Celebrating 150 Years of The Chicago Bar Association: An Interview with CBA President Ray Koenig III

Episode Notes

Transcript

Speaker 1:

This year the Chicago Bar Association is celebrating 150 years of championing justice, building connections and making an impact in Chicago and beyond. Before the episode, CBAs at theBar share some words from our members to honor the milestone. Happy 150th CBA.

Speaker 2:

Hello fellow bar members. My name is Steven Elrod and I have been a proud member of the Chicago Bar Association for more than 40 years. This association has meant more to the advancement of my legal career than any other organization of which I’ve been a part. And on this 150th anniversary celebration, I want to give a big thanks to the CBA for providing a warm, collegial environment for lawyers to get to know each other, socialize together and respect each other inside and outside of the Courtroom.

Speaker 3:

I am proud to be a past president of the Best Bar Association in the United States, the Chicago Bar Association. I congratulate the CBA on its 150th anniversary. The CBA has survived and thrived for a century and a half by being resilient, flexible, dynamic, and responsive to its members.

Speaker 4:

I want to say happy anniversary to the Chicago Bar Association. 150 years of serving not only the legal community, but all of the citizens here in Chicago and Cook County. I am honored to be a past president and I wish you another 150 more of tremendous service, dedication to all of us here in Chicago.

Speaker 5:

Happy anniversary, Chicago Bar Association, 150 years and growing older still. I’m Laurel Bellows, pe president of the CBA. We as lawyers are the bastions of freedom. We are the bastions of liberty. We’re the bastions of free speech in our Constitution, and it’s so important that an organization like the Chicago Bar Association remains active and vocal throughout all the times, popular or unpopular speaking on behalf of the people speaking on behalf of our ability to celebrate another 150 years

Speaker 6:

To President Koenig and the officers and the Board of Managers and to all of the association’s members. Happy birthday and congratulations from the Illinois Supreme Court.

Speaker 7:

I have been a proud member of the CBA since I was a young lawyer. Joining the CBA was one of the best decisions I made in my career. Once again, congratulations to the CBA on its a hundred and 50th anniversary and I know this is only the beginning.

Trisha Rich:

Hello. Hello, hello everyone and welcome to CBAs @theBar, a podcast where we have unscripted conversations with our guests about legal news, events, topics, and other stories that we think you’re going to find interesting. I’m your host today, Trisha Rich of Holland and Knight. And joining me today is Ray Koenig, a partner at the international law firm of Clark Hill, a member of the firm’s executive committee and co-chair of the firm’s global litigation practice. And until last year, Ray served for over a decade is the head of the firm’s Chicago office. Ray is a well-known probate and trust lawyer. He represents individuals, families, financial and medical institutions, charities and governmental agencies and probate trust and guardianship disputes. In addition to his many professional successes, Ray is a committed member of the philanthropic and bar communities here in Chicago and has served as a commissioner on the city of Chicago Commission on Human Relations.

He’s served on the Lag Back Foundation Board. He served as the co-chair of DePaul Law School’s Diversity Council. And for our purposes today, Ray currently serves as the 147th president of the Chicago Bar Association Marketing. Another milestone Ray serves as the first gay president of the Chicago Bar Association, or as he likes to say, the first openly gay president. Ray, we’ve brought you on today to talk about a huge anniversary. As you know, the Chicago Bar Association is celebrating its 150th year this year. We’re over the halfway point in our yearlong festivities and we couldn’t be happier to have you on to talk about what’s to come. Ray, welcome to at theBar.

Ray Koenig:

Thank you. Trish,

Trisha Rich:

Are you excited? This is your first @theBar appearance, right?

Ray Koenig:

I am. I’m pretty excited to be here. I’ve heard so many of them and I’m really glad you do this and at the CBA supports it.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah, long time listener. First time caller.

Ray Koenig:

Exactly. That’s who I’m

Trisha Rich:

Alright. So Ray, can you start by just talking to us a little bit about your background in the Chicago Bar Association and how you became president of the CBA?

Ray Koenig:

So I, I believe I became, and I’ve never had records check this, but I believe I became a member when I was in my second year of law school at DePaul, which was, as I like to say last century. I graduated in 99, so I probably joined the CBA around 98 and I think I’ve been a member ever since then. I may have slipped once or twice and paid my dues late, especially in the early years of being a lawyer and wasn’t making as much money. But I just was an active member and I think my first continuing legal education presentation was to the CBA probate practice committee on Will and trust contests. And I think I was a third year lawyer, which to me demonstrates one of the great things about the CBA is it gave me an opportunity to get out there and act like I was an expert in front of a bunch of very well seasoned attorneys.

