Attorney Ronald J. Guild was one of the key players behind the creation of a little-known but important mutual insurance company that was formed to fill a gap and provide malpractice insurance to small and midsize law firms.
Guild’s role in the creation of the Illinois State Bar Association’s ISBA Mutual Insurance Co. provided a major boost to small and midsize law firms, which in the 1980s had begun facing dramatic increases in malpractice insurance premiums from some insurers and a lack of malpractice coverage altogether by others.
“Ron always had a lot of insight into the right way to do things in business, and he was always the one board member (of the ISBA Mutual Insurance Co.) you could look to, to get a good, sound business decision, whereas many of the other board members practiced law and had a law firm, but didn’t really view themselves as running a business,” said Jeff Strand, the ISBA Mutual Insurance Co.’s current CEO and president. “He always understood it as a business, not an extension of the bar association.”
Guild died of natural causes on Feb. 23 at the Birchwood Plaza Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rogers Park. He was 97.
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His death, which was not widely reported at the time, was confirmed by his daughter, Susan Sweetra. Guild had been a Near West Side resident and previously lived elsewhere in Chicago, and in Wheaton before that.
Born in Geneva in 1928, Guild grew up in Wheaton and graduated from Wheaton Community High School. After earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1950, Guild was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. Within a year, he was shipped out to Korea during the Korean War, and he served in the Army’s coast artillery corps as an artillery spotter identifying targets for air strikes.
Back home, Guild returned to school, earning a law degree from the University of Illinois in 1955. After law school, Guild began work as a lawyer, first for the firm known as McDermott, Will & Schulte and then joining Teitelbaum, Wolfberg & Guild, where he was a named partner. Guild specialized in real estate law and became an authority on mechanic’s liens, which are legal claims on property titles by unpaid contractors, subcontractors or suppliers.
Guild long had been active in the state bar association, which had published multiple articles that he had written about mechanic’s liens. In the 1980s, with the malpractice insurance crisis in focus for small and midsize law firms, the state bar association appointed Guild to a special committee aimed at considering whether the association should form its own mutual insurance company. After studying the matter, Guild’s committee concluded that such a structure was not only viable but the best path forward, and in 1988, the association formed the ISBA Mutual Insurance Co., ending the crisis.
For the next 22 years, Guild served in a volunteer capacity on the ISBA Mutual Insurance Co.’s board, including as its chair in 2005 and 2006.
“For Ron, it was always not about the profit motive for the company but what are we doing to provide a service to the lawyers we’re choosing to do business with,” Strand said.
Guild formally retired from the ISBA Mutual Insurance Co.’s board in 2009, but he remained active with the board as an adviser for the next five years, Strand said.
“He was definitely a force of nature,” he said. “He never stopped moving.”
In the early 1990s, Guild wound down Teitelbaum, Wolfberg & Guild, shifting to being a sole legal practitioner. He retired from his law practice in 2010.
Outside of work, Guild enjoyed community involvement. He was elected to Wheaton’s Elementary School District 36 board in 1969. Three years later, he chose not to run for a seat on the board of Wheaton’s newly formed unit school district after Wheaton and Warrenville residents had voted that year to combine their grade school and high school districts to create a unit school district.
From 1975 until 1976, Guild was president of the now-defunct Wheaton Community Association, which managed the city’s July 4 fireworks displays.
“He was in charge of setting up the fireworks for the community,” his daughter said.
Guild once restored a 19th-century cider press, and then formed a group with other families in Wheaton who made wine and apple cider every autumn. He also enjoyed playing volleyball, tennis and golf, along with skiing, sailing, dancing and playing bridge. A jazz fan, he also enjoyed occasionally playing the bass.
In 2022, Guild was on the first Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., from Chicago after the COVID-19 pandemic.
A marriage to Marilyn Guild ended in divorce. In addition to his daughter, Guild is survived by his partner of 13 years, Carroll Cradock; a son, John; and two grandsons.
Services were held.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.