseling and advising the university about such areas as expenditures and competitive bidding.

Learning how to advise a public entity, Ferguson said, ”was challenging, but that excited me about the job … It was exciting to me to learn how to work in the public sector.”

The University of Illinois at Chicago is also a public entity. That means the university’s lawyers must be mindful of such requirements as the Freedom of Information Act, McCarthy said.

”Our records, as an institution, are much more open,” she said, comparing her university to private institutions. ”We are always accounting for what we do here. We have to account to the people who support the institution, which are the taxpayers.”

Being a public institution means they must be even more concerned with due process issues when students and employees have grievances or complaints, she said.

Harris, from the University of Chicago, said the legal offices in colleges and universities were very different places 15 or 20 years ago. Universities and the legal matters surrounding them have become so much more complicated since that time.

”I think it’s because the regulations are far more complicated,” Harris said. ”The public funding issues have become more prominent, both in the funding of students’ education and in funding research.”

While some legal matters universities handle may be no different than what an in-house corporate lawyer faces, they often require a faster response time, said DePaul’s Padilla. For example, when the university decided to allow a controversial figure to speak on campus his office needed to be available to assist on any legal issues that occurred.

”One of the things I’ve really grown to appreciate is the fact that we are a major enterprise,” Padilla said. ”I think people think of universities as the stereotypical sleepy little outposts where all you are doing is providing rooms for teachers to teach students. It is so much more sophisticated and complex than that.”

A longer road: Reaching the felony ranks in the state’s attorney’s office

By Pat Milhizer

As the Vietnam conflict was nearing its end and the Sears Tower opened for business in 1973, Donald J. Brown did what young Chicago attorneys have always done when they want courtroom experience right after law school. He joined the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

Then 25 years old and fresh off 90 days of active duty in the U.S. Army, Brown started his legal career prosecuting misdemeanors for $12,500 a year.

A North Side native who already had worked in the office as a clerk during law school, Brown advanced more quickly than most of his peers at the time, but not by much. By the summer of 1974, he was handling felony review, preliminary hearings, and grand jury presentations for homicides and sex crimes. In his ninth month in the office, Brown reached the felony trial division.

”A lot of it,” said Brown, now a defense attorney at Donohue, Brown, Mathewson & Smyth, ”was timing and luck.

”My timing just happened to fall right where there were vacancies that needed to be filled, and I was tapped on the shoulder,” Brown said.

In those days, young lawyers like Brown started prosecuting felonies after only a year or two and not too many of the 330 criminal attorneys made a career out of it.

How things change.

Today’s salaries start at $55,361, and the criminal division has swelled to 520 lawyers. Chances are, many of those attorneys will stick around longer than their predecessors. And if they want to make it to the felony trial division, they don’t have a choice. Simply put, climbing the ladder in the state’s attorney’s office isn’t what it used to be.

Gone are the days that prosecutors could make it to felony courtrooms by their first, second or third anniversaries.

The reasons?

”When we talk about why it is taking longer, it is because the office is larger. There are more units, and there are more places that we have to feed people into. And there are more people who are staying longer,” said Adrienne D. Mebane, the office’s chief of staff.

The road to felony court

Jennifer H. Gonzalez, a native of Knoxville, Tenn., was the first in her family to go to college.

She earned a law degree at The John Marshall Law School in 1996, when she was 25 years old and about to start her legal career at the state’s attorney’s office.

Like all new prosecutors at the time, Gonzalez could either start in child support or criminal appeals.

”They told me I could go to appeals if I wanted to, but that I wouldn’t have a desk … I think I was going to be sitting in the library,” Gonzalez recalled.

Judging that feedback as a suggestion to select another assignment, Gonzalez joined the prosecutorial team that enforces child support payments.

She spent 16 months in the division before she began prosecuting misdemeanors in branch courts throughout the city.

In May 2000, Gonzalez advanced to felony review, in which prosecutors consult with police officers to decide whether an arrestee can be charged.

She made it to the Criminal Courts Building at 26th Street and California Avenue in April 2001, handling preliminary hearings.

After nearly six years in the office, Gonzalez joined the felony trial division in July 2002.

”It’s certainly frustrating,” Gonzalez said about the time it takes to make it to felony trials.

”Quite often, private attorneys will come in, and we’re talking about a case. They’ll say ‘I used to work in the office as a supervisor.’ Then in that same sentence, they’ll tell me they left the office after three or four years,” Gonzalez said. ”And that just blows my mind because it would take 15 years to be a supervisor today.”

Before advancing to the felony trial division today, prosecutors must complete three levels. In the first two levels, attorneys just have to complete one assignment. In the third level, they must do both.

