CBA Record July-August 2024

John with mentor Richard “Dick” Culver.

John and his wife, Esther.

Fenwick High School in Oak Park, then Creighton University in Omaha followed by DePaul University College of Law. He met Esther, his wife of 39 years, while at Creighton. She was a native Nebraskan until they moved to northwest suburban Bar rington, where they raised four children. One son, Michael, is a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis, which makes John’s heart “sing with pride” to have another generation of Sciaccotta law yers in Chicago. John and Esther’s other children, John Jr., Anna, and Joe, are doing well too in their chosen fields (computer sci ence, elementary education and acting, and investment advisory respectively). Law Practice Out of law school, Sciaccotta started his practice at Tressler, then joined the Kelly Olson firm in Chicago before opening his own firm with the mentorship of colleagues Richard “Dick” Culver and past CBA President Don Hubert. With their encourage ment, he realized he could do more if he was at a larger, full-ser vice firm, so he merged his business-centric practice with Shefsky & Froelich, a firm that grew from 38 to 75 lawyers. That firm then merged with Taft, Stettinius & Hollister in 2014, growing to more than 400 lawyers. In 2015, Sciaccotta joined a mid-sized entrepreneurial full-service firm, Aronberg Goldgehn Davis & Garmisa, where he currently serves on the firm’s Executive Man agement Committee and chairs or co-chairs its Business Divorce & Complex Ownership Disputes, Marketing, and Recruiting committees.

John and family celebrating his wife Esther’s birthday.

His practice now focuses on complex civil litigation, arbitration, mediation, and business counseling in all types of transactional disputes across the country. Seeing a need for lawyers in Chi cago to brainstorm and collaborate regarding business disputes, he and his law partner Jerry Holisky co-founded the CBA Busi ness Divorce and Complex Ownership Disputes Committee in 2017, with the encouragement of then-CBA President Judge Thomas Mulroy. Focus on Service Sciaccotta says he took away something from each educational experience that built his character and made him who he is today. And who is that? It’s a lawyer who cares and who puts others first. “My parochial education upbringing and my mentors in the law taught me that being a lawyer is a life of service, of giving back, paying it forward to a younger generation and ‘setting the world on fire’ in the Jesuit tradition. That’s why I look forward to being CBA President, because it’s giving back to the legal profes sion,” he observes. “It’s an honor to lead the CBA, and I want to leave a legacy that will honor my mentors and everything they gave to me.” John also values his experiences leading up to the

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