Not many doctors make house calls these days, but you can find a state Supreme Court justice willing to make hospital rounds when there’s a would-be lawyer in need.
James Biery, a North Side resident, graduated in June from the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison and had hoped to be sworn in last week with other lawyers-to-be during admission ceremonies Thursday at Arie Crown Theater in Chicago.
But Biery, 35, was seriously injured Oct. 29 in a collision between his car and a van.
Despite ending up in a hospital trauma unit with a broken arm and facial injuries, Biery voiced concerns to family members about missing the swearing-in ceremonies. They made a few phone calls and brought Biery’s plight to the attention of court officials.
On Thursday afternoon Michael A. Bilandic, the former Chicago mayor and soon-to-be chief justice of the state Supreme Court, arranged to swear in Biery as a lawyer at the University of Illinois Hospital in front of his wife and other family members.
Bilandic said he told them that “this was the first house call I ever made.”
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Biery is in fair but improving condition at the University of Illinois hospital, but he is starting his career as a lawyer with his jaw wired shut.
Changes at Winston & Strawn
After helping bring about some dramatic changes at Chicago-based legal giant Winston & Strawn over the last six years, managing partner Gary L. Fairchild has opted to turn the firm’s future over to new leadership.
Winston & Strawn said Monday that Fairchild is stepping down as managing partner to resume full-time his corporate law practice at the firm. A successor is expected to be named next week.
Since 1987 the firm has grown from a mostly regional firm of 225 lawyers to an international firm with about 500 lawyers.
Fairchild, 50, said he had accomplished much of what he set out to do in that role-though his term would not have ended until next year.
Winston & Strawn set up internal task forces this summer to plot its business future. As strategies began to emerge, Fairchild apparently came to the conclusion that they should be implemented by a new managing partner.
Tempting request denied
Chicago’s burglar emeritus, Joseph “Pops” Panczko, says he is retired, but a federal judge is taking no chances.
“I don’t dislike Mr. Panczko. I just think he is the crook he says he is,” observed U.S. District Judge Brian Barnett Duff, as he turned down pleas that the 75-year-old Panczko be granted an early end to his probation.
“I don’t want him to be tempted,” Duff told Pops’ advocate, Ed Olson, a student at Chicago-Kent College of Law working under professor Marc Kadish.
Still, the convicted jewel thief got a break. Duff waived a requirement that he report monthly to a probation officer.
– Comings and goings. Marshall W. Sutker says he switched law firms after 28 years at Dressler Goldsmith Shore Sutker & Milnamow because he wants “a good home for my clients” when he eventually retires. He says he has signed on with the intellectual-property law firm of Laff Conte & Saret because “this is a growing firm with an exceptional group of imaginative young lawyers.” . . . Arnstein & Lehr adds Robert S. Meltzer as a partner in its international-law practice group. He had been a partner at Katz Randall & Weinberg.
– Notable verdicts. A jury in Kane County Circuit Court awarded $3.3 million in damages late Friday to a 51-year-old Montgomery woman, who is now bedridden after a collision in Aurora in 1989 involving two cars and a truck. Lawyer Meg Elizabeth Goblet, a Batavia solo practitioner who represented the woman, says the verdict is believed to be one of the larger ever returned in Kane County. . . . A jury in northwest Indiana has awarded $528,810 to a Hobart carpenter who contended his bank ignored an agreement requiring two signatures when cashing checks of $1,000 or more. The verdict reflected findings by a Jaspar County Superior Court jury that Gainer Bank, now owned by NBD, engaged in fraud to cover its error, said lawyers R. Lawrence Steele and Jill Madajczyk, who represented William Kristoff.