Midyear Meeting

[caption id="attachment_16616" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Honorees James Montgomery and Warren Lupel"][/caption] The Illinois Bar Foundation honored James D. Montgomery with its Honorary Fellows Award and Warren Lupel with its Distinguished Service Award at the 2010 Fellows Award Breakfast on Friday morning. Montgomery and Lupel were also honored together in 2000 as Laureate Award Winners. IBF Past President Vince Cornelius presented the Honorary Fellow Award to Montgomery and Sean Berkowitz presented the Distinguished Service Award to Lupel. Click here to view photos from this event.

The agenda for Saturday's ISBA Assembly meeting is now available online. The meeting will start at 9 a.m. at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, 301 E. North Water, Chicago. The ISBA Assembly is the supreme policy making body of the Association and routinely meets twice a year.

All sitting and retired members of the Illinois Supreme Court will be presented with the first annual “Harold Sullivan Award for Judicial Excellence” at the joint Midyear Meeting of the Illinois Judges Association (IJA) and Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) on Friday, December 10, at a 12 noon luncheon, at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, 301 E. North Water St. Created by IJA President Lewis M. Nixon, a judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County, the award was named in memory of the late Judge Harold Sullivan to salute the men and women who serve or have served with distinction on the state’s highest court. Judge Sullivan, who died earlier this year, was instrumental in helping expand the IJA in size and influence. Current justices who will be honored are Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride, Charles E. Freeman, Robert R. Thomas, Rita B. Garman, Lloyd A. Karmeier, Anne M. Burke and Mary Jane Theis. The retired, living justices who will receive the award are Benjamin K. Miller, James Heiple, John J. Stamos, Mary Ann G. McMorrow, Moses Harrison II, John L. Nickels, S. Louis Rathje, Thomas Fitzgerald and Phillip Rarick. Judge S. Gene Schwarm, Chief Judge of the Fourth Judicial Circuit, will receive the IJA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.  Judge Schwarm, who has served as chairman of the Conference of Chief Judges since September 2006, is also chair of the Illinois Supreme Court Judicial Mentoring Committee and co-chair of the Illinois Family Violence Coordinating Council. Keynote speaker at the luncheon will be trial attorney, best-selling author, television anchor and legal analyst, Rikki Klieman, who has earned a sterling reputation as one of the nation’s most thoughtful legal authorities.

[gallery link="file" columns="2"] The Illinois Bar Foundation Fellows honored James F. Holderman, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois, and Nancy Katz, Associate Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, at the group's annual breakfast Friday at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. Judge Holderman received the Honorary Fellow Award from his wife, ISBA Board of Governors member Paula Holderman. Chief Judge Holderman has been a U.S. District Judge in Chicago since 1985, and has been the Chief Judge of the Northern District of Illinois since 2006. During his more than 20 years on the bench, he has presided over numerous cases in all areas of federal jurisdiction. Judge Katz received the Distinguished Service to Law & Society Award from her cousin, IBF past president David Sosin. Judge Katz was appointed to the bench in 1999 and is currently assigned to the Domestic Relations Division, where she presides over an individual calendar. She frequently speaks and trains lawyers, judges and law students in the areas of civil and family law.