Ted Donner Named Lawyer of the Year

October 28, 2021. In October, 20-21, the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee for PILI hosted an online event to commemorate Pro Bono Week, recognize the efforts local pro bono volunteers, and celebrate its Pro Bono Service Award Recipient. The celebration video premiered Thursday, October 28, 2021, at 12:00pm, including an announcement that Ted Donner was being honored as the Pro Bono Service Award Recipient for that year. The Eighteenth Judicial Circuit's Chief Judge, Hon. Kenneth L. Popejoy, Committee Chair, Hon. Bryan Chapman, and Illinois Supreme Court Justice Michael Burke, all spoke for this presentation, emphasizing the importance of pro bono service and Ted's contributions to the community through such efforts. https://pili.org/eighteenth-judicial-circuit-celebrate-pro-bono-virtual-event/

The DuPage Bar Foundation "promotes the study of law" with its annual scholarship program, including the William J. Bauer Scholarship which has been awarded each year since the DBF first developed the program when the Courthouse Annex was named in Judge Bauer's honor in 2010. The DBF awards these scholarships to students who have completed at least their first full semester of law school and either reside in or have an established connection to DuPage County. Melissa Piwowar,who has been a member of the DuPage County Bar Association for almost 20 years, was a uniquely qualified candidate for this award. She is one of the only DCBA members ever to be granted a Directors Award three times over the course of her career, she served as Founding Editor of the DCBA Grief which, at the end of her eight years on that project, won the NABE's Luminary Award as the best special issue published by a small bar association in the US, and she was the founding chair of the Public Interest Law Initiative's Committee in the 18th Judicial Circuit. An established connection with the DuPage County legal community? As David Clark, the DBF representative who presented her with this recognition said, she certainly "checked that box." (photo by Robert E. Potter III) 

April 2019. There's maybe nothing more challenging for a lawyer than to sit down for an interview with an old boss or law school professor. Ted Donner has worked with and represented a number of the people he used to report to, in this context, but among those he knew in law school, Dean Paul Lisnek was among the more challenging. So, when Loyola asked the two to sit down for an interview on a subject they both have a long history in, jury selection as an aspect of trial practice, Donner was not altogether sure he was up to the challenges. When Ted Donner studied at Loyola University Chicago School of Law in the late 1980s, after all, Lisnek was among the professors he had to work hardest for. Lisnek, then a Dean overseeing the school's job placement program, later went on to become a regular fixture on WGN-TV news in Chicago. But somewhere in the course of that change in profession, he worked with Clark Boardman Callaghan to update its book on voir dire, Jury Selection: Strategy & Science. Donner had assisted him on a number of other publications but this one was different. It took a few years to update the book in the ways that Donner and Lisnek agreed, back in the early 1990s, and it eventually became Donner's focus, as co-author of 30 years of subsequent editions with Richard Gabriel, a trial consultant who has maintained friendships with both Lisnek and Donner over all those many years. A link to the podcast appears here: Dialogue #27: The Podvocate, Paul Lisnek and Ted Donner .

In recognition of Law Day 2019, DCBA members are invited to participate in a Free Legal Answers Workshop. Attorneys will be trained on how to answer questions posted on Illinois Legal Answers Online platform. This workshop is in place of the Ask a Lawyer Day held on a Saturday in previous years. Attorneys will receive training on how to answer questions on the Illinois Legal Answers Online platform (in various areas of civil practice) and then select questions to answer. Lunch will be served. To register, CLICK HERE .

October 14, 2018. Melissa Piwowar joined with others from different colleges at Loyola University Chicago to be inducted into the Alpha Sigma National Jesuit Honor Society today. The ceremony was held on the school's north shore campus in Chicago, Illinois.

October 26, 2017 (from Facebook): "PILI ED Michael Bergmann made one last stop for this week on our statewide #celebrateprobono tour in Wheaton to visit with the DuPage County Bar Association and got to see the inaugural chair of our Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee, Melissa Piwowar.

