I have been a member of the NLG since the fall of 1972, the beginning of my second year of law school in Chicago.  Who got me to join--Arthur Kinoy!!  I heard him give
a terrific speech. In answering questions, he was asked what the he thought of his great Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479 (1965) case. The evil New Orleans prosecutor, Garrison, had 3 people arrested at an NLG convention there for sedition. What was their sedition--advocating for civil rights in New Orleans and the rest of the South. Brennan's opinion stopped that. (I urge everyone to read Justice Brennan's majority opinion doing something that no one in Arthur's generation thought was possible--getting a federal court to enjoin a state criminal case) . Unfortunately, a few years later in 1971, the case was overturned by the Supreme Court in Younger v. Harris, 401 US. 37 (1971) . So the smarmy question to Professor Kinoy was what he did he think about his great Dombrowski case now that the Supreme Court had done something it hardly ever did--overturn the holding in a case only decided a few years before. Arthur's answer was right the on the money. "The purpose of the Dombrowski case was to give time and space to people and organizations who were fighting against racism and for justice, democracy and equality in the South. They still are so the case remains a success."

So what this was all about was not accolades for successful litigation but the impact our work would have in helping move progressive struggles. That made me want to part of the NLG. In the next years, I learned a lot. In the mid 1970's at an NLG plenary, Abdeen Jabara finally resolved my confusion about Israel and made me a strong advocate for justice for Palestinians. I got very involved in anti-racist work, including the terrific work the NLG did in the 1970's and early 1980's in support of affirmative action in schools and workplaces. In the NLG, that work was led by Jeanne Mirer and involved us getting together with the National Conference of Black Lawyers(NCBL) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in creating the Affirmative Action Coordinating Center led by Gerald Horne. I was NLG treasurer from 1979-82. My first 11/2 years I served with President Paul Harris and VP's Abby Ginzberg and David Rudovsky. In the first year we were in office, two great Bay Area activists, Patti Roberts and Tom Steel, approached us and asked us to support the first LGBTQ resolution. We did and thanks to them, it passed.

My first job out of law school was with the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. After 6 1/2 years there I returned to Chicago in 1981 to work at the Legal Assistance Foundation (now Legal Aid Chicago) for seven years. I was a strong supporter of Harold Washington when he ran for mayor in 1983 through his death the day before Thanksgiving in 1987. I have been in private practice since 1988, doing civil rights and federal criminal defense cases. For the last 29 or so years, I have edited a book entitled "The Civil Rights Litigation and Attorney Fees Annual Handbook, which over the years became a project of the National Police Accountability Project.

Right before law school, I got very interested in jazz and have remained so to this day.  I am a past president of the Jazz Institute of Chicago and was a longtime member of the Chicago Jazz Festival Programming Committee although I have absolutely no musical talent.  I have two children, a son, who is married and has been living in Tanzania while his spouse works at a not-for-profit providing medicine throughout Africa.  He co-owns a bar in the Shaw neighborhood in DC, called Ivy & Coney.  It is pretty cool and certainly the most Chicago centric place in DC.  My younger daughter Laura works for the Westside Justice Center's Access to Justice Program.  She and I both love watching the Chicago Sky, our WNBA team.  I am a long time baseball fan (so is she).  We both root for the Chicago Cubs.  We also root for the Chicago Bulls, our NBA team.