I remember being scared to death and I did it and getting some really good questions. And that was 22 years ago, I think. Anyway, so then I just was involved in, I was always an active member and I would attend COEs and I presented them, but I didn’t really get involved in the leadership side for some time. I had kind of been pulled into the ISBA and the trusted estate section there early in my career. And I went that direction partly because my law partner at my first firm was very involved in CBA and he was a president when I became a lawyer. So he kind of had that locked down and I didn’t see the need for two of us to be getting really involved there. So I kind of spread out and I really got my bar association wings with the ISBA and rising to be chair of the Trust and State Section council and then so many people that get involved in CBA leadership.

I got a call from our prior executive director, Terry Murphy, saying basically your time at the ISB is up. We want you now. So then I got involved and I ran for a seat on the board of managers and I won that. And then I served the board of managers for two years under, I think my last year president. The final year of it was Aurora Austria, who’s been a good friend and a mentor to me since I was a fifth year attorney. After that, Terry Murphy, the former executive director and I were sitting down for lunch and had an idea about a way to involve younger lawyers, especially larger firm lawyers in the CBA and played with that idea and then working with some fantastic people at the CBA, like the wonderful Jen Burn. We put together a committee to develop what’s now the CBA Leadership Institute and we developed that and it’s been running along ever since then. And then after that got up and running, I then decided to run for an officer position. I ran for secretary, the position you now hold, and I won reelection. So I served in that position for two years and I will say, Trish, our minutes have never looked better than you serving being a secretary.

Trisha Rich:

Thank you.

Ray Koenig:

Anyway, very cr and then I decided to run for second vice president, which in the leadership of the CBA second vice president, if you get elected to that, then you automatically succeed up for your end first and then into presidency. And then immediate past, I had a contested election. I ran against a couple of really great candidates. Fortunately for me and hopefully for the CBAI won. And I served a second and then first and now I’ve been president, and I think you’ve mentioned it earlier, I’m definitely the first openly gay. I was the first openly gay secretary ever, the second first and president. And there were, I’m quite certain other individuals who identified as L-G-B-T-Q, but did not have the good fortune to live in the kinds I live in where I can just be myself. Myself. They probably were and were just closeted.

Trisha Rich:

I’m sure that’s true. If you just look at the statistics, right, as what I say, hundred and 47th president. I’m certain that’s true.

Ray Koenig:

Yeah, there were probably at least four or five others at least.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah. I will just tell you as a point of personal privilege, I think that you and I did the right thing in our CBA journeys by coming up as secretaries and not treasurers every day. I am so glad I’m not treasurer,

Ray Koenig:

I would’ve to agree. It’s a tough job being treasurer. And it’s funny, thinking back all the treasurers in the years I’ve been in leadership, they have a lot more work. I mean, it’s more fun being secretary. It just is.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah. It’s much less responsibility. I’ve served on the CBA finance committee for probably a decade now, and I go to those meetings once a month and I look at the big spreadsheets of numbers they put up there and I say, oh yes, very, very interesting. Very interesting.

Ray Koenig:

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And props to our current treasurer, Nina Fe, for really digging in and doing a good job with that role. I mean she’s She’s really dug in.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah, yeah. Well, she’s crazy enough to be a CPA. That’s true. My first major in college was finance and one semester in I realized that was not for me and I’ve never looked back. So secretary was,

Ray Koenig:

I was a political science major and there was a heavy component of stats and econ and that those were an undergrad, at least my hardest classes, but they’re also kind of the most rewarding. I figured out stats within the PoliSci world was really interesting. Stats is a pure math thing was terrible for me, but I’m one of those applied math people. If I can apply it, I like it. That’s why I actually like the budget stuff with the CBA because you see how it works out with the staff and with our programming and everything and with being on my firm’s executive committee and then chairing a litigation practice group. I mean, budgets are a big part of my life and that’s cool, but if you just gave me random math, I’m going to react like I’m the seventh grader again and run away.

Trisha Rich:

I should have said in the intro that you and I share another thing in common, which is that we are both native Michiganders.

Ray Koenig:

That is correct. Yeah. I went to the right spot.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah, I was just going to ask, has Michigan State got its accreditation yet? Has that finally gone through?