July 15, 2016. Along with the President of the neighboring Kane County Bar Association, Ted threw out the first pitch for a game that netted over $10,000 in funds for charity in the two counties. Melissa Piwowar played catcher for most of a seven-inning softball game which ended when Kane County pulled ahead in the last innings to win this first game 2-1.

August, 2016. The DuPage County Bar Association started its 2016-17 program year with a Leadership Conference at College of DuPage in Wheaton, Illinois. Attended by section and program chairs, board members, staff and association officers, the Conference involved lectures from area professionals on the intricacies of non-profit governance, the legal pitfalls of association life, and a spirited improvisational workshop led by MAC Theater Director, Diana Martinez.

Since April, 2006, the Bar Association's regular monthly publication, the DCBA Brief, has surrendered its cover and half of the magazine's content each year to a parody edition, the DCBA Grief. Spear-headed by its Editor-in-Chief Melissa Piwowar, the DCBA Grief grew in size and ambition each year for eight years until, in 2013, the magazine was awarded the National Association of Bar Executive's Luminary Award for Excellence in a Special Publication. This is how that event was reported in the December, 2013 edition of the DCBA Brief, in an article titled "DCBA Grief Wins Luminary Award" by David N. Schaffer and Ted A. Donner (reprinted with permission): The National Association of Bar Executives has announced that the DCBA Grief, our annual April Fool’s edition, has won the 2013 Luminary Award for Excellence in the “Special Publications” category. The NABE Luminary Awards program recognizes excellence in bar association communications by honoring outstanding communications projects from the past year. The DCBA Brief won last year’s award in the “Regular Publications” category. The NABE judges’ comments regarding the DCBA Grief’s 2013 Luminary included: "Clearly you have lots of fun and benefit from a dedicated group of volunteers as well as staff who were able to produce this clever publication” and "the double cover approach of the publication creatively allowed you to include the parody as part of your regular publication." The DCBA Grief is put together by members of the Editorial Board, led by the DCBA Grief’s Editor-in-Chief, Melissa Piwowar. Leslie Monahan, DCBA Executive Director, and Jacki Hamler, DCBA Financial and Information Systems Manager, were instrumental in assisting in the production and submitted the award-winning issue for consideration. Terry Benshoof was Editor-in-Chief for the DCBA Brief this last year. Upon learning of this award, he said: “ Our ‘Editor in Grief,’ Melissa Piwowar, has done a masterful job, an honor which will require celebration! Of course, now John Pcolinski and Raleigh Kalbfleisch (the current and on-deck editors-in-chief, respectfully) have to figure out how they’re going to top two years running!” Piwowar has served as Editor for the DCBA Grief since shortly after it was first introduced in these pages in April, 2007. “No one on the Publication Board would disagree,” added David Schaffer, a member of the Editorial Board and contributor to the Grief, “without Melissa’s continued leadership, imagination, sense of humor, tenacity and ‘beer and pizza’ Grief jam sessions, there would be no Grief and there certainly would not be a Luminary awarded for it. Thanks Melissa!” Always the team player, after hearing of this year’s award, Piwowar quickly circulated an email congratulating the Editorial Board with a special “shout out” to the “committee” that worked on last year’s DCBA Grief as well as to Hamler and Monahan for their help.[1] Sharon Mulyk, the DCBA’s President in 2012-13, was quick to respond after hearing the good news. “How wonderful,” she wrote, “Two years in a row – we’re looking for a three-peat! Congrats to Melissa and Terry and the entire Editorial Board. Fantastic work! And, oh yeah, thanks to the ‘Powers that Be’ for finally demonstrating some influence over… something.” Current President, Pat Hurley was likewise thrilled to learn of the award. “I am extremely proud of the efforts of our Editorial Board,” he wrote, “and wish to give special thanks to Melissa Piwowar and Terry Benshoof. Receiving a NABE Luminary Award for the second time in two years is an incredible feat and a testament to the hard work and creativeness of our Editorial Board. We are privileged to have our association represented by such a high-quality publication.”