Secretary - J. Timothy Eaton is a partner at Shefsky & Froelich Ltd. He concentrates his practice in commercial litigation, appeals and arbitration. He is a past president of the Illinois State Bar Association and the Appellate Lawyers Association. He has served in the ABA House of Delegates and is currently president of the Lawyers Trust Fund, chair of the Illinois Coalition for Equal Justice, a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Bar Association and chair of the Programs Committee of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and is the author of over thirty articles on litigation, appellate law and arbitration. He is a co-author of the book entitled: Civil Appellate Practice: State and Federal (IICLE).

He is a member of the CBA Commercial Litigation Committee, ADR Committee and past chair of the CLE Committee. He was a co-vice chair of the CBA Task Force on the Green Courts Initiative. He is a frequent moderator and lecturer in CBA CLE programs.

Mary Beth Cyze is currently Assistant Corporation Counsel for the Village of Wilmette, where she serves as local prosecutor and represents the Village in a variety of municipal corporate matters. Prior to joining the Village of Wilmette in 2000, Ms. Cyze was Of Counsel to law firm of Gardner, Carton & Douglas. There she concentrated in commercial and environmental litigation. Her practice included trial, appellate, and regulatory work for a variety of corporate clients.

As a member of the Chicago Bar Association, she has served on both the Investigation and Hearing Divisions of the Judicial Evaluation Committee. Additionally, Ms. Cyze was a Director of the Young Lawyers Section of the CBA and Co-Chair of the Trial Techniques Committee. She previously served as Vice-Chair for the American Bar Association Special Committee on Environmental Litigation Techniques. She has been a member of the Chicago Inn of Court since 1990.

Ms. Cyze is substantially involved in charitable, civic and school activities within the community where her family resides. She has held numerous executive and general board PTO positions within Wilmette School District 39 and New Trier Township. She is currently on the Auxiliary Board for Lawrence Hall, a not-for-profit child welfare agency and therapeutic boarding school that assists abused and neglected children.

After obtaining her law degree from Loyola University of Chicago Law School in 1985, Ms. Cyze served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Mel R. Jiganti (ret.) of the Illinois Appellate Court. Ms. Cyze graduated summa cum laude from St. Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota with a B.A. in Public Administration.

Carrie J. Di Santo is Vice President and Global Chief Compliance Officer of Aon Corporation in Chicago, where she has global responsibility for Aon Corporation’s compliance and ethics program. Carrie previously was Legal & Regulatory Director (General Counsel) for Aon Ltd. in London, where she oversaw the legal and compliance functions for Aon's UK subsidiary, including regular interaction with the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA). Carrie joined Aon in 2007 as Assistant General Counsel with responsibility for international compliance issues, including anti-corruption and trade/OFAC compliance, and was appointed Global FCPA Compliance Director.

Prior to joining Aon in 2007, Carrie was a partner in the Chicago office of Baker & McKenzie LLP, where she advised publicly-held companies and other organizations on international compliance issues and internal investigations, including multi-million dollar investigations relating to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA"), non-U.S. anti-corruption laws, anti-money laundering, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Patriot Act and other issues involving allegations of corporate misconduct. She represented companies and individuals in criminal and regulatory investigations, as well as in related criminal and commercial litigation. Ms. Di Santo assisted numerous multinational companies in designing and implementing their compliance and ethics programs and implementing those programs throughout their international operations. She has also advised on compliance issues associated with cross-border mergers and acquisitions and private equity/venture capital investment activities.

Ms. Di Santo clerked for the Honorable William J. Bauer, former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. She is a graduate of Augustana College and has a JD from the University of Notre Dame. She is a frequent speaker on issues of international compliance, internal investigations, and compliance programs and has been a guest lecturer at the Northwestern University Law School and for the CBA.

Justice Margaret O'Mara Frossard  was born on Nov. 23,1951, in Chicago. She received her B.A. degree with honors in political science from Northwestern University in 1973 and her J.D. degree from IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1976, where she was a member of the Law Review and the National Moot Court Team. Judge Frossard was an Assistant State's Attorney in Cook County from 1976 to 1988, where she was Chief of the Felony Trial Division. Her judicial experience includes Associate Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County (1988-94), Circuit Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County (1994-97) and Judge of the Appellate Court, First District, since 1997. Judge Frossard is a member of the Illinois and American Judges' Associations, the Illinois State, Chicago, Women's and Northwestern Bar Associations, and is on the Board of Managers of the North Suburban Bar Association.

