07/05/2024
After turning eighteen in 1974 and on and off for the next three years, I worked as a union meat cutter’s apprentice and member of Local Union #1 in a processing plant in Hammond, Indiana, an industrial city wedged between the South Side of Chicago and Gary, Indiana. My job really didn’t entail any skill. Most mornings found me standing about 1 and 1/2 feet away from a floor to ceiling band saw which was used to cut the quarters of cattle in half. My job was to pick up the two halves (each weighing about 150-175 pounds) from my side of the band saw table and toss them about two feet away onto another table. The only safety device around was my focused fear that if I slipped on the puddle of cow blood that was always about 1/8 of an inch deep on the floor, I might lose a piece of me on the band saw.
Fast forward about seven and 1/2 years and I was in the first few months of working my first job as an attorney for an insurance defense firm. The managing partner of the firm assigned me a case defending a manufacturer against a young Hispanic woman who had caught her hand in a chicken skinning device causing her to be skinned from wrist to armpit. She was also a member of Local Union #1. I told the managing partner of the firm that I was not going to work on the case, to which he responded that - as a first year associate - I was in no position to say what cases I would or would not handle. He told me that if I refused to work the case it would cost me my job.
My personal life philosophy (refined after a long conversation with my close friend, Greg Barnes, which is another story for another day) is that if you want something in life, you cannot rely on anyone else, you have to just reach out and take it.
And so, after my conversation with the managing partner, I walked out of the office and across the loop to Phil Corboy’s office. Mr. Corboy was the best known Irish attorney in Chicago. At the time, though, I was unaware of his status as the “Dean of the Chicago Plaintiff’s Bar.” I had not attended law school in Chicago, and only knew of Mr. Corboy because of an educational film put out by the American Bar Association in which he participated. All I really knew was that Mr. Corboy was an attorney who worked for people, not corporations.
When I walked up to the receptionist desk and asked to speak with Mr. Corboy, Sue Gittleson who was working the desk told me that I could not just walk off of the street and talk to Mr. Corboy. Properly chastised, I headed back towards the elevator when it occurred to me to return to ask if I could drop off a resume the next day. When I returned to the office, Mr. Corboy was standing at the reception desk going through the mail. I introduced myself and said that I wanted to work for him. Instead of sending me away, Mr. Corboy invited me into his office, and along with Tom Demetrio, interviewed me for an hour.
After a couple more interviews the following weeks, Mr. Corboy told me he had promised a judge that he would hire the judge’s son, and he had to keep his word. He told me not to worry as he and Tom Demetrio had arranged for me to meet Mr. Corboy’s protege, Al Hofeld, the next afternoon. I was hired by Al Hofeld the next day at their recommendation.
Because of a series of events that I need not go into here, Mr. Corboy and I developed a friendship. When I started my own law practice five years later, Mr. Corboy would give my name out to prospective clients who he could not represent due to conflicts.
Mr. Corboy passed away in the late Spring of 2012. A couple weeks later I was taking a lunch time walk around the Loop when I ran across a young lady, Sarah Dunne, standing at the corner of Dearborn and Wacker who appeared lost (and who was actually lost). I approached her and asked if she needed directions. Sarah responded that what she really needed was a job, and did I know any lawyers who might be hiring.
At that time, Gaelic Park Irish Club on the South Side would sponsor men and women’s Irish Football and Hurling teams, competing with other Irish clubs around the country. The club provided airline tickets and a two bedroom house with mattresses covering all of the floors for the twenty Irish women they recruited for the Summer team. If the ladies wanted to eat, they needed to bring some money along or find a summer job. Sarah was one of the recruits.
Sarah - besides being a star on the Kilkenny Women’s Hurling team - was in her last year of law school in Ireland. She was bound and determined to use the Summer trip to find a summer clerkship in a law firm. When I ran into her, she had dropped already dropped off a couple dozen resumes, but had not gotten past the reception desk.
Given the kindness Mr. Corboy had shown me years before, his recent death, and the coincidence of the meeting, I thought that I better not risk the wrath of the Irish Gods, old or new, by walking away. Sarah started working with us the following morning. As it so happened, my paralegal, Michelle Konieczki, and I had just finished two long back to back trials and we actually did need some help in the office. Sarah was a delight to have around the office, and made our Summer a special one.
My wife, Linda, and I are on a cruise that took us into Dublin for a day. I wrote an email to Sarah the night before arrival to see if she was around town and had time to meet with us. Sarah and her wonderful husband, Gareth, spent an unusually sunny Dublin afternoon with us, taking us to a traditional Irish Pub in the mountains just outside of Dublin.
Sarah is now a successful attorney specializing in Intellectual Property for the Dublin Office of DLA Piper (the third biggest law firm in the world).
At the end of the day the real value in life is the people who have touched our lives. This is just a story of a couple people who have touched my life. I am thankful that they did.
