Don H. Reuben – Curriculum Vitae

Don H. Reuben has been a practicing lawyer for 57 years and has appeared in court hundreds of times; he has had “first chair” responsibility for approximately 800 trials and appeals and has appeared before the United States Supreme Court in several watershed cases. He is a member of both the Illinois Bar (57 years) and the California Bar (12 years). He is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He was for six years a member of the American Bar Association Committee that, for the Congress and the Justice Department, screened and rated Presidential nominees for the federal bench. He was a member of the Commercial Arbitration Panel of The American Arbitration Association and has acted as arbitrator in a number of commercial disputes. He is on the Register of Preeminent Lawyers. He regularly serves as a pro tem Judge of the Superior Court in Riverside County, California and has heard and disposed of many matters in that capacity. He is a member of the Chicago panel of ADR Systems of America.

His previous Chicago law firm affiliations are: Kirkland & Ellis, 1952-1978, senior and managing partner; Reuben & Proctor, 1978-1986, founding and managing partner, when it then merged with the law firm of Isham, Lincoln & Beale where he was a senior and managing partner until 1988; he then became Of Counsel to Winston & Strawn, 1988-1994 and then Of Counsel to Altheimer & Gray, 1994-2003. He is now Of Counsel to the Chicago law firm of Chico & Nunes.
He has represented many well-known public corporate and private interests in court as well as counseling such entities on how to avoid litigation and regulatory difficulties. He served for 30 years as General Counsel to the Tribune Company and represented all of its then owned newspaper and broadcast properties, including The Chicago Tribune, Fort Lauderdale News, Orlando Sun-Sentinel, New York Daily News, WGN-Chicago, The New York Daily News and WPIX-New York. He was from 1977 to 1988 the principal counsel to the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago; he has been counsel to the Chicago Bears Football Club for several decades and also has acted as counsel to the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox.

He has advised and represented many clients concerning their internal affairs and governance in such matters as takeover threats, responding to government inquiries and regulations, shareholder relations and permissible conduct with competitors. He has advised corporate Boards concerning their duties, liabilities, powers and committee organization and function. Among the many private and public entities that he has advised are Time, Inc., Loews, Inc., Hyatt Corporation, Price Waterhouse, Life Newspapers, Harnischfeger Corporation, Rock Island Railroad, American Hospital & Supply Co., NBC, ABC, CBS, the Hilton Corporation, the Chicago Board of Trade, the American Medical Association, CNA, Travelers, Fireman’s Fund, Lloyds of London, Eisenhower Hospital, the Los Angeles Times, Dun & Bradstreet, RCA, etc. For over a decade, he was the General Counsel to Heitman Financial Ltd., a Chicago entity that during the 1990s held and administered a 12 billion dollar real estate portfolio; he also sat on its Board of Directors.

He has represented a number of charitable foundations including the Robert R. McCormick Charitable Trust, the Rice Foundation and the Prentice-Rockefeller Foundation. He served for two decades on the Board of Directors of Lake Shore National Bank (a major Chicago bank until its merger) and was on its Loan Committee for many years. He has been a member of the Board of Directors (Vice Chair for two years) of The Community Blood Bank in Rancho Mirage, California. He serves as Secretary, Chair of the Audit Committee, Third Vice President and General Counsel to The Palm Springs Air Museum. He was the Chairperson of the General Plan Advisory Committee of the City of Rancho Mirage, California for 2+ years until the Committee concluded its report and dissolved. He was for several years a member of the Board of Directors of the College of the Desert and served as chair of its audit committee. He is a member of the Board and serves as Secretary of a Foundation created by Riverside County, California to support the County’s Vice Chair and its Animal Campus to house stray animals. He was from 1998-2000 a Director, Vice President, Chairman of the Executive Committee and General Counsel of PIM-G of Champaign, Illinois, a large media company located in central Illinois.

He has counseled many prominent individuals concerning personal matters, including Hollywood’s Zsa Zsa Gabor and Hedda Hopper, baseball’s Bill Veeck, football’s George Halas, the Tisch brothers, the Pritzker family, members of the Rockefeller family, the first Mayor Daley of the City of Chicago, Richard Ogilvie, Governor of the State of Illinois, and John Cardinal Cody and Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. He has represented such governmental bodies as the Illinois Congressional Delegation, the Illinois House and Senate and the Illinois Supreme Court.

He is a trustee of Northwestern University and in 2002, the Alumni Association of the University’s Law School recognized him with its Alumni Merit Award for his contribution to the profession and the School.

He regularly lectures and writes on legal subjects and humor in the law. He has testified as an expert witness on United States law before the Royal Civil Court in London.

His biography appears in Who’s in The World and Whose Who In America.

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