Prosecutors begin in one of three areas criminal appeals, city misdemeanors or child support. The assignment can last about 14 to 18 months.

The second level is the longest, lasting around four years. It features traffic court, which includes misdemeanor drunk driving; domestic violence, typically involving battered women; narcotics; general assignment in the suburbs; and juvenile justice, which is prosecuting minors who commit crimes and finding new homes for children who have been abused, neglected, or orphaned.

The third level involves felony review and preliminary hearings, which can take about two years to complete. If the state’s attorney’s office was the Eisenhower Expressway, consider this stretch the Hillside Strangler.

”Felony review became a choke point,” said Bernard J. Murray, chief of the criminal prosecutions bureau.

Picturing the assignment levels, Murray said the system resembles a pyramid heading up to the felony trial level. ”And there’s a small inverted pyramid coming out of felony review. You’ve got maybe double or triple the amount of people in the second level feeding into the third level,” Murray said.

In the end, it can take an attorney somewhere between seven to eight years to reach a third-chair position in the felony trial division.

Along with the levels, advancement delays are fueled by the size of the criminal bureau, which has nearly 200 more attorneys than it did three decades ago.

”As the office grew, it expanded the size of each step,” said Murray, who joined the office in 1983 and reached the felony trial division in a little more than three years.

Factor in the rise of career prosecutors, and you have gridlock.

”I think what you see now is that with a lot of people male or female the spouse is the one out making a salary that’s either the same or a lot more, so people can afford to stay,” Murray said.

Transitioning into private practice

For attorneys who want trial experience before becoming a private trial lawyer, Murray said the office is still an option.

”There’s no doubt about that. We still have many people who do that … they realize, practically, this is a place you can get experience,” Murray said.

In the traffic division, the office averages one jury trial a week. So individual attorneys could try four or five jury trials a year.

”If they were to leave after traffic,” Murray said, ”they can become criminal defense attorneys specializing in DUI work. People also might be interested in domestic violence issues and move to different agencies that do family law. They got a great background because we’ve got a domestic violence unit.”

Given that prosecutors spend their days working with victims, many become Daley Center personal-injury lawyers, where attorney fees can be one-third of the yield from multi-million dollar settlements and verdicts.

In the old days, many got their felony courtroom experience within five years and left.

Some even found ways to advance more quickly.

In the late 1970s, when Philip Harnett Corboy Jr. started his legal career, going to the under-staffed Markham courthouse could shorten the route.

”It was an isolated courthouse, so they were looking for volunteers to beef up the ranks,” Corboy said. ”There was an unspoken rule that if you went to Markham, you advanced to get to the felony courtrooms.”

Corboy was trying felonies within two years in the office and left in 1985 to join the plaintiff’s personal-injury firm of Corboy & Demetrio, where he is today.

Concerning the bottleneck in the state’s attorney’s office, Corboy said, ”Let’s look on the bright side of the equation. It might be that there are kids out there who want to be career prosecutors.”

Corboy’s sister-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Lacy, started working in the state’s attorney’s office in 1984 and got to the felony trial division in 1989. Now deputy chief of the special prosecutions bureau, Lacy said the attorneys make a career out of it because they like the work.

”We’re all trained as advocates, and we get to fight for people who are victimized by crime. It’s great work and good for community,” Lacy said. ”People like working here. I know more than a few people who have left the office to go into private practice and shortly returned. Some come back right away and some come back years out.”

Patrick T. Driscoll Jr. falls into the second category.

Driscoll joined the office’s appellate division in 1968. At the time, any constitutional issue raised on appeal went directly to the Illinois Supreme Court. So Driscoll, then 25, was in Springfield representing the state on accusations such as involuntary confessions and illegal searches and seizures. He argued roughly 20 cases before the high court.

”It was the opportunity at a very young age to do a lot of things you couldn’t do at a firm. It was an opportunity you couldn’t replicate now,” Driscoll said. ”But it was just pure chance. I could have started in juvenile, and I wouldn’t have had that opportunity.”

Within about 18 months of joining the office, Driscoll was trying felony cases. In 1975, he left the office for a private practice career that spanned nearly a quarter-century, handling various criminal and civil matters.

In 1999, State’s Attorney Richard A. Devine asked Driscoll to return to the office as chief of the civil actions bureau. That bureau represents the county a $3.2 billion client in litigation, whether it’s defending against workers’ compensation claims or enforcing zoning regulations in unincorporated areas.

About the young lawyers in the office, Driscoll said, ”if they can stick it out, it’s certainly worth the wait.”

But many don’t, or can’t afford to, wait.

”It causes a lot of people to leave the office. A lot of really good prosecutors, too,” said Gonzalez, the assistant state’s attorney who’s originally from Tennessee.

