CBA Record July-August 2018

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

A S HE TAKES OVER THE REINS AS PRESIDENT of the Chicago Bar Association, this dealmaker has an ambitious agenda for the 2018-19 bar year that he believes will, in many ways, mirror the principles that guide him and the issues that are important to him in the practice of law. With a practice focused on land use and government law, Elrod is the corporation counsel for the City of Highland Park and the village attorney for the villages of Deerfield, Glencoe, Lincolnwood and Northbrook. He also represents real estate developers and landowners on zoning and entitlement matters, and has litigated issues involving the First and the Second Amendments to the U.S. Constitution in the federal courts. Elrod is also Chairman of Holland & Knight’s National Land Use Team and served on the firm’s national directors committee for two consecutive terms. Civic Streak Elrod has an equally ambitious list of civic engagements, includ- ing service on the Board of the Chicago Bar Foundation and a longtime association of leadership at the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Chicago (CRFC). He is also a founding member of the board of the Highland Park/Highwood Legal Aid Clinic, and a vice president of the Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation, which advances gastrointestinal cancer research and real estate education. His involvement with the Eisenberg Foundation grew out of a

client and personal friend relationship with the late Harold Eisen- berg’s son, Peter, Principal at Clark Street Real Estate, who heads the foundation that was founded in the name of his late father. After working with Eisenberg and learning of the foundation’s work, Elrod became an active supporter. Eisenberg describes Elrod as a “fantastic dealmaker,” who provides developers with invalu- able public-private perspective, as well as an approach that brings people together, in both business and charitable endeavors. “Steve is all about collaboration and finding common ground by understanding all of the various perspectives at the table,” said Eisenberg. “And he just has an easy way about him that makes people gravitate toward him.” To be sure, the new CBA president is pulled in many directions. He is also an adjunct professor at his alma mater, the Northwest- ern University Pritzker School of Law. But his longtime partner at Holland & Knight, Peter M. Friedman, said that Elrod strikes just the right balance in managing his time and being extremely accessible to all of his clients, all of the time. “Steve has more energy for the law than any attorney that I have ever met,” said Friedman, who was hired by Elrod and leads the Holland & Knight Real Estate Practice Group. “He brings people to the table and motivates everyone to reach agreement and to compromise when necessary. His energy and his motivation flow around everyone he works with.”

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photo by Bill Richert