Ray Koenig:

It was interesting. I was reminded of watching the NCAA women’s championship game yesterday. They talked about how Michigan State is the last big time team to win a national championship. I don’t think your school’s done that since we have that was off the last century. I

Trisha Rich:

Was going to say, I think we did that in January. Right. But

Ray Koenig:

Not in basketball. Not

Trisha Rich:

In in basketball. Alright, fair enough, fair enough.

Ray Koenig:

Interesting fact about Michigan State though, of all the teams that made it to NCAA women’s post season and then hockey Michigan state’s the only one that’s made all three.

Trisha Rich:

Oh, well, I think

Ray Koenig:

I know I’m really tight

Trisha Rich:

Is I like to tell my students if you define something narrowly enough, you can be first in it.

Ray Koenig:

Exactly.

Trisha Rich:

Exactly. But that’s more of a specific definition rather than a narrow definition,

Ray Koenig:

Very specific tailored to make it sound good.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah. So Ray, every year the CBA president picks a theme and we sort of build the year around that theme. And the theme for your year is inclusion, which I think is a really nice theme and we’ve seen a lot of that throughout the programming and the events this year. Can you tell us how you came to pick inclusion and how you’ve tried to work that into your year as president?

Ray Koenig:

Yeah, it’s really informed by my experience in law firm and bar leadership. So I’m a big believer that diversity, equity, inclusion moves us forward as a contrary, but also just at a very micro level representing clients and handling cases because it’s one of those cliches that’s true is that the more diverse the folks in the room, the better decision you end up coming to or the better options you have to look at. And that’s correct and diversity in every respect. But what I found is that when you throw diversity, equity inclusion out there, there’s a lot of folks that are currently in law firm and BART leadership that scares them because it’s a big topic and they feel threatened like, oh, you mean you’re going to get rid of me and replace me with somebody else? No, no, no, that’s not it. The pie is big enough for all of us. And then I looked at the evolution of diversity, equity and inclusion, which to me it’s actually diversity and then inclusion leads to equity. So I think first step is diversity, second step is inclusion. I’m really making this basic by the way, but diversity inclusion, then equity, you get to true equity, which is where we want to be.

Trisha Rich:

So D plus I equals E, we’re back to math and you Yeah,

Ray Koenig:

We kind of are. And it’s also a terrible acronym. D is not a good

Trisha Rich:

Acronym.

Ray Koenig:

That’s what people say, DEI. And I feel like the legal community, especially in Chicago, and I’d say bigger cities, has done a really good job recruiting diverse candidates into legal positions. We’ve done a terrible job at retaining diverse candidates as they move forward through their careers. And part of that, one of the main reasons to me is a lack of inclusion. And I think inclusion is such an easy concept for people to understand and it makes it really approachable, which is why I decided to focus on it this year. It’s inclusion. It could just mean that diverse pool candidates that you recruited to work with you inviting a couple of people to go to a client pitch with you, inviting them to second share your case, inviting them to go out to a client dinner, prospective client dinner. It really means literally including people bringing them along and not just bringing them along, but you also have to give them a seat at the table to help make the decisions, to help figure out what’s happening. So it’s not the token gay guy bringing him along or bringing along the lesbian just to say, look, I’ve got a gay person here, aren’t we cool? They actually be part included in the decision making. I think in my remarks when I was sworn in, I referenced the song from Hamilton, something along the lines, having a seat at the table where it happens,

Trisha Rich:

Being in the room where it happens

Ray Koenig:

In the room where it happens. There you go. But yeah, so to me, that’s why I picked inclusion, and I think it’s such an easy concept and when I explain it that way, especially to the generation slightly ahead of mine and I’m Gen X, that kind of controls the table many times when I explain it to them that way, they’re like, oh, that totally makes sense. That’s easy. I can do that. And that’s going to get us forward. That’s going to move us forward. Yeah, that’s kind of the basic, and then once you start doing that, it’s easy. So I wanted to approach it that way. I thought DEI or DIE is a big thing, is too much for some people. And we’re seeing that politically as a backlash right now and with different companies. So that’s why I focused on inclusion. It’s also something I practiced my entire career is bringing people along and involving them in decision making.

