CBA Record November-December 2022

Sandra S. Yamate Sandra S. Yamate is the CEO of the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession, a 501(c)3 organiza

Thomas Mulroy After beginning his career as an Assistant United States Attor ney in Chicago, Judge Thomas Mul roy joined Jenner &

of the Illinois Judicial Ethics Commit tee, Chair of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Committee on Professional Responsibil ity, Chair of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Statutory Court Fee Task Force and was General Counsel of The Chicago Bar Association. Pflaum has been honored by the Illinois Judges Association with its Amicus Award, and by the Chicago Bar Foundation with its Edward J. Lewis II Pro Bono Service Award. Lowell Sachnoff their family during the Great Depression. He was inspired to become a lawyer by his grandparents’ stories about how terrible life was in a lawless society. After a few years at Ross, McGowan, and O’Keefe, he was appointed General Counsel for the Illinois Department of Mental Health. He overhauled the state mental health code to expand the rights of mentally ill persons. In the early 1960s, he opened Sachnoff & Weaver, which grew to 130 lawyers before merging with Reed Smith. Sachnoff has been a securities and anti trust lawyer, winning groundbreaking price-fixing and takeover cases. He has also advocated for the wrongfully incar cerated, and for women, minorities, the poor, and society’s most vulnerable. In 2006, Sachnoff & Weaver was one of the first firms to represent Guanta namo Bay detainees: he and his colleagues helped negotiate the release of three pris oners who had been held for many years without being charged with any crime. Sachnoff has also litigated women’s rights issues, winning a jury verdict in the 1980s against the City of Chicago for its policy of allowing police officers to rou tinely strip search women for minor traf fic violations. Now retired as a corporate litigator, Sachnoff continues to volunteer on public interest matters, most notably working with Senator Dick Durbin and his staff toward closing the Guantanamo prison and to release patients unlawfully held in state mental hospitals. Lowell Sachnoff was born on Maxwell Street, the son of Ukrainian immi grants who settled in Chicago and raised

tion dedicated to creating a more diverse and inclusive legal profession through research and educational programming. She spent 10 years as Director of the ABA’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession and was the first Executive Director of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms. Prior to that, she was a litigator in Chicago. She is a member of the Execu tive Committee of the National Associa tion of Women Lawyers, where she serves as a member of both the Advocacy and Survey Committees. She is a member of the Board of Trustees and a former Chair of the National Judicial College, where she chairs the Nominations and Gover nance Committee. A founding member of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Chicago Area, Yamate also was a founding member of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and is currently a member of its Lead ership Advisory Council. She chairs the Harvard Law School Asian American Alumni Group and helped found what is now the Chicago affiliate of Asian Ameri cans Advancing Justice and the National Women’s Political Caucus of Greater Chicago. She is a member of the CBA’s Animal Law Committee where she annu ally chairs the Chicago Bar Association’s Holiday Drive to Support Local Animal Shelters. Other awards include the National Bar Association’s 2021 Global Advocates Award.

Block as a trial lawyer, trying commercial and criminal jury cases in federal and state courts. He later joined McGuire Woods, where he was a partner and Chair of the litigation section. Beginning in 2007, he served for 15 years in the Chancery and Law Divisions of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Mulroy was a member of the Federal Defender Panel in the North ern District of Illinois and was active in The Chicago Bar Association’s Defense of Prisoners Committee. He is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, a life member of the Illinois Bar Founda tion, and a member of the Chicago Inn of Court. A past president of the CBA and the Legal Club of Chicago, Mulroy has also served as a Board Member and as Chair of the Loyola University School of Law Alumni Board. He was a Director of the Illinois Institute of Continuing Edu cation, Illinois Bar Foundation, Chicago Bar Association, Legal Assistance Foun dation, Legal Club, and the Chicago Bar Foundation, and was a founding member of the Chicago Bar Association’s Judicial Evaluation Committee.

Steven F. Pflaum Steven F. Pflaum is co-chair of the Liti gation Department and chair of the Pro Bono Committee at Neal, Gerber &

Eisenberg LLP in Chicago. His practice includes a wide variety of complex civil litigation matters. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, a past President of the Appellate Lawyers Association, and a co-author of two chap ters in the IICLE treatise Civil Appeals: State and Federal. He was named Lawyer of the Year (Chicago) in one of his practice areas on four occasions by Best Lawyers in America, and he is ranked by Cham bers USA in the category of Litigation: General Commercial – Illinois. Pflaum is a founding member and longtime Chair

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CBA RECORD 11