New state bar president encourages diversity

The new president of the Illinois State Bar Association describes himself as "the suburban white Irish guy," but John O'Brien thinks the profession and the association need more diversity.

He defines diverse citizens as women, people of color, those with minority sexual orientations and people with disabilities.

O'Brien, who lives and works in Arlington Heights, founded the Illinois Real Estate Lawyers Association in 1996. He said he is the first real estate lawyer with a small office to reach this position.

He describes attorneys like him as "Main Street lawyers who represent real people instead of corporations."

While there are subgroups and committees in the bar association that address issues of diversity, O'Brien would like them to work together more.

One of his first acts is naming Alice Noble-Allgire, a professor of law at Southern Illinois University, to coordinate this issue.

"We are getting the diversity council out of the backwater of the bar association and upfront," said O'Brien.

He thinks it is important to show young people of all kinds that they can be lawyers if they want to. He would like to see more local bar associations take on small, manageable projects.

For example, he likes the way the Hispanic Lawyers Association has affiliated with a few schools and mentors students on a regular basis. Members take interested youngsters to courthouses, law schools and law offices, he said.

O'Brien will also encourage members of the association to provide more pro bono or free work for low-income people.

But the association also needs to lobby for more state money for legal services for low-income people, he said. In the area of funding civil or noncriminal services, Illinois already ranks 48 out of 50 states, said O'Brien, and that amount could be cut with the current budget issues.

As a real estate lawyer, he notes that people who are losing their homes to foreclosure "by definition don't have any money" but probably need legal advice.

"The cold fact is a lot of lawyers have extra time with the economy slow," said O'Brien.