Scott W. Henry serves as the Chair of the CBA's Young Lawyers Section (YLS) for 2009-2010. The YLS, founded in 1970, is one of the largest urban young lawyer associations in the United States, with over 9,000 members. Led by an Executive Council of almost 100 young lawyers, the YLS provides service to members and to the community through approximately 30 standing committees and over 50 annual projects.

At Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney LLP, Scott has focused his career on litigating products liability, toxic tort, environmental and consumer class action cases. He has also assisted Fortune 500 companies in compliance with Chicago's complex municipal laws and ordinances. During his career, he has served as second-chair on numerous trials in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin and has litigated with the Multi-District Litigation Panel.

He currently serves as local counsel in Illinois and Wisconsin for several companies in asbestos litigation, and also works on many of the firm's national accounts. In these roles, he has developed experience in medical and scientific issues related to personal injury and consumer cases.

He is the co-author of "New Report on Risks of Bisphenol A (BPA) Spurs Lawsuit," Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney's Toxic Tort Newsletter, Volume 7, Issue 2 (Spring 2008) and "Asbestos Trust: Time for a Decision," Harris Martin"s COLUMNS-Asbestos, Volume 5, Number 9 (July 2005).

Scott is the current Chair of the Young Lawyers Section of the Chicago Bar Association and also serves the CBA on the Judicial Evaluation Committee Investigations Board. He devotes much of his free time as a member of the Junior Board of the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, as Vice President of Chicago Legal Clinic's Auxiliary Board and as a pro bono attorney for the National Immigrant Justice Center.

Scott earned his B.A. in English from Vanderbilt University in 1997 and his J.D. from Case Western Reserve School of Law in 2000.

Daniel M. Kotin  is a partner at Corboy & Demetrio and his practice involves representing individuals in personal injury and wrongful death litigation, including medical malpractice, product liability, and transportation cases. As a result of his vast experience, he has attained leadership positions on Steering Committees and has been appointed Lead Counsel on mass tort litigation arising from fires, train derailments, airplane accidents and other disasters.

Dan has achieved numerous multi-million dollar jury verdicts on behalf of clients. Several of these verdicts have been noteworthy for their amount and legal significance. Recently, he obtained a $29.6 million verdict on behalf of a woman who suffered brain injuries in the derailment of a Metra train. The verdict is the largest in Illinois for an individual injured in a mass transit crash. In 2008, he secured a $9.5 million verdict on behalf of the family of former Chicago Blackhawk hockey player and coach Keith Magnuson who was killed in a Toronto car crash. That verdict is the largest award for a personal injury or wrongful death case in the history of St. Louis County, Missouri. Several years earlier, he tried a medical negligence case which resulted in a $10 million verdict, one of the ten largest medical malpractice verdicts ever handed down in Cook County at that time. Another trial of note took place early in Dan's career when he obtained a jury verdict in a negligence case against a nursing home that resulted in a significant appellate interpretation of the Illinois Nursing Home Act. In 2008, Dan obtained a $17.5 million settlement on behalf of the family of a woman who was killed and three others who were injured in the high-rise fire in the Cook County Administration Building. The lawsuit settled on the day of jury selection.

Outside of the courtroom, Dan lectures at Loyola University School of Law where he serves as a coach of the School's National Mock Trial Team. He also sits on the Board of Governors for the law school and serves as a Co-Chair of its Circle of Advocates. He is on the faculty at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy where he teaches trial skills to lawyers in an annual program. He is very involved with the Chicago Bar Association (CBA), where he serves on the Board of Managers and the Association's Finance Committee. Over the years, he has chaired multiple committees of the CBA and served as the director of its Young Lawyers Section. Dan is also very involved in the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, where he is a member of the Board of Managers and was previously the Chairman of the Association's Seminar Planning Committee. Additionally, he is a member of the prestigious Society of Trial Lawyers where he previously served on the Board of Directors.

