The man who paved the way for countless divorces in Illinois now has his own street.
City officials unveiled a street sign Friday honoring the prominent Illinois divorce lawyer Marshall J. Auerbach.
Auerbach was the principal author of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act of 1977, the state’s first major revision of matrimonial law in more than a century.
The law made it to the governor’s desk due, in part, to tepid support by the Roman Catholic Church, which preferred it to another revision making it’s way through the legislature.
Lawmakers had rejected proposed “no-fault” revisions by the Illinois and Chicago bar associations in 1973, then again in 1975. Two years later, a third was working its way through the legislature that, like the previous two, was a no-fault law similar to that of California.
That same year, Auerbach penned his version, which required couples to list offenses such as adultery or mental cruelty, which makes divorce in Illinois, at least in theory, more difficult than in the free-wheeling West Coast.
The bill was signed into law by then-Gov. James Thompson, supported by then state Sen. Richard M. Daley.
The sign for Honorary Marshall J. Auerbach Place is at the corner of Randolph and Dearborn Streets.
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