”By the time I got to the trial division, it was almost six years,” she said. ”If I had gone to private practice, I could have been a partner somewhere. My hiring class was 28 people, and well more than half has left the office. And I would say they left the office by the time we got to felony review.

”At times you get discouraged when you don’t see movement on the horizon. In almost every assignment it’s taking too long. But there is always movement and you move up the ladder, and it’s fine again,” Gonzalez said.

Reasons to stay

Gonzalez, who tries murder cases in which the victim and the offender have a domestic relationship, has stayed in the office because of the self-fulfillment and colleague camaraderie that it provides.

Guiding victims through the legal system can produce personal satisfaction not measured in the dollars and cents of the corporate mergers negotiated in Loop high-rises.

”I feel like I’m doing justice, and something right in the world,” she said.

Gonzalez has tried 42 jury trials to verdict, and all but five have been felony cases. Of those, 15 of them were murders that produced 12 guilty verdicts, two not-guilty verdicts and a hung jury.

”I think I’m here for the long haul,” she said. ”There’s some inner part of me that just gets fulfilled by doing this job. I feel like justice is being done, and I don’t mean that everybody is found guilty.”

Still, when asked about the challenges that the office faces to retain attorneys, just about everybody interviewed for this article mentions the salary disparity between the office and private practice.

”Because we are all professionals, a lot of it has to do with money. I’ve been here 12 years now, and my salary is still less than what [first-year] attorneys make in some law firms,” said Gonzalez, who earns about $98,000 per year. ”And I don’t mean to sound sexist, but some of the men have families. They are sometimes the sole moneymaker, and I don’t know how they can raise a family and pay off staggering student loans.”

Murray, the chief of the criminal prosecutions bureau, confirmed that many people leave the office for financial reasons.

And he would know. He reads their resignation letters.

”We have a lot of people who say, this is all they ‘wanted to be. But I now have a wife, baby, mortgage, car payment,”’ Murray said.

”And a lot of people now leave due to [outstanding law school] loans many over $100,000. Some around $150,000,” Murray said. ”A lot of those people, they have to live at home with their mother and father or they have to already have been affluent.”

Prosecutorial compensation became a hot-button issue in late 2006 and early 2007 when Devine lobbied the county board for raises to bring his staff to the same pay levels as assistant public defenders. Unlike public defenders who are in a union that negotiates annual raises, prosecutors are not organized and only receive raises based on promotion.

At the time, Devine said the salary disparity sunk office morale.

”People are disturbed,” Devine said in November 2006. ”I don’t see any evidence or any sense that people are not doing their job as fully and aggressively and with the same commitment as before, but they’re upset.”

In July 2007, scores of prosecutors took time off work to pack a county board meeting, with the crowd spilling into a sweltering hallway outside. Later that month, county commissioners approved a pay package that gave prosecutors an 8 percent pay raise and a 4.75 percent bump over a two-year period. The attorneys also received a $500 bonus.

Despite the amount of time it now takes to progress through the office, several former prosecutors say the job still offers a way to gain courtroom experience and improve legal writing skills, for example, when working on appeals.

The office can help attorneys make the transition to private practice because lawyers learn how to examine witnesses and talk to a jury. Attorneys also can learn what veteran lawyers and judges regularly preach at the swearing-in ceremonies where new attorneys get their law licenses: civility.

”When you come out of law school, you seem to think things are nuclear war,” said Kevin P. Durkin of Clifford Law Offices, a firm that represents plaintiffs in personal injury and wrongful death claims. ”And as you get older, the longer you’re in the state’s attorney’s office, you realize that civility is important. You learn a lot about that. You learn who the bad lawyers are, and you get an idea of how you should not act.”

Civility aside for a moment, young prosecutors today will roll their eyes when they hear Durkin’s story.

Because he became a certified public accountant during college, Durkin was almost immediately placed in a special prosecutions unit that dealt with financial crimes when he joined the office in 1980. Within a month, Durkin was handling felony jury trials at 26th and California, prosecuting check-kiting cases and embezzlements.

After doing that for about 18 months, Durkin moved to felony review and preliminary hearings. Around his fourth year in the office, he was trying murder cases and other felonies.

”You talk to guys 10 years before me, and they were trying murders in a year. So it’s all been a progression,” Durkin said. ”They were shocked how long it took us.”

At the current pace of advancement, most assistant state’s attorneys who join the office this fall will possibly wait until 2016 to reach the felony trial unit. If that’s the case, at least there’s a good chance that they’ll never forget the year that they ”graduated” to felonies.

Chicago could be hosting the Olympic Games that summer.

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