In September 1962, John F. Kennedy was in the White House and James B. Parsons, a popular lawyer in Chicago, had just been sworn in as the country`s first federal judge of African-American heritage.
Court historians might have dreamed about one day bringing together Parsons and the black judges who followed-to listen to reminiscences about how a young president maneuvered Parsons` nomination through Congress, with the help of then-Mayor Richard J. Daley, and to hear other black judges tell anecdotes about their careers.
Fast-forward 30 years, and that appears on its way to becoming reality.
Parsons and other black federal judges will be honored Sept. 19 in Chicago at their first-ever gathering. Black lawyers and judges, as well as whites, are planning the historic event under the sponsorship of the Federal Bar Association and the National Bar Association.
Parsons, who turns 81 on Aug. 13 and is taking retirement status, said the dinner is scheduled for two days after the anniversary of his swearing in. He was sworn in Sept. 17, 1962, by then Chief Judge William J. Campbell. Earlier, Parsons had scored another first, becoming Chicago`s only elected black on the Superior Court.
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There now are about 60 African-American federal judges across the country, said lawyer John J. Lowry, treasurer of the federal bar group. Planners haven`t heard from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but Justice John Paul Stevens is expected to attend the dinner, at the Chicago Marriott Hotel.
Credit for the idea to honor African-American federal judges goes to U.S. Magistrate W. Thomas Rosemond Jr., a one-time Parsons clerk. He pressed forward, former U.S. District Judge Susan Getzendanner told us, with support and enthusiasm from legal quarters.
”Tom is pretty excited that there is going to be a national celebration,” said Getzendanner, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and a member of the planning committee.
Others on the committee include U.S. District Judge Ann C. Williams;
Walter Jones Jr. and Stephen H. Pugh Jr. of Pugh Jones & Hubbard; Kevin Flynn of Coffield Ungaretti & Harris; and Adam Bourgeois. It was Williams` idea to get the judges to talk about themselves.
”Some of the judges have never before met,” said Pugh. ”Everyone is really going to enjoy this.”
Same team, different side
Patrick W. O`Brien, partner at Mayer, Brown & Platt, and a team of assistants find themselves these days at the other end of the litigating stick, as it were.
O`Brien and colleagues John M. Touhy, Paul A. Fitzsimmons and Beth Eiseman Grey-the same lineup of lawyers who won an out-of-court settlement in a libel lawsuit against Crain Communications and one of its writers, Joseph Winski-are now on the defense side in a libel case.
Their client this time is Dr. Manus C. Kraff, a Chicago ophthalmologist who is being sued by the Barry Harlem Corp., which does business as the Desnick Eye Center.
The Desnick Eye Center alleged that Kraff authored a false and defamatory article that appeared in winter 1991 in a Kraff Eye Institute publication titled ”Eyedeas.” The article was critical of the ”no-stitch cataract surgery” done by the Desnick Eye Center and accused the center ”of fraud in the procurement of patients by advertising allegedly unsafe and negligent medical techniques.”
In the Crain case, the O`Brien team faced off against former U.S. Atty. Anton R. Valukas of Jenner & Block. This time the lawyers on the other side include Dan K. Webb of Winston & Strawn, also a former U.S. attorney.
– LAW BRIEFS. U.S. District Judge Ilana D. Rovner, who has been nominated for a seat on the federal appeals court in Chicago, goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation hearings Tuesday. The reception from the committee is expected to be friendlier than an unsigned opinion last week from her soon-to-be colleagues on the appeals court. They reversed her for the second time in complicated litigation involving the proceeds from a breach-of- contract judgment and told her to try again. . . . After nearly five years as a federal prosecutor, and after helping obtain murder and drug convictions against El Rukn street gang members, Assistant U.S. Atty. Theodore T. Poulos is leaving Aug. 14 to join defense shop Cotsirilos Stephenson Tighe & Streicker Ltd. . . . Renewed debate over its stance on abortion and a make- believe trial of Lee Harvey Oswald are on the agenda of the American Bar Association`s annual meeting, which begins Thursday in San Francisco.