So how has it played out the CBA this year? Well, one thing, when we went through the process of every year the CBA president has to appoint or reappoint chairs of our hundred committees, however many committees, there’s a lot of them. And one of the things that we did, and I don’t know if we’ve done it before, is we kind of did an inclusion check looking at the different folks who were chairs and seeing is that inclusive? Does it represent the legal community or our communities we serve at large? And where it didn’t, we sought out folks that helped make us be more inclusive. When I met with all the committee chairs at the beginning of the year, one of my directives to them, because when you’re putting together programming, be as inclusive as possible. If you got a panel, they shouldn’t all look like me.

And for those of you listening, I’m a white guy, so they shouldn’t all look like me. You need to be more inclusive on the panel and who you’re, and I think when that happens, I know when it happens that we’ve done panels before that have been very inclusive. You just get better opinions, you get better outcomes, and you get viewpoints that you wouldn’t get otherwise. It’s an echo chamber to me sitting around with a bunch of white guys talking about what we think is important when most of the community we serve here in Chicago and not white guys.

Trisha Rich:

Right. Yeah. I am always surprised when people are surprised that the data backs up this idea that diverse groups make better decisions, more informed decisions because they bring them wider diversity of experiences to the table.

Ray Koenig:

Yeah, I can tell you, I can give you so many anecdotes from my career that back that up as well. And then just to talk about my firm for a minute. At Clark Hill, we have nine of us are elected members of our executive committee, which is the board of directors, which runs the firm while oversees the CEO and all that who run the firm and we’re elected at large. The only requirement is you have to be an equity member and we’re elected at large by all the equity members. Not surprisingly, our firm, like probably every other large law firm in the United States, most equity members are white straight men. But because we practiced inclusion and allyship for so long, it’s become such an ingrained part of our culture. Five of the nine elected individuals on our executive committee are female.

Trisha Rich:

That’s remarkable. Two

Ray Koenig:

Of us, two, the 11 are openly gay. And there’s no mandate, there’s no diversity mandate, there’s no requirement that, oh, these seats are held or these groups. It’s just we elected the best people. And the reason that these five women and the two gays were able to have the profile to be elected is they were included from early on. We were included from early on. I’ve had to seat at the table for a long time now. I don’t think it was cousin gay, but somebody went out of the way to say, Hey, we need to make sure that we’re including all voices here. And so that’s allowed us, you’re a big firm internal politics, people that have the highest profile are sometimes the ones that get elected. And you need to elevate those people that wouldn’t normally have the high profiles to give them that.

And that’s where we ended up. I’m very proud of that. But that’s such a great example of, and I think we as an EC make so much better decisions with that diverse group. Another example is when our EC is also our comp committee. We started a while ago doing kind of a quality check after we’d go through at the end of the year and talk about bonuses for everybody and figure out a list. Then the CEO sits down with a couple people and goes through, are we comparing apples to apples here? Are we underpaying somebody for reasons that have to do with bias or lack of privilege? And it’s really, I love it that we do that. I’m hopeful lots of firms do it, but that’s just a result of us having a more inclusive and more diverse group at the table.

Trisha Rich:

That’s great. That’s really great. It must be really special to be president during the CBAs hundred and 50th year. Has that been exciting?

Ray Koenig:

Yeah, it has. It’s very exciting. And you could probably hear that big sigh. It’s also exhausting. I’m really, really glad that I had the privilege to be president. I have the privilege to be president during the hundred 50th year. I mean, we’re celebrating 150 years as an association, and it sounds like a long time, but I like to remind people, what was Chicago like 50 years ago? I think it was, what, 1873? I can do math we, or four? Yeah, four. It’s 74, but it’s the same year as the Chicago Public Library. So we’re as old as the Chicago Public Library, which is a massive institution in the city of Chicago.

Trisha Rich:

Right down the street from us.

Ray Koenig:

I know. Yeah. I mean the big one. So it’s kind of crazy. And the things that we’ve been able to do this year are just that our CBA hundred 50th anniversary committee is led by Judge Nicole Patton, the nominee to be our second vice president and our next year. And then Terry Murphy is our former executive director, and the committee they have is just full of just rock stars. And they called off some really, really big things from the different seminars, so to speak, for the public, which we’ve done to different anniversary seminars internally. We did the joint thing at the Chicago Public Library, which I was able to go to, which was great. It was with the chief librarian for the state of Illinois, which I learned this year. Was Alex gnu, is the secretary of

Trisha Rich:

The chief

Ray Koenig:

There. Yeah. He’s also the chief library. And it was with him and then the commissioner of the Chicago Public Library. And they did a really great sit down interview with Maggie Menal Casey, and talked about bookmans and how they came about. And it was fascinating. It was open to public and we had a ton of people online and in person at the auditorium at the library. It was really cool. So stuff like that. And then I know Lynn Grayson, some has got a big one coming up. I think it’s still coming up, environmental issues. And then the one that Terry Rin did on basically DEI after that lovely Supreme Court case we had earlier, it was just all these things have been really cool. And then there’s other stuff. We went to sibo, the Chicago Board of Exchange, we got to ring the bell,

Trisha Rich:

Which yeah, that was awesome. That was great. I was out of town that day. I’ve never had FOMO so much my entire life.