Dan regularly lectures at various bar association and interest group seminars and has published chapters and articles in legal books, periodicals and newspapers. To date, he has presented at more than fifty legal programs and has been published more than ten times.

In 2002, Dan was recognized and profiled by Chicago's Law Bulletin Publishing Company as one of "40 Illinois Attorneys Under 40 to Watch," and honored by the Lawdragon as one of "500 New Stars, New World," in 2006. He is currently profiled as one of the Top 5% of Civil Trial Lawyers in Illinois by the Leading Lawyers Network, has been designated an "Illinois Super Lawyer" and maintains an AV rating - the highest possible rating for any attorney - from the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory.

Barry Kozak  is the Associate Director of the graduate Employee Benefits programs at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, and teaches various JD, LLM and MS level classes in employee benefits, income tax, elder law, compensation law, workplace privacy and sexual orientation law as an adjunct member of the faculty. Barry is also an adjunct professor at DePaul University College of Law and teaches Employee Benefits Law.

Barry began his career in 1987 as a pension plan consultant and worked for various actuarial consulting firms, became an Enrolled Actuary in 1994, and then earned his ChFC and Series 7 professional designations. He refocused his career by attending law school and earning his JD and LLM in Employee Benefits degrees from The John Marshall Law School in Chicago in 2000. Upon graduation, Barry immediately started teaching as an adjunct professor at John Marshall, earned additional professional designations, held several legal positions in law firms and actuarial firms, and wrote the initial round of PFC-2 exam questions for investment professionals seeking the Qualified Pension Financial Consultant designation through ASPPA. Barry became the full time Associate Director of the graduate Employee Benefits programs in 2006, and earned a Master's degree from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Studies in 2009.

Barry has held leadership positions in the Chicago Bar Association, the American Bar Association Tax Section, the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries, and the Great Lakes TE/GE Advisory Council. He has authored a textbook on Employee Benefit Plans for Carolina Academic Press (forthcoming) and a BNA Tax Management Portfolio on employee benefit plans and issues for small employers (forthcoming), has been asked to be co-editor and a lead contributing author of the CPA's Guide to Retirement Plans for Small Businesses (forthcoming Third Edition), as well as numerous academic articles and chapters of collaborative employee benefits-related reference books. Barry's current academic research focuses on retirement policy in an aging population, funding and investment issues with public sector pension plans, availability of employee benefits to same-sex spouses, civil union spouses, and same-sex domestic partners, using a target benefit approach to adequately fund individual account plans, and the role of government in curbing excessive executive compensation practices.

William B. Oberts is a director at Tribler, Orpett & Meyer, P.C. He specializes in governmental municipal defense in torts and civil rights litigation, legal malpractice, and construction litigation. He was recently recognized by Super Lawyer magazine as a 2009 Illinois Rising Star. Bill is a member of the Chicago Bar Association's Board of Managers and Chicago Bar Foundation's Board of Directors. He is a past Chair of the Young Lawyers Section of the Chicago Bar Association. He has served on both the Investigations and Hearings Committee of the Chicago Bar Association's Judicial Evaluations Committee. He was recently appointed to serve on an auxiliary committee for the Illinois Judges Foundation. Bill also serves as a committee member on the CBA Blue Ribbon Committee on Cook County's Juvenile Detention Center and Co-Chair of the CBA Special Committee to review JEC guidelines and procedures. Bill has held various positions with the American Bar Association's Young Lawyers Division, including Vice-Chair of the National Conference Committee, District Representative, and District FEMA Coordinator for Illinois and Indiana.

Bill compiled the Civil Rights Update 2004 – 2005, highlighting significant Supreme Court and Seventh Circuit decisions under Section 1983 and various civil rights acts for the Illinois Municipal Risk League Association. He co-authored Timing is Everything, CBA Record, July 1997, re-published in ABA Government Law Committee, Winter 2008, an article addressing the statute of limitations in false arrest and malicious prosecution claims. He also authored articles regarding civility including: Can't We All Just Get Along?, CBA Record, January 2008, and Reputation: Hard to Build and Easy to Lose, Chicago Lawyer, March 2008.