Ray Koenig:

It was a really great group of officers and former presidents, and I got to ring it as the current president. I mean, it’s something I never, ever, ever,

Trisha Rich:

I mean never imagined doing,

Ray Koenig:

Going back to being the kids from Michigan.

Trisha Rich:

Right, exactly. I’m doing what I mean. Like I said, I’ve never had so much FOMO in my whole life. So that looked super, super cool.

Ray Koenig:

And one the other two things that we get to do that are cool is I get to throw out the first pitch at the Cubs game and the White Sox game, which is going to be incredibly anxiety. I’m going to be anxiety ridden that day, and I’m normally not. But throwing up the first pitch and not looking like an idiot is going to be a challenge.

Trisha Rich:

Well, we’re going to pick up right there after the break because I really want to zero in on how much of an idiot you’re worried about looking like. Okay.

Ray Koenig:

Alright.

Trisha Rich:

And with that, let’s take our first break.

And we are back with Ray Koenig, the current president of the Chicago Bar Association. And we were just talking about how Ray is reliving when I think we’re probably his middle school horror nightmares of biffing it in a sporting event, but just with a much, much larger audience. So Ray, you were just telling us that as president of the CBA, you have the opportunity, I’m not sure if opportunity is the right word, I think it is, to throw out the first pitch at a Chicago Gums game and the first pitch at a Chicago White Sox game. How did that come about?

Ray Koenig:

So it came about because Judge Nicole Patton is tenacious and she has no shame. And I mean, that’s a positive thing. As co-chair of the hundred 50th anniversary committee, she thought it’d be a good idea to do it. And the same thing with sibo. She just randomly emailed people at the organizations like SIBO Cubs, white Sox, and got them to agree that this was a good idea. And then now we’re selling tickets for both the games, which is going to be even better. Now, only do I get to make a cool myself in front of a bunch of strangers. I get to now do it in front of a couple hundred of your closest CBA friends, which is going to be awesome.

Trisha Rich:

I got tickets to both games.

Ray Koenig:

I have tickets, and I will be running, I dunno, I’m going to practice, obviously, I’m going to practice, but I’m going to wait a little bit until I practice because if I start now, what’s the point?

Trisha Rich:

Right?

Ray Koenig:

I didn’t grow up playing baseball. I played baseball in the neighborhood with the kids

Trisha Rich:

T-ball. Yeah.

Ray Koenig:

I’ve never played organized baseball. Not even that. So,

Trisha Rich:

Well, I have some good news for you. I think you just threw out the pitch and then you get to leave.

Ray Koenig:

Leave. Yeah. Yeah. But still, but I am sure I pitched when I was like 12 maybe or

Trisha Rich:

Ten eight. It’s 90 feet. Is that right? From the, I

Ray Koenig:

Don’t shut up. I don’t want to. So the thing is, I played soccer for 20 years, so if I could kick it, I’d be fine. I could still kick a ball and I could still hit the box. But yeah, it’s going to be fun. I’ll practice my daughters. I have twins who just turned 14. They won’t be able to go for a variety of reasons, but they’re like, this is the only thing as CBA president, they wanted to go because they want to laugh. They think it’s going to be funny to watch me make a fool of myself. I’ll probably not be as terrible as I think, probably because when I over worry about stuff, I tend to be prepared.

Trisha Rich:

Well, remind me, the games are about a month apart. Is that right?

Ray Koenig:

Yeah. Yeah.

Trisha Rich:

Okay. I don’t

Ray Koenig:

Remember exact dates.

Trisha Rich:

But you’re going to have to probably practice twice, right?

Ray Koenig:

Correct. Yeah.

Trisha Rich:

Okay.

Ray Koenig:

Yeah. And I’m also, I’m going to have to get some socks attire because as a Northside, I have a lot of attire. I own one green White Sox hat, which I think was like, I don’t know. I don’t even know why it was green. It’s green and white, and so I kept it because I’m Spartan, but that’s kind of all I got. So anybody wants to donate some White Sox apparel? I’m taking donations because I don’t own any.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah. I got to tell you, I am anxious for you. I mean, I am already nervous for you doing that. I think it’ll be really cool. But my goodness, nothing like 35,000 people watching you do a sporting event all by yourself. Right?

Ray Koenig:

And so I thought, I’m like, oh, they don’t televise it either, because usually

Trisha Rich:

You never Oh, no. I think they do, right?

Ray Koenig:

Yeah. Yeah. But they also, somebody threw out the first pitch at a cub game recently, and that was on the highlights down the 10 o’clock news. I’m like, I think it was somebody famous, so they’re not, it was like

Trisha Rich:

Somebody well like you. Yeah. Oh

Ray Koenig:

Yeah. Obviously the C brother is super famous. But yeah, it’ll be interesting.

Trisha Rich:

I’m excited, but that’s really, I am very, very glad that I am not the one doing that. So have fun. Thank you. I’ll be there cheering you on in the stands, both metaphorically and literally hold my beer. Yeah, I certainly will be. I’ll be drinking all of the beer. Yeah. I would be so nervous for you. And we have a 5K coming up right around the corner, right? How’s that shaping up?

Ray Koenig:

I understand it’s shaping up pretty well, and I’m excited because a bunch of the associates in my firm here pulled together a team. So Clark Hill has a team course. Nice. It’s going to be cool. And I understand they’re working on the swag. We’re going to have a little swag out there, but I’m hopeful for really good weather, and it’s going to be fun. And I’m certainly not running it. I’m not a runner. I’ll be walking it quite briskly, maybe with a MIT and a ball in hand practice as I go. But yeah, I’m excited about it, and I think it’s the first time we’ve ever done it.

Trisha Rich:

I’m excited about that too. I keep trying to figure out how My husband and I adopted a feral cat a few months ago, and I keep wondering if he would like to come with me, if I can sneak him in, because he still is outside curious. But I don’t think it’s a pets course, right?

Ray Koenig:

I don’t think so. But sad. Why on earth would you adopt a feral cat? I

Trisha Rich:

Know. I got to tell you, he’s the friendliest, feral cat I’ve ever met in my whole life. He’s acclimated to a life indoors very quickly. That’s good. Yeah. Yeah. Nigel, he’s British.

Ray Koenig:

Oh, you have a British cat, a British feral.

Trisha Rich:

So the five is at Soldier Field,

Ray Koenig:

I believe that’s where it kicks

Trisha Rich:

Off. Yeah. Yeah. That’s really exciting. And maybe in Soldier Fields’ last days, depending on how that all shakes out

Ray Koenig:

Before we ever get there. There’s a major stay here, and then there’s going to be a big lawsuit and there’s all that.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah. We know how this goes in Chicago.

Ray Koenig:

Yeah. Well, the other exciting thing for this year though, and it’s the May 10th, our hundred

Trisha Rich:

50th. I was just going to talk about that. So May 10th, what’s going on?

Ray Koenig:

So just to completely celebrate and cap off an amazing year of hundred 50th anniversary celebratory events, we have rented out Union Station for a Friday evening reception celebration. I’m super excited about it because we’re inviting anybody and everybody that wants to go. The ticket prices are relatively low. I was very surprised and happy about that. It’s not a black tie, it’s not a sit down. It’s going to be very brief remarks. We’re going to honor Robert Clifford, Bob Clifford for his basically service to the community as a large, it’s going to be an inaugural award for named after him that presumably will be providing somebody every year or periodically. But it’s really exciting to be able to honor him. He spent such a huge advocate and builder of the legal community and the CBA in particular over his entire career. I’m really excited to get to do that. The event is going to be, again, at the Union Station, all reception, no sit down, no black tie, just kind of networking and chatting and catching up and sharing stories. And it’s going to be really nice. It’s going to be total a relaxed, more casual celebration than one would normally have, I think, for 150 years. But I find my generation and younger that does not get excited about black tie events. It’s more of a pain in the butt to put on a tux, especially Friday,

Trisha Rich:

Try putting on a dress in heels and getting your hair and makeup done.

Ray Koenig:

Oh, yeah. I belong to another,

Trisha Rich:

Wait, tuxes are hard.