Bill has appeared as a panelist at the CBA Basic Skills Course's Civility in the Profession program in 2007 and 2008. He is also a co-moderator of a bi-monthly webcast series entitled You're a Young Lawyer produced by Thompson Reuters and West Legalworks which addresses various issues facing young lawyers such as bias within the workplace and professionalism. He received his B.A. from the University of Illinois and his J.D. from Michigan State University College of Law.

Timothy Ray is a member of Neal Gerber Eisenberg's Litigation Practice Group, where he concentrates in complex commercial litigation, providing counsel to a variety of corporations in the areas of product liability, class actions, antitrust, breach of contract, fraud and internal investigations. Timothy acts as lead counsel and trial lawyer for a Fortune 500 company in consumer litigation. He also has provided counsel to local hospitals on complex contracting issues and has represented physicians in negotiations and disputes involving formation of satellite clinics.

Recently, Tim conducted a highly confidential internal investigation for a client concerning a $50 million dollar proprietary software licensing dispute. The dispute arose over who had superior ownership rights in certain technology, the customer or software company. The investigation involved possible fraud allegations, misappropriation of intellectual property, royalty disputes and breach of contract.

Tim is AV® Peer Review Rated (the highest possible rating) via the Martindale Hubbell Peer Review Ratings.

A member of the Federal Trial Bar, Tim is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He is an experienced trial attorney who has tried more than 30 jury trials in federal and state court defending corporations in product liability cases, contract disputes, fraud, class actions, UCC disputes, franchise disputes and food borne illness disputes. He also litigated antitrust and unfair business practices, and other complex business matters in federal and state court. Another aspect of Timothy's practice involves defending clients in AAA arbitration and other forms of alternative dispute resolution.

Tim obtained his J.D. in 1994 from the University of Iowa College of Law, where he was a member of the Iowa Law Review and the Iowa Moot Court Board. In 1991, he earned his B.A. from Xavier University of New Orleans. He is admitted to the Illinois bar.

Tim is a member of Neal Gerber Eisenberg's Hiring and Diversity Committees and serves as the co-chair of the firm's Minority Initiative.

Jesse H. Ruiz is a partner in Drinker Biddle & Reath's corporate and securities group. He concentrates his practice in mergers and acquisitions and the representation of public and middle market companies.

He is also legal counsel to the 14 Illinois senators and representatives who formed the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus and the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation. In 2003, he received the Foundation's Outstanding Leadership Award for providing legal counsel to both the Foundation and the Caucus, and assisting in the formation of both organizations. In September 2004, Jesse was appointed Chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education by the Governor and was reappointed in 2007. He will serve until 2011. In August 2005, he was appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on Diversity in the Profession by the President of the American Bar Association. He is also Past Chairman of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms, and is on the Board of Directors of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the leading Latino litigation, advocacy and educational outreach institution in the U.S.

He is past president of the Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois and Past Chairman of the Hispanic Lawyers Scholarship Fund of Illinois. He has taught corporate law as an Adjunct Professor of Corporate Law at John Marshall Law School. He also currently serves on several other civic and charitable boards and committees.

In March 2007, El Valor, one of the country's leading nonprofits serving the Hispanic Community, awarded Jesse their Education Excellence Award for his work to open doors for educational opportunities for everyone. In September 2005, he was selected by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White to receive his Education Award, honoring his commitment to promoting leadership in the Hispanic community and the City of Chicago and as an individual who contributes to improving the quality of life of all Latinos in Illinois. He also received the Chicago Bar Association's 2005 Vanguard Award as a Chicago-area lawyer who has "made the law and legal profession more accessible to and reflective of the community at-large."

Jesse was named an "Illinois Super Lawyer" in the area of Mergers & Acquisitions. He was also named to the Illinois Leading Lawyers Network. In 2003, Jesse was named to Crain's Chicago Business list of "40 Under 40 Rising Stars in Chicago Business." That same year, Chicago Lawyer magazine named him one of the "40 Attorneys Under 40 in Illinois to Watch" and was selected by Chicago United to be featured in its first "Business Leaders of Color" publication, featured in the October 13, 2003 issue of Crain's Chicago Business.

Jesse received his J.D. degree from The University of Chicago Law School, where he served as an editor of the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable, and his B.A. degree in economics and business administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.