Ray Koenig:

Yeah. Hey, try putting on those little button things, whatever they’re called, that’s a pain in the butt. And tying your own bow tie, that’s difficult. But anyway, it’s going to be fun. And what’s really cool about it too is that we’ve set it up on a Friday night, and it’s at Union Station, obviously. So for people that commute in and out of the city that don’t live downtown or live in the city, it’s really easy. I mean, you can go to

Trisha Rich:

The literally at the train station

Ray Koenig:

And then train home, or if you’re working remotely other day, you can just take the train down, pop out right there, and you don’t have to look like the fool in your black tie and your dress on the train. You can just wear your business suit and show

Trisha Rich:

Up. Yeah. It’s funny. Well, as you know, I’m not going to make it because my baby brother is getting married that weekend in California, so I’ll be in California getting ready for that. But somebody was trying to explain to me the other day why they couldn’t make it. They were coming in from somewhere, and that was my first question, are you taking the train? And the person said, yes. And I was like, good news. You actually can go. Yeah, pretty cool. But that’s a really great venue for events, and I think it’s going to be a really, really awesome event. So is that the capstone event for the a hundred and 50th year? Do we have any events after that?

Ray Koenig:

I believe that’s it. I believe that going to,

Trisha Rich:

Yeah. So we’re winding down.

Ray Koenig:

Yeah, I think it’s cool. It’s an iconic venue for an iconic organization, and the Union station is so Chicago. You walk in there and it’s just, yeah, it’s such a great Chicago venue. I’m really excited about it.

Trisha Rich:

Okay. Well, with that, let’s take our final break and we’ll be back in just a minute. So the theme of the hundredth and 50th year at the CBA was championing justice, building connections and making an impact. Can you talk just a little bit about how you think the CBA has done that in the last 150 years, and any thoughts you might have about what the CBAs next 150 years might look like?

Ray Koenig:

We have been integral in founding so many kind of institutions and organizations and movements and creating laws that people in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois and the US frankly take for granted or enjoy every day. And that’s a good thing. And so many of these things are centered around the whole part of the champions of justice. I think people get an image of the cva. It’s a bunch of stuffy folks in suits, and we have those Sure. And they’re welcome. And we love stuffy folks in suits because that makes it part of our profession. But we also have had people that have been on the cutting edge of really social justice causes for the last 150 years to make the world a better place. I mean, one thing is the creation of the Chicago Bar Foundation, which is kind of our charitable sister organization that basically serves as a way to raise funds and fund hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of organizations which provide pro bono or low fee services throughout the city of Chicago and the Chicago area. And that wouldn’t exist without the CBA. So there’s hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of individuals who are impacted daily because of that. That’s just one thing that we’ve done over the years. And the CBF big shout out to them. That’s an amazing organization.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah, Bob Glads, our man.

Ray Koenig:

Yeah. I mean, the work that they do is astounding, and they do change the world every day. But that’s just one example of what we’ve done over the years, and we don’t take credit for it, which I also love. I mean, we say, yay, we did this, we did that, whatever, but it’s never about us. And I like that. And the CBA is behind so many great things that are happening in the state and around the country, and then making connections part of it. That’s a big part of what the CBA does. And I’m an example of it. You’re an example of it. I mean, you probably can’t count on one or two hands. The number of people you met through the CBA that have helped your career, that have helped you, that have allowed you to help others coming up beneath you. Where I am now is I’m at the point where a lot more people are coming to me to ask me to help ’em.

And I always say yes, because when I did it, people always said Yes, and that’s what you should do. But the CBA facilitates and encourages that. If you’re an active Bar Association member, it’s an expectation that you’re going to help the younger, I use younger, loosely less mature attorneys or less experienced attorneys move forward in the career path, and that you’re going to go for a ative time, you’re going to grab a drink, you’re going to say yes. You’re going to look at where they’re applying. And if you know somebody say, Hey, Trish, so-and-so is applying for a third year position at Holland Knight, would you be talking to them? And you as a good CBA members say, yeah, I’d be happy to talk to, you can do anything, but you’re going to talk to them. And we do that all the time. That sort of informal thing is amazing. And that truly, I mean, but for that, I wouldn’t be where I am in my career at all.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah. Especially me and you. Just like a couple of kids growing up in farms in Michigan. Yeah.

Ray Koenig:

Yeah. I definitely would be. I talked about Aurora as she’s an example of it, and her career too. Oh my gosh. An immigrant who moved here from the Philippines when she was like 18, and then she’s this powerhouse and legend in our legal community. And so much of that, and she’ll tell you, was due to the CBA and the connections she made through theBar Association. And then she did the same thing to me. While she looks like she’s a decade younger, she’s actually a little bit more to me, but she was a little more established when I came along. And she’s an example of I think what the CBA stands for when it comes, especially when it comes to the making connections part of it.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah. The CBA obviously holds a very special place in my heart and in my career, and I think that’s true for all of us in leadership. But it’s interesting, I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Terry Murphy for this podcast and to prepare. I went back as Terry served as a CBA staff member and executive director later, but was a CBA staff member for almost 50 years. And so I had to go back and try to catalog the things that happened in the Chicago community that the CBA touched during that time. And the list on my screen, and it’s not even anywhere near an inclusive list, but it included Watergate Operation Graylord, one of our members becoming a Supreme Court justice, another one becoming the first black president of the United States, the arrest of John Wayne Gacy, the Tylenol panic, Richard j Daley to Richard m Daley, the B torture scandal, Laquan, McDonald’s, the Constitutional convention. I mean, the list just goes on and on and on. And there’s so many things that the CBA has impacted in the last 150 years, especially in a town like Chicago where it, there’s just so much going on all the time.

Ray Koenig:

Absolutely. A hundred percent agree. And it’s funny, it’s interesting for your listeners that might want to learn more if they go to the CBAs website and go to the CBA record, which is our publication, you among others have written some amazing articles over the last, during my tenure, during the hundred 50th year celebration, which I think every

Trisha Rich:

25 years,

Ray Koenig:

Every publication does a different 25 years, even if you don’t read the articles, just looking at the timeline of things that have happened. So anybody that’s really interested in the CBA history and what we’ve done, I strongly encourage you to go there. It’s fascinating.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah. So the CBA, A record did a series, so we published the record six times a year. So we did a six part series in this year’s set where every issue looks at a particular 25 year period. And I wrote about 1960 to 1975. So nothing happened then. That was great. I mean,

That was super easy to narrow it down to the top five things. But even then, I read through the Kogan book, and if people haven’t read that, there’s a book by the Noted Lake great Chicago author who wrote about the CBAs first a hundred years. And so that was my first point of reference. But then there were just so many things going on in the world, just that 25 year period, we had Vietnam, MLK dying, JFK dying, RFK dying, the Chicago seven, and I wrote, actually, this is the first one, I think one just like CB, a tidbit, the first time theBar show got censored appeared in that period as well, which was really, really interesting.

Ray Koenig:

I believe Billy Joel wrote and sang a song about that. All of a sudden you about that, we did start the Fire.

Trisha Rich:

Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.

Ray Koenig:

And that’s kind of like what the CBA a lives through at that time. Right. What we’re living through now. We’ve had a lot. The CBA has been involved on international stage more than I think we have been in a long time, but it’s, well, it’s not nothing, but I can’t imagine having been president during that decade, especially the 1960s.

Trisha Rich:

Oh my gosh. Right. Yeah. We have a Democratic convention here in Chicago as

Ray Koenig:

Well. Let’s hope this one goes a little better.

Trisha Rich:

It will. Yeah. I mean, it has to. Yeah.

Ray Koenig:

It can’t get worse though. It resulted in a sea change in politics in the United States, so it was probably a good thing that things went down the way they did in 68, but it probably wasn’t seen as a good thing at the time.

Trisha Rich:

Certainly. And that is our show for today. I want to thank our guest, Ray Koenig for his time and this interesting conversation. Ray, it has been an absolute pleasure to serve in your presidency. I have loved being alongside you. I, by the way, just absolutely adored the Chicago Bar Association’s International CLE trip to Mexico City. I don’t know that I would’ve ever gone to Mexico City on my own, and it was just absolutely wonderful. I think you’ve done great things, and I’ve been really, really happy to have you at the helm during such a special year at the Chicago Bar Association. So thank you, and thank you for coming on at theBar today. I also want to thank our executive producer, Jennifer Byrne, for the work she does behind the scenes that makes this machine work. Also, as always, a huge thanks to Adam Lockwood on Sound Engineering, and to everyone in the Legal Talk Network family, they’re truly the very best in the business. Remember, you can follow us and send us comments, questions, or episode ideas on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter at cba, at theBar, all one word. Please also rate us and leave us your feedback on Apple Podcast, Google Play, overcast Spotify, or wherever you download your podcast. It helps us get the word out. And until next time, for everyone here at the Chicago Bar Association, thank you for joining us, and we’ll see you soon at theBar.

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